Viking Ocean new policy limits wifi

[Clay Clayton]

Aboard Sea now and DH and I have a total of four devices connected. I will say that the speed isn’t the fastest but then again we are in the middle of the Atlantic so #FirstWorldProblems. 

[johneb2]

We were also on the Viking Sky Northern Lights cruise.  We were permitted to have two devices per cabin online.  We set ours up so each one had a different pin#.  It was not a problem if you wanted to change the device from laptop to cell phone etc.  It took about 10 seconds.  The reward for doing this is we found the wifi speed was decent.  We did not find this was an issue for us.

[cocopico]

On 3/14/2019 at 6:02 PM, ropomo said:

Just curious, did your wife actually create her own account?  Wondering because as I recall, "signing in" was just a basic last name and cabin #, don't remember setting anything else involved.  Only reason we would want two simultaneous devices with access is for a occasional text to coordinate meeting place and time if we are doing something on our own.

We just got off Jupiter after a two-week cruise and really didn't find the new policy all that difficult or frustrating to deal with.  When you set up your account, you also use a 4-digit pin number, so if the passenger you are traveling with has the same last name, just make sure you both use different pin numbers.  After that, if you log in with your phone and you are already logged on with another device, it simply prompts you to check a box that logs the other device off.  Both passengers, though, can each have one device logged on at the same time.  To me, the slight inconvenience was worth it if in fact the policy is what is responsible for faster internet speeds.  Our internet service throughout the duration of the cruise seemed significantly improved over previous Viking ocean cruises.  

[Clay Clayton]

Hmmm, must be something specific to the new builds.  On Sea now, have had both my phone and iPad logged on continuously since we boarded 13 days ago...sorry to say we disembark tomorrow.  Hubby had both his devices logged in continually also. No pin required, just had to log in with our last name and room number.  Maybe because we have different last names it let us have four devices logged on at once?

[tubeamps]

On board Viking Orion now, Southeast Asia, we haven’t seen any limitations on WiFi access.

[Aussie Cruise Nuts]

58 minutes ago, tubeamps said:

On board Viking Orion now, Southeast Asia, we haven’t seen any limitations on WiFi access.

 

We board Orion in Hong Kong in 10 days.  It will be our first Viking Ocean Cruise (15 previous cruises on other lines, mainly Seabourn).    I would be interested in reading about how you are enjoying Orion.     I am confident the ship, suites, food, wifi  etc will all be good (based on CC reviews).   Not so confident on the included shore excursions which CC reviews have been pretty average for Orion.  

 

Apologies for the thread drift from wifi, but keen to contact a current onboard Orion cruiser. 

 

Rod. 

Edited April 11, 2019 by Aussie Cruise Nuts

[tubeamps]

53 minutes ago, Aussie Cruise Nuts said:

 

We board Orion in Hong Kong in 10 days.  It will be our first Viking Ocean Cruise (15 previous cruises on other lines, mainly Seabourn).    I would be interested in reading about how you are enjoying Orion.     I am confident the ship, suites, food, wifi  etc will all be good (based on CC reviews).   Not so confident on the included shore excursions which CC reviews have been pretty average for Orion.  

 

Apologies for the thread drift from wifi, but keen to contact a current onboard Orion cruiser. 

 

Rod. 

 

We’ve only taken two included excursions so far. Bangkok was good, though the city is huge and takes two hours to reach from the port. The other was in Sihanoukville, it was ok, but very little to see and do there.

 

We also did the optional pre cruise to Angkor Wat and it was outstanding in all aspects. Don’t know if other optional tours are as well planned.

 

Considering the locations, travel time etc the included tours were  probably as good as possible. 

[Aussie Cruise Nuts]

20 minutes ago, tubeamps said:

 

We’ve only taken two included excursions so far. Bangkok was good, though the city is huge and takes two hours to reach from the port. The other was in Sihanoukville, it was ok, but very little to see and do there.

 

We also did the optional pre cruise to Angkor Wat and it was outstanding in all aspects. Don’t know if other optional tours are as well planned.

 

Considering the locations, travel time etc the included tours were  probably as good as possible. 

 

Tubeamps.   Thanks for the prompt response.    Sounds promising.    I know Orion shore excursions copped a lot of flack for their initial Asian ports of call on their way to Australia/NZ last year - and some not so good reviews of the NZ included shore excursions.     Perhaps a lesson has been learnt and/or Viking is listening to the valued feedback from CC posters.  

 

Are you staying aboard after Hong Kong for the next leg ?

 

Rod.

[tubeamps]

No, we are heading home from Hong Kong, would love to spend time there but don’t have the time for it this time around.

 

We will be doing the included tour in Ho Chi Minh city in a couple of days, I’ll give you an update.

[Aussie Cruise Nuts]

1 hour ago, tubeamps said:

No, we are heading home from Hong Kong, would love to spend time there but don’t have the time for it this time around.

 

We will be doing the included tour in Ho Chi Minh city in a couple of days, I’ll give you an update.

 

That would be great.    Many thanks. 

 

Rod

[tubeamps]

This isn’t about WiFi, but I told Rod I would give a short review of an included tour in Ho Chi Minh City.

comfortable bus, 22 passengers

knowledgeable guide, good english

about 5 hours long, one hour there and back 3 hours in city

5 stops at various locations in the city for photos, one for shopping

 

I would rate it very good.

 

since this is WiFi thread, much better signal strength on deck 7, we are on deck 6

 

hope this helps

 

[Aussie Cruise Nuts]

21 hours ago, tubeamps said:

This isn’t about WiFi, but I told Rod I would give a short review of an included tour in Ho Chi Minh City.

comfortable bus, 22 passengers

knowledgeable guide, good english

about 5 hours long, one hour there and back 3 hours in city

5 stops at various locations in the city for photos, one for shopping

 

I would rate it very good.

 

since this is WiFi thread, much better signal strength on deck 7, we are on deck 6

 

hope this helps

 

 

Thanks for the report tubeamps.   Sounds promising for the shore excursions.  I was particularly pleased to read of your 5 stops.   My past reading of CC reviews mentions many included shore excursions as “panaromic” meaning a bus trip with limited stops.    We will be very happy if our “panaromic excursions” have that many stops.   Just won’t be overly keen on a bus tour with limited stops.   

 

Re wifi - we are also on deck 6, so sounds like wifi may be problematic in our suite.    

 

Enjoy your remaining days on Orion.   And safe journey home. 

 

Rod. 

[Miataphile]

Next Fall we will be on the Viking Sea in the Caribbean.  We have a wifi-enabled camera.  Will it be possible to connect it to the ship's wifi,since it doesn't have a keypad and screen?

[Squawkman]

7 hours ago, Miataphile said:

Next Fall we will be on the Viking Sea in the Caribbean.  We have a wifi-enabled camera.  Will it be possible to connect it to the ship's wifi,since it doesn't have a keypad and screen?

 

I'm not an expert in this area, but I would think worst case you could connect to your phone's wifi when your phone is connected to the ship. I've done similar with an iPhone, and understand many android phones can do this.

[Little Monty]

8 hours ago, Miataphile said:

Next Fall we will be on the Viking Sea in the Caribbean.  We have a wifi-enabled camera.  Will it be possible to connect it to the ship's wifi,since it doesn't have a keypad and screen?

 

Not sure if this answers your question .. but I think yes. Whilst on-board we download our photos from our camera to the Cloud using our I-pad. On our camera we select the wi-fi option and it then displays 'TZ90-2366DC' for wi-fi.

 

We go into settings on the I-Pad, select wi-fi and choose 'TZ90-2366DC' from the various options. The camera then asks if we wish to commence transfer and we select yes, and the photos then transfer from our camera to the Cloud by way of the wi-fi connection.

 

If you don't want to use a Cloud storage option there is likely an app for the camera which you can download onto an I-pad (or similar).

 

If you don't carry an I-pad (or similar), then sorry, I probably haven't answered the question 😀. 

Edited April 18, 2019 by Little Monty
spelling

[Little Monty]

That doesn't make sense does it ?

 

What I have described is how to download photos from the camera to the app whilst not using the ship based wi-fi. The process described does work, but it does not answer your question about linking your camera to the ship's wi-fi.

 

Apologies for my confusion.

 

So I guess my question is, if your camera has a wi-fi function and if you carry an I-Pad, do you need to connect the camera to the ship's wi-fi ?

 

Hopefully someone who knows what they are taking about will chip in. LM

[Pushka]

My only thought LM is that there is some confusion for the poster between the relevant camera app, the device (phone or tablet)  and that connection to the camera. Wifi enabled camera simply means it has its own internal wifi similar to Bluetooth, that connects directly to the phone and does not need any external wifi service. Turn on the wifi on the camera, ensure the iPad or phone connects to that camera signal, (not the ship wifi signal) open the app on the phone and/or tablet then select the command that downloads the photos to the device. 

 

We dont use the Cloud while we are away and we just keep all photos on the camera card, the iPhone, and the iPad. We only delete the rubbish photos and in this way we have three copies of each good photo. When we get home we then tag the Camera card to keep those photos then load the backups onto another backup external drive. 

 

All this procedure should be set up before you leave home and that way you will know exactly what to do and will simply be able to turn on the camera wifi, and your camera and device already “know” each other. 

 

 

Edited April 18, 2019 by Pushka

[Little Monty]

Thanks Pushka .. yep understood. Good advice.  

 

Miataphile .. please feel free to ask a follow up question, but if your only question is 'will my camera connect to the ships wi-fi' ..  does your camera connect to wi-fi at home or any public wi-fi ??

 

If so, yes it will connect on-board using the same connecting process.

 

If you are actually asking can I use wi-fi to download photos on-board, hopefully the info above is helpful. 

 

[Miataphile]

Thanks for all the input, folks.  Yes, the camera wi-fi will connect to public systems that need only a name and password, but it can't deal with the additional login required by many hotels and cruise ships where you enter name, cabin number, PIN, or whatever in the second login page.

 

Sounds like the best approach is to transfer photos from the camera to a tablet via wi-fi, then connect the tablet to the ship's wi-fi and send the photos to facebook, etc.

[Little Monty]

25 minutes ago, Miataphile said:

 

Sounds like the best approach is to transfer photos from the camera to a tablet via wi-fi, then connect the tablet to the ship's wi-fi and send the photos to facebook, etc.

 

Good plan, yes that will work. 

[Pushka]

1 hour ago, Miataphile said:

Thanks for all the input, folks.  Yes, the camera wi-fi will connect to public systems that need only a name and password, but it can't deal with the additional login required by many hotels and cruise ships where you enter name, cabin number, PIN, or whatever in the second login page.

 

Sounds like the best approach is to transfer photos from the camera to a tablet via wi-fi, then connect the tablet to the ship's wi-fi and send the photos to facebook, etc.

 

Yep, that’s what I do. It’s much quicker too as FB reduces file size.

 

But I’m curious, what is your camera that it can connect to the internet?

[Peregrina651]

14 hours ago, Miataphile said:

Sounds like the best approach is to transfer photos from the camera to a tablet via wi-fi, then connect the tablet to the ship's wi-fi and send the photos to facebook, etc.

 

I think that you will find that both devices need to be connected to wi-fi in order to transfer from one to another.

 

I have stopped worrying about transferring photos from camera to another device or the cloud. I use multiple 64GB SD cards. When one is full, I swap in the next card; when I get home, I transfer the photos to permanent storage. If there is something that I want to share, I use my smart phone to take the picture and upload it.

[Miataphile]

Pushka,

The camera is a Samsung WB35F.  I see, in looking at it's instructions, that I munged it's abilities with some other wi-fi devices I have.  So no, no direct internet access. It connects to iOS or Andriod phones and tablets using apps on Apple and Google, with either wi-fi or NFC.

 

So, thanks for the info people, but uh, never mind

[Pushka]

1 hour ago, Miataphile said:

Pushka,

The camera is a Samsung WB35F.  I see, in looking at it's instructions, that I munged it's abilities with some other wi-fi devices I have.  So no, no direct internet access. It connects to iOS or Andriod phones and tablets using apps on Apple and Google, with either wi-fi or NFC.

 

So, thanks for the info people, but uh, never mind

Yep. Makes sense. It’s an easy process to set up in advance. 

[AngelMomCruises]

Can't you just put your phone on airplane mode?  Simple click.