Internet on the Grand Princess

[Schonert]

58 minutes ago, xCity said:

 

Thanks for the info.  I just checked princess.com, and it looks like they pushed up the install/activation of MedallionNet to 12/3/2019.  Hopefully that will solve the connectivity issues.

We were on a Medallion cruise last Nov just after it rolled out on I think the Caribbean Princess.  There were still LOTS of problems, especially for those with MINS, they kept loosing them.  Expect there will be growing pains when they first bring it online on the ship.  Hopefully they have learnt from all the ships they have done so far.  

[Haboob]

On 11/17/2019 at 4:54 PM, Cruise Raider said:

 

We were onboard last month ... the internet is still awful.  Most times, I just couldn't even log on and by the looks of the numerous people complaining about it at the front desk, they couldn't either.  There are many other things to love about the Grand, namely the staff, the internet is not one of them.  

We were on board from Oct 20 - 27.  Internet was fine.  Did not attempt to stream, but had several multi-megabyte downloads that completed promptly and without problems.  But that cruise only went as far north as Vancouver.

 

Remember:  satellite uplinks are significantly more expensive north of Seattle/Vancouver, so ships cannot buy nearly as much bandwidth with what we pay for internet packages.

[Dublin_Ca]

I’m aboard the Grand right now.  Purchased the package that lets you stream.  Sometimes while streaming it works great and then just suddenly stops working.  This while not changing my location..  It’s a weird system.  Doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the “outages”.  And before we get the “why would you stream video on a cruise” questions / comments, my job has me working long hours each day.  It’s nice to sit down after a relaxing day and watch things I am unable to at home.  

[Haboob]

9 hours ago, Dublin_Ca said:

I’m aboard the Grand right now.  Purchased the package that lets you stream.  Sometimes while streaming it works great and then just suddenly stops working.  This while not changing my location..  It’s a weird system.  Doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the “outages”.  And before we get the “why would you stream video on a cruise” questions / comments, my job has me working long hours each day.  It’s nice to sit down after a relaxing day and watch things I am unable to at home.  

The answer for that is simple:  The ship buys "x" bits-per-second uplink to a satellite.  If you are the only person logged in on the ship (yeah, but bear with me), it's all yours.  If a second person logs in, you now share.  Etc.

 

At 4am, you ought to have good bandwidth available.  At 9am, you may not.  If something suddenly makes a bunch of folks want to look something up on Google, you may not.  If an extended-family group onboard finds out that a video of a newborn has been posted, you may not.  If the satellite company swaps out ground stations, you may not.  Etc.

 

Onboard Grand last month, there was plenty of bandwidth available all day long, but I doubt there would have been if we'd gone further north, say to Ketchikan, where Grand would have had to switch to more expensive satellites.  YMMV.

[mk-ultra]

21 hours ago, xCity said:

 

Thanks for the info.  I just checked princess.com, and it looks like they pushed up the install/activation of MedallionNet to 12/3/2019.  Hopefully that will solve the connectivity issues.

 

W00t!  Hope that happens.  Good news for my Jan 22 cruise 🙂

[Cruise Raider]

18 minutes ago, mk-ultra said:

 

W00t!  Hope that happens.  Good news for my Jan 22 cruise 🙂

 

I'm going on that sailing as well .. hoping to have the Medallion Net by then.  I've been on a coastal, an Alaskan and a Mexican Riviera cruise recently.  I've been pretty much locked out from getting internet connections on each and every one of these sailings.  I was on a similar sailing on the Royal (Mexican Riviera) ... best wifi connection ever and for the entire sailing, regardless of the time of day or where I was on the ship and I believe the Royal has more pax than the Grand.  Plus, the Medallion Net was cheaper, too.  

[mk-ultra]

On 11/19/2019 at 11:10 PM, Dublin_Ca said:

I’m aboard the Grand right now.  Purchased the package that lets you stream.  Sometimes while streaming it works great and then just suddenly stops working.  This while not changing my location..  It’s a weird system.  Doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the “outages”.  And before we get the “why would you stream video on a cruise” questions / comments, my job has me working long hours each day.  It’s nice to sit down after a relaxing day and watch things I am unable to at home.  

 

Did you have to purchase the package once onboard?  All I see in my cruise planner under internet access is ship-to-shore calling (10 minutes for $49.50... eek).

[Haboob]

57 minutes ago, mk-ultra said:

 

Did you have to purchase the package once onboard?  All I see in my cruise planner under internet access is ship-to-shore calling (10 minutes for $49.50... eek).

Princess is ...fine tuning --cough, cough-- their internet packages.  It has been common for none to be offered for a cruise until fairly close to embarkation date.

[damiross]

I'll be purchasing the AT&T cruise package.  It includes Internet, voice, and text.  Does anyone know if the Internet piggybacks on the ship's Wi-Fi? Thanks.

[Haboob]

2 hours ago, damiross said:

I'll be purchasing the AT&T cruise package.  It includes Internet, voice, and text.  Does anyone know if the Internet piggybacks on the ship's Wi-Fi? Thanks.

Unlikely in the extreme.  Figure the data will arrive as "cellular data" via the ship's cellphone tower on cellular frequencies to your phone's cellular radio.

 

That only pushes the peanut down the road:  The choke point for shipboard internet is not the WiFi LAN.  It is the satellite uplink, and the question becomes "Does your ship's cellphone tower and its WiFi LAN have separate satellite uplinks?"  I'm not sure that info is publicly available or is even the same from one day to the next.

[Dublin_Ca]

On 11/20/2019 at 9:02 AM, Haboob said:

The answer for that is simple:  The ship buys "x" bits-per-second uplink to a satellite.  If you are the only person logged in on the ship (yeah, but bear with me), it's all yours.  If a second person logs in, you now share.  Etc.

 

At 4am, you ought to have good bandwidth available.  At 9am, you may not.  If something suddenly makes a bunch of folks want to look something up on Google, you may not.  If an extended-family group onboard finds out that a video of a newborn has been posted, you may not.  If the satellite company swaps out ground stations, you may not.  Etc.

 

Onboard Grand last month, there was plenty of bandwidth available all day long, but I doubt there would have been if we'd gone further north, say to Ketchikan, where Grand would have had to switch to more expensive satellites.  YMMV.

It’s more than sharing a pipe issue onboard.  It’s having serious issues.  Wednesday it was completely down from 2pm to 10pm.  I think there’s some hardware failures and they are just limping along until next voyage and MedallionNet.  It’s 11:14pm ship’s time and it took me 10 minutes just to get into this post.  Internet Manager said the MedallionNet techs are aboard now readying for Dec. 3rd. 

[Dublin_Ca]

10 hours ago, mk-ultra said:

 

Did you have to purchase the package once onboard?  All I see in my cruise planner under internet access is ship-to-shore calling (10 minutes for $49.50... eek).

I purchased on board as I had OBC, but prepurchase was showing in the cruise planner up until the very last moment.   

Edited November 22, 2019 by Dublin_Ca

[crazymomof4]

We are sailing on December 28th. Assuming the medallion net is up and running-- can we still get our free platinum minutes - or is it only a discount off the package? 

 

Also, does anyone know what the on board price is for the unlimited plan for a 15 night cruise? The pre cruise price is $129.99. Thanks! 

[Cruise Raider]

4 hours ago, crazymomof4 said:

We are sailing on December 28th. Assuming the medallion net is up and running-- can we still get our free platinum minutes - or is it only a discount off the package? 

 

Also, does anyone know what the on board price is for the unlimited plan for a 15 night cruise? The pre cruise price is $129.99. Thanks! 

 

We've been on one MedallionNet sailing ... this is how it worked:

 

 We could purchase the unlimited package for a 7 night sailing ahead of time for $59.99 ... there is only one level to chose from if the ship is equipped with the Medallion Net.  When we boarded, I could get a discounted rate of $54 instead but only on the first day.  If I chose to first use my allotted minutes for being elite, I could purchase the unlimited minutes for the remaining days for a cost of $10 per day ... thus, if I ran out of my elite minutes after day one, I'd actually have spent more than just turning them in on that first day for the discount.  

If you each have platinum minutes coming to you, one can still use the allotted minutes and the other can purchase the discounted unlimited package.  They also have multi-device packages onboard that you can purchase as well.  

 

So, I am booked on the Grand in January and have no package offerings available in my personalizer.  It is possible they are switching it over to the Medallion Net pricing if they are due to install that upgrade to this ship.  If you see three levels for the unlimited pricing, it indicates that it is not the Medallion Net you are purchasing.  We've sailed to Hawaii on the Grand with the old (current) WiFi capabilities and we got ZERO connectivity while at sea.  I remember this because we were trying to buy a house at the time so had to keep in touch with our RE agent ... needless to say, we lost out because we couldn't get through to him to counter their offer.  Heck, we didn't even know we needed to until we were finally able to log onto our email while on the islands.  

 

 

PS .. this is what it should look like if Medallion Net is offered:

 

Internet Access

All prices include account activation fee. All prices are subject to change without notice. No other onboard bonuses are applicable.

Multi-Device MedallionNet Voyage Package$14.99 4 devices, per day

Save 50% when you purchase pre-cruise! Enjoy an unlimited internet voyage package for as low as $14.99 per day.

Stay connected like never before with the best Wi-Fi at sea. From email to streaming, enjoy truly premium, unlimited access! Package provides connectivity for up to four devices at a time.

*All Internet usage subject to Princess Cruises' standard policies, which may limit browsing of sites due to network security and bandwidth usage. Applications that use high bandwidth may be blocked and offerings subject to change.

 

MedallionNet Voyage Package – Save Over 50% Pre-Cruise!$59.99

Purchase an unlimited internet voyage package for as low as $9.99/day and save over 50%!

Stay connected like never before with the best Wi-Fi at sea. From email to streaming, enjoy truly premium, unlimited access!

*All Internet usage subject to Princess Cruises' standard policies, which may limit browsing of sites due to network security and bandwidth usage. Applications that use high bandwidth may be blocked and offerings subject to change.

 

Edited November 22, 2019 by Cruise Raider

[caribill]

18 hours ago, crazymomof4 said:

We are sailing on December 28th. Assuming the medallion net is up and running-- can we still get our free platinum minutes - or is it only a discount off the package?  Yes, but if you use up your free minutes, the discounted package will no longer be available.

 

Also, does anyone know what the on board price is for the unlimited plan for a 15 night cruise? The pre cruise price is $129.99. Thanks!    $112.50

 

[coo359a2]

Could someone please post what the breakdown for the elite minutes are.  Can't find my paper on it.  Know that a 7 day cruise is 100 minutes per person  and over 20 something days  it is 500 minutes per person.   Thanks in advance.

[Haboob]

15 minutes ago, coo359a2 said:

Could someone please post what the breakdown for the elite minutes are.  Can't find my paper on it.  Know that a 7 day cruise is 100 minutes per person  and over 20 something days  it is 500 minutes per person.   Thanks in advance.

Complimentary Internet Package¹³
Each Platinum Princess Cruises Captain’s Circle member will receive a complimentary Internet package to be used either on the computers in our Internet Cafés or wireless Internet on the guest’s personal wireless device. The amount of complimentary Internet is determined by the length of the sailing.

• Voyages 7 days or less, 150 minutes
• Voyages 8-20 days, 250 minutes
• Voyages 21+ days, 500 minutes

https://book.princess.com/captaincircle/membershipBenefits.page

[coo359a2]

2 minutes ago, Haboob said:

Complimentary Internet Package¹³
Each Platinum Princess Cruises Captain’s Circle member will receive a complimentary Internet package to be used either on the computers in our Internet Cafés or wireless Internet on the guest’s personal wireless device. The amount of complimentary Internet is determined by the length of the sailing.

• Voyages 7 days or less, 150 minutes
• Voyages 8-20 days, 250 minutes
• Voyages 21+ days, 500 minutes

https://book.princess.com/captaincircle/membershipBenefits.page

  Thanks for getting back so quick.  Guess I was wrong about the number for  7 days.  

[nasa1974]

We are sailing on the Grand in March 2020. The Princess website shows our March 22nd cruise as MedallionNet Wi-Fi and our March 29th cruise as MedallionClass Vacation.

Sure would be nice if it was MedallionClass for both.

 

Marty

[caribill]

6 hours ago, nasa1974 said:

We are sailing on the Grand in March 2020. The Princess website shows our March 22nd cruise as MedallionNet Wi-Fi and our March 29th cruise as MedallionClass Vacation.

Sure would be nice if it was MedallionClass for both.

 

Marty

 

The Internet should be the same for both segments.

 

The second segment will use Medallions instead of cruise cards.

[Cruise Raider]

On 11/19/2019 at 3:09 PM, xCity said:

 

Thanks for the info.  I just checked princess.com, and it looks like they pushed up the install/activation of MedallionNet to 12/3/2019.  Hopefully that will solve the connectivity issues.

 

I just checked it as well ... still don't have the ability to purchase this on my personalizer ... but the old options are not available either.   I suppose they will offer it once I am onboard ... or, they are still working on pricing.  I am so excited that this will be in place by my next sailing on the Grand.  Yooohooo!!  

 

 

[xCity]

On 11/24/2019 at 9:48 AM, Cruise Raider said:

 

I just checked it as well ... still don't have the ability to purchase this on my personalizer ... but the old options are not available either.   I suppose they will offer it once I am onboard ... or, they are still working on pricing.  I am so excited that this will be in place by my next sailing on the Grand.  Yooohooo!!  

 

 

 

FWIW, it shows up as $69.99 for my 12/18 cruise.

[Cruise Raider]

17 minutes ago, xCity said:

 

FWIW, it shows up as $69.99 for my 12/18 cruise.

 

Hmmm?  I am baffled ... there is nothing showing up under my cruise personalizer for my January sailing.  The only thing I can purchase is the ship to shore calling.  

 

Is your package for the MedallionNet?  

[xCity]

22 minutes ago, Cruise Raider said:

 

Hmmm?  I am baffled ... there is nothing showing up under my cruise personalizer for my January sailing.  The only thing I can purchase is the ship to shore calling.  

 

Is your package for the MedallionNet?  

 

It is.  Attaching screenshot.

[Cruise Raider]

2 minutes ago, xCity said:

 

It is.  Attaching screenshot.

 

Interesting!!  And thanks ....

So, I just called down to Princess and she couldn't see it either.  They said our pricing would be listed by Dec 3rd ... so, I will just be patient.  When I mentioned that others were seeing it on their personalizer, she asked the IT dept and they are adding it cruise by cruise.  I was wondering if they were just giving to those on this shorter sailing in lieu of the free minutes ... hahaha ... fat chance!!  

thanks again ...