Internet rip off

[johncandt]

Having just returned from a really good Caribbean cruise on Azura i feel i must comment about the ridiculous charge for Internet access...In this day and age even charging for internet is a joke as almost all bars and cafes have free WiFi,how P and O can possibly justify the tariff they use is beyond me ..Not only was it too dear it was so slow that by the time you had sent one email you had used 10 mins.When i went to complain i was told "oh it is very slow" my reply was "yes it is because it is not working at all" They disputed that but on several days it was impossible to connect .Now i do understand the difficulties of internet connection but if you are selling an overpriced service at least make sure it works ....If i cruise again with P and O (despite the god awful coffee and the silly wine package rules ) i will wait until i go ashore to use internet,sorry P and O zero for effort..John Craven

[Certa_Cito]

Well said John. If it was cheap or free you could live with it being slow, however, they are selling it at a ridiculous price so it must work well....... But it doesn't.

Barry

[daiB]

Having just returned from a really good Caribbean cruise on Azura i feel i must comment about the ridiculous charge for Internet access...In this day and age even charging for internet is a joke as almost all bars and cafes have free WiFi,how P and O can possibly justify the tariff they use is beyond me ..Not only was it too dear it was so slow that by the time you had sent one email you had used 10 mins.When i went to complain i was told "oh it is very slow" my reply was "yes it is because it is not working at all" They disputed that but on several days it was impossible to connect .Now i do understand the difficulties of internet connection but if you are selling an overpriced service at least make sure it works ....If i cruise again with P and O (despite the god awful coffee and the silly wine package rules ) i will wait until i go ashore to use internet,sorry P and O zero for effort..John Craven

 

 

All cruise lines have the same problem. Not a P&O singular problem. If they made it free or cheaper it would stop. Only the high price keeps it working.

 

 

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[the english lady]

Having just returned from a really good Caribbean cruise on Azura i feel i must comment about the ridiculous charge for Internet access...In this day and age even charging for internet is a joke as almost all bars and cafes have free WiFi,how P and O can possibly justify the tariff they use is beyond me ..Not only was it too dear it was so slow that by the time you had sent one email you had used 10 mins.When i went to complain i was told "oh it is very slow" my reply was "yes it is because it is not working at all" They disputed that but on several days it was impossible to connect .Now i do understand the difficulties of internet connection but if you are selling an overpriced service at least make sure it works ....If i cruise again with P and O (despite the god awful coffee and the silly wine package rules ) i will wait until i go ashore to use internet,sorry P and O zero for effort..John Craven

And if you thought a bit more before posting you would realise that when at sea it goes via satellite. Unlike bars and cafes who can supply free wifi via landlines etc.

The cost is partly due to it being via satellite.

Or even better cruise a lot on American cruise lines ,that when you have built up enough points on their loyalty programme give you some free internet time.

Or a 6* cruise line, where its included, but then the price of a cruise is 3-4 times what it is with P and O.

Do you use you mobile phone while at sea (would also be via satellite) and if you do, have you said how your mobile providers charges are a scam as well.

[pete14]

I completely agree that internet charges are high but do recognise that if they were not so high, more people would use the internet on board and the system couldn't cope. O2 have started a scheme to opt into that gives a certain amount of data for £1:99 (about 6 minutes on P&O). You don't get a huge amount of time (but much more than 6 minutes and less frustrating) but it is good for checking emails and looking at a few websites. They let you know when you are reaching your limit in case you want another £1:99's worth. It can only be used in port when a land based mobile signal is available but it is certainly a better deal than P&O and much quicker. I guess other providers have similar schemes so it is worth investigating.

[Host Hattie]

From what I've seen P&O prices are similar to other ship prices. You do get some free WiFi on Cunard after a couple of trips. On our Med trip we've only got 1 sea day at a time so we'll probably stick with the free WiFi in ports.

[kevinyork]

P&Os internet is less expensive than RCI and Caribbean.

 

No cruise ship has a long phone line to the shore to allow internet access and has to use satellites. We were told that on a two week cruise, satellite wifi costs the ship the price of a sports car. I think we need to be grateful for whats on offer.

 

 

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[Thejuggler]

Charging should be based on the amount of data sent/received and not on time, that's how mobile data plans work. The only time we have used ship internet is to check the price of a piece of jewellery on board.

 

The saving more than paid for the couple of quid the internet access cost.

[jeanlyon]

i just use my tablet ashore - seems to be available in every terminal almost. Can't be bothered with it on board.

[durhamgirl]

55minutes for £10 with Fred Olsen. I think they are the cheapest! Mainly worked well on Balmoral last month.

[burnoutbabe]

Agreed, I just waited until I got 3g access on my mobile and then surfed from that (which was £3 per day in Europe for 30mb which was more than enough for emailing and checking facebook and quick googles of things).

 

Most terminals had a free wifi place somewhere near.

[tom_uk]

I'll come in with a different viewpoint.

 

I always buy an internet package - usually the biggest available. Having connectivity available is important to me. I mainly use it for blog postings; reading the BBC website; and checking email. I don't use to for Facebook! I'd rather do this via a shipboard connection because I want to spend time ashore seeing the sites. In general I've found the connection speeds OK, and getting faster over the years. There again, I'm not using especially content-heavy sites - even the main pages on the BBC news site load pretty quickly - it's mainly text and style sheets. Overall, I'm happy with what I get for the money - I understand that it's going to be more expensive on board.

 

Of course, that's me, and I do understand that other people have different views.

Edited March 28, 2014 by tom_uk

[loobs40]

My work life and home life to some extent are ruled by internet connections, access to email etc.

 

The prohibitive cost of WiFi on cruises means I don't connect and I can have a truly relaxing holiday not worrying about work emails.

 

We all know that even if we just say we are just gong to check work emails, we end up responding to them and worrying about them!

[tom_uk]

......

 

We all know that even if we just say we are just gong to check work emails, we end up responding to them and worrying about them!

 

Agreed. Although I do use onboard internet a lot, it's all for personal use - I don't go near work stuff at all. Quite separate account which I don't access.

[rubydoobydoo]

We have no choice buy a package as hubby has to have it for work, he runs his own business and can never get away from it all totally, from what I remember we had less problems with the access on P and O than we did with Celebrity, that was really slow

 

My problem is using my mobile, we leave our daughter at home with the pets and we must text each other at least 20 times a day :eek:

 

I think it came to well over £100 when we were in the Caribbean, how did we ever manage before the internet and mobile phones :D

[oldfella73]

Sound's horrific but; as this topic has shown we all make our own individual choices, "one man's meat another man's poison" me, I do buy a package, for family blog, emails etc plus searching for local tours when P & O cancel at short notice.

[tartanexile81]

I've got it down to a fine art, one the whole. I mainly need a connection to check emails and communicate with pet-sitters, so I just choose Pay-as-you-go and log on for a very short time to download. I then compose replies off-line and these are sent automatically the next time I log on. I use wifi ashore to do anything more in-depth. I don't waste time when I could be sight-seeing as someone else mentioned but I always ask for the password when we stop for a drink and it was available everywhere we went on our recent cruise.

 

The connection was erratic in our aft cabin on this cruise on Oceana. However, I needed to send an email with an attachment late one night. As usual I attached and composed off-line then had numerous attempts to log on, but the connection 'froze' part way through the process. I had to shut down without logging off officially and was shocked when I was billed for £9.50 as the connection had been made when I was asleep. After a certain length of time it went into idling mode or it could have been even worse. I appealed to the Internet manager but he was not interested, and was very, very offhand with me :( I didn't mind the rest of my bill (even though I agree it is over-priced) but I did object to this which was due to the poor connection available in our cabin.

Edited March 31, 2014 by tartanexile81