Whisper Cape Town to Greenwich - a segmenters view

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And magically, at 7:45, it’s back up again.

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It was good to see Mark Conroy and Frank Sansome on the ship yesterday evening, even if they were rather monopolised by a couple of ‘high value’ WC’ers.

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6 hours ago, Stumblefoot said:

 

In your estimation, why are so many WC’ers unhappy?

Having sat and listened to the feedback, and talked to a number of others:

 

The Internet, The Internet, The Internet, the continued creep in the length of World Cruises, African ports, the shore excursions, the gym facilities, the quality of the lecturers, the a/c, the plumbing, the use of the word ‘we’ when complaining. The fact that the Shadow will be ‘museified’ before the Whisper, etc, etc, etc.

[les37b]

The internet wasn’t great on the Wind and there were a few times I’d struggle to connect, but overall I think most would have been happy with what they’d got. I have no idea how accurate the logging was in .go.solversea but in 11 days I recorded 1.2gb on my phone and 600mb on my iPad which I was mightily surprised at. My wife also recorded over 700mb .Not quite sure how we got that high, but can say we did post photos in emails and on CC and it worked.

 

i know I’ve said previously on here that I was told the fleet shared bandwidth. In the middle of the night on one side of the world, ships would receive less than others during waking hours. Sounds a good idea and a way to maximise a low overall share..

 

it does sound like the levels of service you had (and Spinnikers Spirit TA... and even the Winds TA straight after mine) was not anywhere near the standard we had.

 

i was lucky. With us, I also had my Vodafone phone I was able to hotspot with and with 90gb of roam free data to use, it wasn’t a problem.  I was lucky all ports of call were valid - though Les Santes didn’t seem to have a working 3G for data and had to rely on ships WiFi here! (Crazy but true)

 

Obviously not any good more than a few miles off the coast, but it’s certainly something I’d recommend to look into. All of the cruises I have coming up will be roam free  no cost countries... and that includes the TA. Yes there will be lots of times we will be out of range, but a TA is a bit of an exception. My wife’s 256gb IPhone XR with 90gb of data and free Spotify / sky is working out at £38pm (bought on Black Friday). Effectively she’s bought the phone and this covers the entire 2 year contract. A no brainier! I got my sim only deal for approx £14 and given cash back. (I pay Voda more but get it back every few months.)

 

i appreciate that that doesn’t change the poor state of Internet you’ve experienced, but is maybe something worth considering for the fututre. 

 

I certainly hope you get an answer on why iit was so poor and you can certainly quote our Wind 19th April 11 day cruise where you know it worked fine. Seems no reason yours shouldn’t have been to the levels we had. I can’t descrbe it as good, but for free satellite I guess that’s what it was. Still don’t believe those data usage figures though!

Edited May 19, 2019 by les37b

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Hi Les, I was comparing it against the WC last spring and in particular against the Muse in October, where there were 500 onboard using the free WiFi against 300 on the Whisper. On the Muse I could quite happily stream live video and even managed to play a slightly shaky Fortnite. On the Whisper none of this stuff would even load, let alone run. I got the impression that most people had at least one device on at all times, so constant updating. I’m not sure if the WC’ers were allowed multiple devices for free or would have had to pay to upgrade from one, and anyway if you can spend 350,000 Euros for a full WC what’s a bit of loose change for extra devices.

 

Thanks very much for all the hints you have given above.

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Unlike most guests departing today we were home by 10:15.

 

Kudos to SS for the exit arrangements this morning, they were nothing short of superb, including my being met on the pier by Mark Conroy, who walked us to our luggage before saying goodbye.

 

The cars were all there, drivers waiting with individual signage, and we had a Merc van that was big enough for 6!

 

I also managed to bump into Damien O’Connor this morning before we left, he is from RCI and has been tasked with integration where it is needed. His full title is SVP Hotel Operations and Onboard Revenue, so I believe that makes him Norman’s direct boss.

[les37b]

Your experience on the Muse sounds compatible to what we had 2 years ago on the Wind in the Caribbean where I was also able to stream. (Not that I did... but I was testing.) At the time, they were trialing different providers. I was really happy to report how good it was and on the next cruise (spins was on I think) it was dreadful again.

 

it all sounds hit or miss!

 

Hear what you’re saying re multi devices and paying for a better service. It still shouldn’t impact to any significant level and to do so spells they are not providing enough to share. What I was using was the free service. I had to log off to use another, though each guest had one device each.

 

Lets hoe SS wake up to customer dissatisfaction and realise as Observer said, Internet is no longer a luxury but a necessity for the majority of passengers I’d think.

 

I’ll certainly ask the question in the meeting I have coming up next month and hopefully there may be good news. I’ll let you know.

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10 minutes ago, les37b said:

 

 

Hear what you’re saying re multi devices and paying for a better service. It still shouldn’t impact to any significant level and to do so spells they are not providing enough to share. What I was using was the free service. I had to log off to use another, though each guest had one device each.

 

That’s what we had.

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The other rather forceful feedback at the meeting was that all the things that were said regarding improvements had been said to the WC’ers a year ago, and why should anyone believe them this time. This point was made by more than a couple of people.

[DCCruiser57]

DW and I were on for the full WC.  Yes the internet was slow at times, but we could live with it.  We also thought that most of the African port were not so good.  But, our two overland safaris were very good, except for some logistical issues.  That said, SS rebated 30% for one and 20% for the other.  We thought the food and service were better than last years WC.  You can get lobster every night and about every 10 days they grilled lobster at the grill or had lobster and seafood in La Terrazza at lunch time.  We had fresh oysters twice in west Africa.  Also, you can get caviar anytime and they have upgraded it to ARS.  It is excellent.  Also, the complimentary wines continue to be very good.  Lastly, the WC events were spectacular.

[DCCruiser57]

Oh, the negative comments at the Q&A with the SS CEO was a handful of folks who complain about every little thing.

[les37b]

17 minutes ago, DCCruiser57 said:

 Yes the internet was slow at times, but we could live with it.  

 

Which begs the question that there may be issues relating to WiFi access points and some areas of the ship working ok, but others not. To be expected to a certain extent. On mine, it was working fine, but on one point I left the room for reception area (I assumed would be the best location) as I was sorting staff wages and simply couldn’t be ignored. I did get it sorted luckily and HMRC were happy to also receive their notification and pending cut! 

[DCCruiser57]

For part of the cruise we lost one of the two satellites.  For next years WC, the corporate internet person, who was on for about a week indicated SS is going to switch providers and add a 3rd satellite.

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1 hour ago, DCCruiser57 said:

DW and I were on for the full WC.  Yes the internet was slow at times, but we could live with it.  We also thought that most of the African port were not so good.  But, our two overland safaris were very good, except for some logistical issues.  That said, SS rebated 30% for one and 20% for the other.  We thought the food and service were better than last years WC.  You can get lobster every night and about every 10 days they grilled lobster at the grill or had lobster and seafood in La Terrazza at lunch time.  We had fresh oysters twice in west Africa.  Also, you can get caviar anytime and they have upgraded it to ARS.  It is excellent.  Also, the complimentary wines continue to be very good.  Lastly, the WC events were spectacular.

I cannot comment on the WC events, apart from Goree Island which was excellent. We had no problems with the handful of excursions we took. We were not on last year’s WC, but were on in 15, 16 and 17, and the food this year was a significant step up from 17, even though if I remember correctly that it was with Anne-Marie. Ratko has really stepped into her shoes very well.

[DCCruiser57]

Ratko’s food this year was way better than last year.  Some of the WCs last year were not happy with him.  We heard that Anne Marie came on board during the 3 weeks December drydock to do some “training”.

 

Edited May 19, 2019 by DCCruiser57

[DCCruiser57]

Not sure about 17, but Ratko was head chef last year.

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Coming up the river 1

 

The first shot is Tilbury, and it’s the second in the sequence

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#2

 

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#3

Our Trivia buddy set up his phone to take a time lapse video of the entire trip, unfortunately it recorded only the first two minutes and then failed, and it was really cold at the front.

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+4

 

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+5

The Thames Barrier

 

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+6

 

London City Airport behind the buildings in the second shot, and a BA jet coming into land.

 

Edited May 23, 2019 by Silver Spectre

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Another wonderful SS spelling error. Poor Joachim had worn this badge for 33 days without noticing. The other two ‘GHosts’ were spelt correctly!

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+7

Fly with Emirates 

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+8

Approaching the O2 from the downriver side of the Greenwich Peninsular. This was built by Tony Blair’s Labour government to celebrate the Millennium, and as a vanity project for John Prescott. It cost £789m of public money, mostly from the Lottery Fund which was set up for good causes. After being wound up in 2005 it was eventually turned into an extremely successful sporting and concert venue.

 

Its actually easier to see the Dome walkers in the second and third shots.

Edited May 24, 2019 by Silver Spectre