Internet Woes

[luv-cruising]

From the Silver Whisper

 

One of the perks included with the world cruise is unlimited premium internet. Sadly this is something that they haven't been able to deliver. In ten years of cruising on SilverSea the internet on the Whisper is the slowest we have encountered on any SS ship by a large margin.

 

The service is so slow that it has negatively impacted our enjoyment of the cruise. For example it took 5 minutes for cruise critic to load. 

Offering unlimited premium internet should imply at least comparable service to prior SilverSea cruises. 

 

Excuses offered include:

"It's a bad region of the world." That has grown old since there has been little improvement in two months.

"There are lots of World Cruisers who hog the internet" Didn't SilverSea know how many world cruisers were coming?

"There is an equipment issue - only one thingy is working" In two months it hasn't been fixed.

 

Please fix this SilverSea!

 

[Silver Spectre]

1 hour ago, luv-cruising said:

From the Silver Whisper

 

One of the perks included with the world cruise is unlimited premium internet. Sadly this is something that they haven't been able to deliver. In ten years of cruising on SilverSea the internet on the Whisper is the slowest we have encountered on any SS ship by a large margin.

 

The service is so slow that it has negatively impacted our enjoyment of the cruise. For example it took 5 minutes for cruise critic to load. 

Offering unlimited premium internet should imply at least comparable service to prior SilverSea cruises. 

 

Excuses offered include:

"It's a bad region of the world." That has grown old since there has been little improvement in two months.

"There are lots of World Cruisers who hog the internet" Didn't SilverSea know how many world cruisers were coming?

"There is an equipment issue - only one thingy is working" In two months it hasn't been fixed.

 

Please fix this SilverSea!

 

That sounds pretty desperate. Assuming that Norman is the HD has anyone managed to get anything other than a stream of excuses or evasions out of him?

 

And thanks for posting this, we join in just over a month and your situation is of concern.

Edited March 12, 2019 by Silver Spectre

[jtm1]

My experience on Silver Spirit in the Caribbean this  January was very much like yours: disappointing. I, too, had premium internet and cannot imagine what the less premium could have been like.

My questions were also answered with the same obfuscations about the numbers trying to use the internet, the nature of the area, etc.

Not a Silversea type experience

.

[MBP&O2/O]

“For example it took 5 minutes for cruise critic to load.”

 

Progress at last? 😀

 

Two minutes for CC to load and three more for all the ads and numerous photographs of dubious quality. Seriously though, that must be half the problem... the amount of junk on the page.... IMHO of course 😔

[Stumblefoot]

1 hour ago, MBP&O2/O said:

Two minutes for CC to load and three more for all the ads and numerous photographs of dubious quality. Seriously though, that must be half the problem... the amount of junk on the page.... IMHO of course 😔

Exactly!  I’d hate to see the Google analytics for this site with all of the junk on it.

[rojaan19]

We had the same problem  on the Muse.  We were in a Silver suite with "premium" internet and most days it was extremely slow.

Even  when  most  people were off the ship - the speed was only "medium"  and on sea days  impossible  !!

[Silver Spectre]

33 minutes ago, rojaan19 said:

We had the same problem  on the Muse.  We were in a Silver suite with "premium" internet and most days it was extremely slow.

Even  when  most  people were off the ship - the speed was only "medium"  and on sea days  impossible  !!

That’s interesting, when we were on the Muse in October the Internet was quite reasonable, even on sea days. Perfectly ok for email and web pages and to download the Times every day.

[rojaan19]

It took Ron an  age to do Muse on the Muse report,  Jimmy was reading it  and at trivia  he would say  - wheres  todays post ?  to which Ron would say  the internet is too slow to load it !!!

[Silver Spectre]

Message from the London SS office, it’s being worked on. 🤣 

[Observer]

It's always "being worked on," isn't it?

Silversea needs to up its game in this area.  Internet is no longer a neat add-on.  It's an essential part of most guests' lives and it needs to be reliable and at decent speed.

[Stumblefoot]

8 hours ago, Observer said:

It's always "being worked on," isn't it?

 

No kidding.

[turtlemichael]

For the past two days, at least for me, the Internet access on Whisper has been passable.  This is after 10 weeks of the worst access I've had on any cruise ship. I have my fingers crossed that it will continue.

[Silver Spectre]

8 hours ago, turtlemichael said:

For the past two days, at least for me, the Internet access on Whisper has been passable.  This is after 10 weeks of the worst access I've had on any cruise ship. I have my fingers crossed that it will continue.

Ok, serious question, have you tried asking Norman what the problem is.

Edited March 17, 2019 by Silver Spectre

[WesW]

am having similar internet challenges on Muse now. free internet will not permit cruise critic to download photos. work around is to use tapatalk and choose small photos to download


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[luv-cruising]

Norman is on top of everything. Even a lesser HD couldn't ignore the steady stream of people beating a path to the office to complain about the slow internet.

 

A few days ago everyone received a notice that they are aware of the problem and working on it. Word is that they changed internet providers and have transitioned ships to the new service. Please go back to the old company!

[turtlemichael]

4 hours ago, Silver Spectre said:

Ok, serious question, have you tried asking Norman what the problem is.

 

We've raised it four times with Norman - three times in surveys and once face to face. We've had courteous responses on all occasions, as you'd expect, which have ranged from "poor satellite coverage in this remote part of the world", "satellite out of action" , "technical problems". The reality is that it has often worked ok in the wee small hours when not too many are on. When you have 240 or so people with included premium access you are going to have issues. We all got a circular a couple of days ago saying they were doing all they could to fix the problem which was no doubt in response to a barrage of complaints. I suspect that it is solvable with money spent on the system. In any case it is not good enough to advertise a benefit and not deliver it.

[Stumblefoot]

1 hour ago, WesW said:

am having similar internet challenges on Muse now. free internet will not permit cruise critic to download photos. work around is to use tapatalk and choose small photos to download

Same thing happened to us last summer.  Work with Jimmy, Wes, to have the IT person upgrade you to the premium service for free for your final 3-days.  You’re reporting is excellent and know you want to share Crew profiles as well.

Edited March 17, 2019 by Stumblefoot

[Silver Spectre]

4 minutes ago, turtlemichael said:

 

We've raised it four times with Norman - three times in surveys and once face to face. We've had courteous responses on all occasions, as you'd expect, which have ranged from "poor satellite coverage in this remote part of the world", "satellite out of action" , "technical problems". The reality is that it has often worked ok in the wee small hours when not too many are on. When you have 240 or so people with included premium access you are going to have issues. We all got a circular a couple of days ago saying they were doing all they could to fix the problem which was no doubt in response to a barrage of complaints. I suspect that it is solvable with money spent on the system. In any case it is not good enough to advertise a benefit and not deliver it.

Thanks for your detailed reply. Seriously though, I hope it improves for the second have of your WC.

[Silver Spectre]

5 minutes ago, Stumblefoot said:

Same thing happened to us last summer.  Work with Jimmy, Wes, to have the IT person upgrade you to the premium service for free for your final 3-days.  You’re reporting is excellent and know you want to share Crew profiles as well.

There is no real IT person on the ships these days, it a function that is covered by the officer who deals with communications, and sometimes the guest Internet comes pretty low down the priority chain. But your advice to Wes is good.

[Stumblefoot]

3 minutes ago, Silver Spectre said:

There is no real IT person on the ships these days, it a function that is covered by the officer who deals with communications.

 

Good point Mr. Silver.  I forgot about that change in responsibility.  

 

All I know is that when I was having all those issues last June while doing my heavy reporting and formatting, it was impossible to post picture files on the Muse and was very thankful for the help Jimmy Kovel provided In rectifying them for me with whomever was in charge of communications at that time.  He met me one morning about 6:30a up in the Observation Lounge where I loved to do my writing since no one typically showed up until after 9:30a.

[turtlemichael]

The advice offered by our IT guy was to go to an internet cafe ashore.  🙂

[luv-cruising]

16 minutes ago, turtlemichael said:

The advice offered by our IT guy was to go to an internet cafe ashore.  🙂

 

Wow - that's ridiculous. When I talked with him early on he blamed it on the world cruisers. It's not exactly a shock that unlimited internet means that people will use it. Imagine they ran out of wine saying that the world cruisers were drinking too much.

 

BTW I've tried at 3 a.m. to download some stuff. No good, not even podcasts. 

 

It's shocking how much worse it is than prior SilverSea cruises.

[turtlemichael]

3 hours ago, luv-cruising said:

 

Wow - that's ridiculous. When I talked with him early on he blamed it on the world cruisers. It's not exactly a shock that unlimited internet means that people will use it. Imagine they ran out of wine saying that the world cruisers were drinking too much.

 

BTW I've tried at 3 a.m. to download some stuff. No good, not even podcasts. 

 

It's shocking how much worse it is than prior SilverSea cruises.

Have you noticed any improvement in the last few days? I certainly have though it is still poor. It is at least usable at the moment and I can transfer pictures etc 

[luv-cruising]

7 minutes ago, turtlemichael said:

Have you noticed any improvement in the last few days? I certainly have though it is still poor. It is at least usable at the moment and I can transfer pictures etc 

Just today at 5 a.m. it was noticeably faster. Not sure if it's a change or a one off. Let's hope for change.

[Silver Spectre]

9 hours ago, turtlemichael said:

The advice offered by our IT guy was to go to an internet cafe ashore.  🙂

That is truely awful and should come with a large credit, even if the advice itself was reasonable. SS seems to have really screwed up big time.