Internet Plan question

[glituner32]

Hi,

 

Trying to get a better understanding with the internet plans that carnival offers. They offer 3 plans, but does any plan allow you just to surf the internet and access websites? or is everything have to be accessed under an APP ( facebook/ instagram/ skype. etc)?

 

Also which plan did you guys go with?

 

 

Thanks

[durangokid]

I have always gotten the value plan and had no issues other than slow internet speeds. Don't use facetime or Skype and do not try to watch Netflix or other streaming sites, so not an issue there. Have taken care of keeping in touch with family, kept up with some stock market business and surfed the web with no issues. Of course, we live in a very rural area and have satellite internet which can be slow so are not bothered by the speed or lack thereof on cruises. YMMV

[A&Jfamily]

My college age son bought the premium plan for spring break because he had a project that he needed to work on. He said never again because it was so slow and took forever to download.

[Saint Greg]

Value and Premium have it where you can surf the web. I always do premium. Sometimes it's decent enough. Sometimes it's bad. I don't know if it's faster than value or not. They say it is.

[Bert64]

I do social, because it's plenty enough for me to use Facebook Messenger to stay in contact with people at home and see/post on Facebook. I also read that it allows access to major airlines, but haven't done that before...will need to on my upcoming cruise to check-in online since we are flying Southwest though. So, hopefully that does work.

 

But, we don't really use the internet while we are on vacation. All my kids have Messenger for Kids (the parent's Facebook account is the only way/person who can add contacts for them, it's impossible for them to talk to anyone unless I allow it) so they can get in touch with me from their own iPhones/iPads without me having to use iMessage or them having to go through my mom.

[CaribbeanGreen79]

I'm intrigued by this as well. I've always done Premium, and I agree, it's sometimes slow, sometimes fast enough... but if Value is the same speed, well.... i really don't do any streaming, it's just for basic social media, posting photos, staying in touch etc... but I'm also willing to pay more for more speed, so who knows.

[cruziJenn]

We have always gone with the Value plan and that has gotten us everything that we wanted, even a little youtube streaming (music vids) during off peak times. But on our cruise on Magic last week even during off peak times it was hard to just check email. 2 years ago Conquest was not nearly as bad but still I would advise not spending any more than you have to to get Internet. You just don't know how much you're going to be able to get out of it from one ship to the next. All of their talk about 'impoving' Internet speed is just that, talk. We have not really seen it get any better than it was 7 or 8 years ago. So I say go as cheap as you can.

Edited May 8, 2018 by cruziJenn

[cruziJenn]

With Value plan yes you can surf and browse like normal, nothing is actually blocked except maybe certain video streaming sites and (?) and only one device can be connected at a time, but that has never been a problem with the 2 of us.

[Organized Chaos]

Two years ago aboard Conquest, we bought the Social plan for the three of us just to communicate with one another and a few family members back home using iMessage on iPhone. It worked almost flawlessly, except a few dead spots on the ship, which is understandable. Since then, some changes have been made and Carnival no longer supports iMessage on the Social plan. Reports vary. It works for many, but rarely reliable. For others it barely works at all. We're taking our son's friend with us next month and we definitely want him to be able to communicate with his parents back home, so we've sprung for the Value plan for all of us in hopes of getting a little more reliability with iMessage. None of us use any other messaging apps, and don't really want to install one just for the cruise, so we'll try it this way. What I'm noticing from reports over the last few months is that is seems Carnival's internet service has gone drastically downhill. I even saw someone say the internet aboard their recent Vista cruise was terrible, and the Vista is supposed to have their new super internet. That's supposed to be installed fleet wide in the coming weeks/months.

 

The Hub app wasn't available when we cruised last time, so we're looking forward to trying that. We were going to purchase the chat feature, but I've read too many reports that it's very unreliable, so we're not even going to bother. FYI, the Hub app is free to use (other than the chat feature which is $5 per device for the whole cruise) and doesn't require one of the onboard wifi plans.

[dac402402]

I new to the internet plans and just check the price for family of 4 to have the premium plan was almost $300 for 5 day cruise!! My question is why does it say only one device can connect at a time? Is that because I can purchase just for me and have other share the plan for just $75 for the five days??? Will this work with two teenage boys???

[Organized Chaos]

I new to the internet plans and just check the price for family of 4 to have the premium plan was almost $300 for 5 day cruise!! My question is why does it say only one device can connect at a time? Is that because I can purchase just for me and have other share the plan for just $75 for the five days??? Will this work with two teenage boys???

Right, you can buy a single plan, but only one device can be connected at a time. So you'd have to log out on one device to log in with another. Whether or not that's what's best for your two boys is up to you. If you buy one plan for the two of them, one would have to log out to let the other log in.

[glituner32]

I think im going to go with the Value plan