Smart Devices & The Internet Make It Easier To Take A World Cruise

I've also had a credit card compromised - five times in the past year! For this reason I have obtained a new credit card that will not be used anywhere until I depart on my upcoming 89 day cruise. I'll take other cards with me, but I wanted a pristine card to help guarantee that I won't have troubles abroad.

I always have my laptop too, for blogging, email, camera backup, and online bill pay through a VPN. I wouldn't use a ship's terminal either.

But Heidi13, if you have network discovery turned off, does your laptop still see the ship's Internet connection?

Has anyone used the new HAL unlimited Internet package? I'm wondering if my regular cloud backup can run on it, or if there's not enough bandwidth.

 

But Heidi13, if you have network discovery turned off, does your laptop still see the ship's Internet connection?

 

I have network discovery turned off for every connection, except at home. When off, it does not restrict your ability to see available wi-fi signals, but does not permit others on a network to see my laptop.

Got it, thanks!

For those who sometime look at the end of a thread I wanted to repeat items that I listed when I kicked off this thread.

I am finding that there is so much we can do in terms of monitoring areas of our home inside and outside with smart devices. On top of this I do think it is important to have someone walk your house from time to time and also take care of some items.

For example, once every four weeks you should run water down your sink so that the trap does not dry out. Also when this is done if you have a one handle faucet have them turn it side to side. While not key every 30 days I find it is just easier for them to remember doing it this way. Also flushing toilets once a month is a good idea.

This is what I posted to kick off the thread.

Keith

One of the challenges with being away from home for a World Cruise is being able to monitor financial records, bills, etc. and your place of residence. With each passing year this gets easier.

I do advise having someone such as a neighbor or relative check your place of residence from time to time while you are away there are many additional things you can do to monitor the residence and to feel more secure.

-Smart Lights. In lieu of traditional timers you can install smart lights which you can control with a smart phone

app. One of the benefits is the ability to adjust the start and end time for each light based on daylight savings and standard times.

-Indoor and outdoor security cameras. Both of these devices give you additional visibility of your residence. They allow you to see inside your residence and also to know if anyone out of the ordinary has come onto your property.

-Smart doorbells. Many of these allow you to actually speak with someone remotely who comes to your door, provide a record of anyone coming to your door, being away of unexpected package deliveries and a deterrent to someone who sees this device.

-Smart Irrigation Controllers. You can purchase an irrigation control box with wi fi capability allowing you to change the schedule for your sprinkler at any given time. Often World Cruises begin in the winter and end n the spring and this would allow you to increase or decrease sprinkler times accordingly.

-Smart Thermostat. You will have visibility to your AC/Heating and you can make adjustments based on the time of year to potentially prevent frozen pipes if there is abnormally cold weather or odor should the weather be abnormally hot.

There are certainly other smart devices to give you more control of your household and more peace of mind but I thought this was a good start for those who want to consider adding one or more of these devises to your residence. An example included smart smoke and or carbon monoxide detectors.

In terms of finances, bills etc. with a lot of planning one should be able to automate most if not all of their bills so that they are paid by a credit card or their checking accounts and also have the ability to monitor all of this. There might be an exception from time to time but the majority of these bills should be able to be automated and you can eliminate hard copy bills if you so choose. The benefit of the latter is coming home to far less mail.

I do recommend checking your credit cards and other financial accounts regularly to catch something out of the norm such as a credit card being compromised sooner rather than later.

Keith

Thanks for posting this Keith -- I keep learning what smart devices can do, and have cancelled my security service for this reason. I am most concerned about fire and pipes freezing than I am about break-ins in our neighborhood. The thermostats are pretty nice, as I can monitor them from overseas, and my daughter who lives much closer can get alerts. Now -- to install one of those cameras and smoke alarms!

I still find mail the most challenging -- though I rarely get important bills in the mail anymore. I have signed up for

a service to reduce junk mail about 9 months ago -- but it doesn't eliminate it. I still get junk mail in the names of my children, who haven't lived at home for 15 + years. I still have more to do -- trying to make it easier for someone to pick up the mail regularly. Other than having someone pick it up -- any suggestions? I found forwarding to my daughter who lives near, but not in the same town, to not work out well.

HI Barbara,

You are very welcome.

In our case we forward our mail to one of our children. The good news with that is the junk mail doesn't get forwarded. When we arrive home the bulk of the mail is any holiday cards that we hadn't gotten and mainly tax related items. As you note there are some challenges with forwarding the mail. For us it is that we have to start the process a few weeks before we leave to make sure it works as the mail seems to go into a black hole for a week. Then when it ends it takes awhile for the mail to get to us that hasn't been forwarded.

One year when we didn't forward and did what you are planning to do we did the same and cancelled all of those catalogs that seem to multiply. We also get some mail for our children who never lived in this house and I never can figure out why.

I haven't installed the smoke detectors but you could have a company install them. I have cameras inside and outside the house and was thinking of putting one near the water heater.

Keith

Ah, the joys of living in a condo! Not much to worry about at all. We'd probably get our son to come in once a month and flush the toilets and run the taps perhaps (no doubt he'll be over to do his laundry anyways, lol.) Thermostats can just be set to reasonably low number for the winter. Car is the only big problem, as discussed can be worked out.

If we do this cruise 2 years, 4 months from now, I'm sure the landscape of electronic gizmos and online protection will have changed--I'll worry about it then. But all this info is great.

I've been reading the Viking 2018 WC thread, and lots of stuff about how you should have ALL your bills on auto-pay to a credit card because it's hard to get on the internet. On the Regent cruise we're thinking about, we would have unlimited included internet, and I'm presuming the ship's internet is fairly secure. But I'm also used to the fact that connectivity can be very spotty and slow at times.

I would have no problem doing my banking online with my laptop, as I do at home, but I don't really want to change all my bills to autopay, I'd rather manage them myself. And there are some that can't be paid with a credit card. Plus you'd still have to get online at least once a month securely to pay off your credit card!

I like being able to look at my balance and arrange to move money around when I need to. Right now I pay 95% of my bills online, some on autopay, some on a credit card, mostly not, mostly scheduled by me, in advance.

Any thoughts on internet banking on a World Cruise?

We do autopay and to me that is perfect.

But you have options.

Some of the bills are paid via autopay to the credit card and then the credit card is paid by the checking account.

Other bills are paid via auto directly by the checking account

Benefits are that you don't have to worry about this and the date is selected up front.

And if the internet goes down or something else happens it's all set.

I've been doing this since our first world cruise in 2007 and have been on 7 other world cruises.

It works beautifully.

I really don't understand why you would want to do any of this manually but either way we are very happy to have all of this in place.

Keith

We do autopay and to me that is perfect.

 

 

But you have options.

 

...

 

I really don't understand why you would want to do any of this manually but either way we are very happy to have all of this in place.

 

Keith

Because, Keith, we don't have everything in one place, husband pays some bills, I pay others, and we have bank accounts in two countries so there's lots of moving money around. In general everything goes smoothly, but I don't like rude surprises like overdrafts. I suppose we can simplify this over the next couple of years, but I still like control.

Because, Keith, we don't have everything in one place, husband pays some bills, I pay others, and we have bank accounts in two countries so there's lots of moving money around. In general everything goes smoothly, but I don't like rude surprises like overdrafts. I suppose we can simplify this over the next couple of years, but I still like control.

I have lots of control. It is just automated.

Like most things it is a personal decision.

All I know is on a cruise I do not want to be at the mercy of an internet network that if it goes down for an extended amount of time I might be delinquent on paying my bills.

Keith

I have mentioned this before on similar threads … we simply prepay most of our bills. There's never been a problem doing this. We are able to estimate amounts very accurately for those bills that vary from month to month.

We have a few new accounts for which we have set up automatic payments, the first time we have done this. We'll see how it goes and perhaps set up a few more in the next few months. But - we'll probably continue our practice of prepayment for utilities & such.

I have mentioned this before on similar threads … we simply prepay most of our bills. .

Do you mean that, for instance, if you will be away for 3 months, you make one payment to a utility in advance to cover your estimated total for 3 months ?

I have mentioned this before on similar threads … we simply prepay most of our bills. There's never been a problem doing this. We are able to estimate amounts very accurately for those bills that vary from month to month.

 

 

We have a few new accounts for which we have set up automatic payments, the first time we have done this. We'll see how it goes and perhaps set up a few more in the next few months. But - we'll probably continue our practice of prepayment for utilities & such.

The only issue on pre-payment for those who consider it is know how the rules work. I used to pre-pay before auto payment was widely available bills when we would be away for a period of 30 to 60 days. It worked. But then I learned that some companies will return the overage after a certain amount of months. On some World Cruises we have been away for four months plus if we made the payment on the last bill it was due in a few of the cases (some credit cards come to mind) they overage would be sent back to us after a few months. So that is when we decided to go auto payment.

Anyway like most things we all have a different approach.

In my case I am happy to go with auto payment at home and on vacation so I no longer have to worry about any of this. I know it will be paid on the required due date, I don't have to guess, I don't have to worry about whether or not my check got there if I am doing it by mail or having internet access on the day I would do it on line and so forth plus I don't have to pay all that money up front. In a couple of cases we have take not only a world cruise but added in some cruises before and after it so it can be 5 months traveling plus another month to pay ahead of time.

Keith

Do people that take world cruise wait for there children to have grown up for example retirement

We have the utilities automatically paid by the check book

Sent from my SM-G930T using Forums mobile app

Do people that take world cruise wait for there children to have grown up for example retirement

The vast majority of the people taking a full world cruise are retired and likely if they have children they are on their own at that point.

I retired on the earlier side so on our first two World Crises our son was still in college while our daughter was already married.

On each World Cruise we have sailed we have usually seen one family with one or two children on the sailing. Often the parents have their own business.

Keith