How good is the phone and internet service on the Marina?

[Westchester_Gal]

Hi, we will be starting the Northern Europe cruise next week. We will have international cell phone service on our mobile phones. Is it easy to make phone calls from the ship to the US? Is the internet service reliable? Lastly, does it pay to buy one of the package plans?

[pacheco18]

Hi, we will be starting the Northern Europe cruise next week. We will have international cell phone service on our mobile phones. Is it easy to make phone calls from the ship to the US? Is the internet service reliable? Lastly, does it pay to buy one of the package plans?

 

Welcome to Cruise Critic. I see this is your first post.

 

You can make calls from the ship but service will have gaps and the cost (which your cell phone carrier will advise) is high. You are better off checking the rates when you are docked in the various countries to see if it is cheaper to call from land. It usually is.

 

 

I have never had an issue with internet on the O ships. We buy an unlimited package. We don't want to count minutes and we like to stay in touch by email, sometimes browse for information about a port or just be free to be online when we want. I just count it as part of the cost of cruising.

 

If you are only going to want to send or receive a handful of emails you do not need an unlimited internet package. You can download your emails, go off line, read and respond and then go on line and send responses. Lots of people do this. You can get a limited package or even pay by the minute.

 

If you have a business and the internet is critical for you, perhaps the unlimited package will suit you.

 

Also keep in mind that there are many places in most ports with free wifi. Find a McDonald's or a Starbuck's and it's free.

[rallydave]

Hi, we will be starting the Northern Europe cruise next week. We will have international cell phone service on our mobile phones. Is it easy to make phone calls from the ship to the US? Is the internet service reliable? Lastly, does it pay to buy one of the package plans?

 

As far as internet service being reliable, the further you go from the equator, the worse the reliability will be. To add to problems while the ship is at sea, assuming you will be in the Norwegian Fjords, those can and often do block the signal.

 

Traveling north or south, the ships funnel often blocks the signal. Hopefully you will have good luck but, don't be surprised if suddenly your phone or internet connection will suddenly disconnect. If you need reliable internet of phone service, on shore thru your phone or internet cafes, McDonalds, Starbuck, etc. are your best choice. You may get lucky and have reliable service and you may not. Nobody can predict.

 

Good luck,

[Westchester_Gal]

Thanks for the heads-up. I did arrange for international dialing on my cell phone plan, so I'll do my best to make calls on land and use wi-fi wherever possible.

[Paulchili]

Thanks for the heads-up. I did arrange for international dialing on my cell phone plan, so I'll do my best to make calls on land and use wi-fi wherever possible.

 

I think this is safest. If you are calling from the ship at sea (i.e. not in port) it would be through the ship's communication system (like ship to shore) and very expensive. At least this is my understanding.

[msn123]

If you have a smartphone and a carrier that has a data package, you may want to consider that for when you are on the ship in international waters or countries on the plan. If all you are doing is checking emails and responding to a few you won't go over the limit and it is billed through the carrier so you don't need to buy anything on board.

 

Make sure you turn off data programs that run in the background and be aware that if a country you are visiting is not a part of the plan and you have the data on, the charges will rack up quickly.

 

If you do more than that or bring a device that you want to access the internet, buy an unlimited package. The connections can be slow and it is not part of a relaxing vacation to be stressed over how many minutes you are using!

[Travelcat2]

Internet on any ship can be painfully slow at times. It depends upon what part of the world you are in. Please be cautious with your phone. Just leaving it on could result in a very large bill as it would be receiving calls. You may have an international plan with your carrier but, as has been mentioned, if you call or email from the ship, you are using their equipment to transmit.

 

I am a bit confused by what msn123 posted. If you use Wi-Fi for any purpose -- including checking your emails, you must purchase minutes from Oceania to do that. The least expensive way to communicate on board is suppose to be texting but I am not familiar with that. When we cruise, our cell phone remains off and we use the internet to communicate. We would only use a telephone in the case of an emergency.

[JimandStan]

I am a bit confused by what msn123 posted. If you use Wi-Fi for any purpose -- including checking your emails, you must purchase minutes from Oceania to do that. The least expensive way to communicate on board is suppose to be texting but I am not familiar with that

 

The Term "Wifi" is commonly used to describe the Wireless Internet Service which Oceania sells, but it is also a form of data transmission via radio &/or telephone waves, i.e. Wireless Fidelity.

 

When accessing the Internet via a device which utilizes Wireless Fidelity, a Blackberry is probably one of the the best known examples, then one could theoretically bypass the Oceania system altogether.

 

The rub is that all this only works "for free" as long as the ship remains within range of shore based signal towers. Out at sea, the device sends and receives via a telephone signal, so you're paying cell phone rates, and that can get very expensive very quickly.

[Travelcat2]

The Term "Wifi" is commonly used to describe the Wireless Internet Service which Oceania sells, but it is also a form of data transmission via radio &/or telephone waves, i.e. Wireless Fidelity.

 

When accessing the Internet via a device which utilizes Wireless Fidelity, a Blackberry is probably one of the the best known examples, then one could theoretically bypass the Oceania system altogether.

 

The rub is that all this only works "for free" as long as the ship remains within range of shore based signal towers. Out at sea, the device sends and receives via a telephone signal, so you're paying cell phone rates, and that can get very expensive very quickly.

 

Thank you for the explanation:-)

[brian_uk]

We were on Marina a few weeks ago, Lima to New York. I took the full wifi package and used both Skype and Facetime to call the UK while both docked and at sea. Occasional glitches but acceptable.

I also used it for many other things including emails and research.

 

Brian

[corpkid]

I was able to use skype VOICE (not video) on Marina pretty much all the time in the Baltics. We bought the unlimited internet. I did find the quality dipped in the evening (people getting back on board, uploading photos, etc presumably). After dinner, I was able to make calls via skype without issue. I tried skype video chat and it was pretty bad... I REALLY wanted to show off that ship I was on, but alas, no doing for me.... DO NOT make cell phone calls via the ship's service! Super expen$ive.

[Route6A]

I bought the unlimited Internet package on Marina, and was able to text through the Internet on my iPhone to other iPhones. Sometimes, I was unable to initiate the texting, but I simply e-mailed the party with whom I wished to communicate, saying, "Text me" to start the sequence. It worked flawlessly. The Internet connection worked well and was faster than on other cruise lines. I tried to refrain from using the Internet at peak times, when traffic was higher, and that minimized cut offs. I was quite pleased with the Internet service on the ship.

[pinotlover]

For the internet, not the phone, it is my understanding that all service on O ships is provided by direct ship uplink to satellite. Ground towers have nothing to do with internet service while on board. This can be different than when in port.

 

I have posted this in other threads, but internet service varies depending upon time of day and location on ship. Learn to avoid peak times: 7-9 a.m.; 4-6 p.m.; and most of all sea days. Sea days can be especially painful, in that people seem intent on uploading and sending hundreds of photos back home, or to the cloud, on sea days. Why this is important to them, to do at that time befuddles me, but it can bring the service speed to a crawl.

 

Remember, all customers are sharing that service and trunk with the ship and it's need to relay a lot of data to multiple destinations. My guess is that when the ship transmits a lot of data, it gets first priority with its servers!

[Tutuma]

Hi, we will be starting the Northern Europe cruise next week. We will have international cell phone service on our mobile phones. Is it easy to make phone calls from the ship to the US? Is the internet service reliable? Lastly, does it pay to buy one of the package plans?

Just returned from Marina: Papeete to NYC. Bought an internet package. I found the speed very adequate. BIG BONUS: Daniel who ran Oceania@Sea was unbelievably helpful when I was the source of several "operator errors"!!!

[harryw]

I just returned from the Marina in Europe, and I had difficulty downloading the digital New York Times using the Press Reader app. Half of the issues would not download successfully to my iPad.

[zoncom]

On Celebrity Sillhoutte last June, Black Sea. No internet reception for 9 days as I recall. Nothing you could do about it.