Reliability and availability of internet on TransAtlantic

[CourtneyLovesCruising]

Being that my workload and work location is so flexible, I am seriously considering an 18 day Trans Atlantic next year. I can completely take off 3+ weeks without any issue but I'm trying to figure out if I could accomplish work on some projects while away. Having the ability to pop my email a few hours a week would allow me to complete quite a bit offline. In a perfect world, I would like 20-30 minutes a day and the ability to schedule a 45 minute conference call back to the states each week. Does anybody have any insight with TA cruising, Carnival Destiny or working from a foreign ship back to the US.

 

Goodness, if it is feasible enough, my husband may just have to become a jazz musician on-board and we'll rent out our house back in California to live on the ship :D

 

The itinerary in particular that I am looking at:

http://www.carnival.com/core/cruisedetails.aspx?embkCode=MIA&itinCode=TA0&durDays=18&shipCode=DE&subRegionCode=ET&numGuests=2&showDbl=False&isOver55=N&isPastGuest=Y&stateCode=CA&isMilitary=N&sailDate=2/4/2013&sailingID=61597&sailingSearchParams=dat:,dest:ET,dur:,embkCode:,pageNumber:1,pageSize:5,PastGuest:Y,Senior:,shipCode:,sort:FromPrice,StateCode:CA,numGuests:2,offersOnly:false,tgo:,Military:,length:4,

[firefly333]

I heard they are trying some faster internet on some other ship, but generally its like old dial up.

 

It took me 15 to 20 minutes to sign into my yahoo email and to type the email and send it. Very slow.

 

Bandwidth is probably better in the dead of night and speed when fewer people are online.. but I dont know if you could even do a conference call online during business hours. Some have been able to skype and some could not during the day. Not enough bandwidth.

 

I would say dont count on it .. never mind prices start at 75 cents a minute.

 

You do realize that buying that much time would cost hundreds of dollars right?? And takes a lot longer to get anything done with that satalitte (sp) connection.

[Disconnections]

We used over 5,000 minutes on the Magic TransAtlantic and was able to use it every day. It occasionally lost signal two days in the middle of the crossing during peak hours.

 

They had a 1,000 minute plan for $300 which may or may not be on future sailings.

[CourtneyLovesCruising]

We used over 5,000 minutes on the Magic TransAtlantic and was able to use it every day. It occasionally lost signal two days in the middle of the crossing during peak hours.

 

They had a 1,000 minute plan for $300 which may or may not be on future sailings.

 

Good to know info, thanks so much!