Internet Firewall? - Email issues onboard

[frlb561]

Hello!

 

I'm headed out on a Baltic Cruise (on the Rotterdam) on April 29th with my parents. Currently trying to figure out an issue for my dad with his email (and well, for the rest of us too!) He uses the regular Apple email app on his iPad but realized on his last cruise (Oct 2018) that it never updated. Until they got to Port and he brought it ashore, something with the internet was stopping him from receiving or sending email through the app. My mom also had the issue with the Gmail app on her tablet. 

 

Are their firewalls on the HAL internet that would prevent these apps from working? Is their a solution? Has anyone else had this problem? 

 

Any help/advice would be appreciated! I also use an app for my email and very unfortunately but due to the fact I'm ending up 3 weeks out from work, I need to get and send email as well and don't want to end up with this issue! 

[Tom_Cruise]

In my experience... HAL has three levels of internet service.  For me, the cheap, bottom level would not work for email.  Upgrading to the second level got email working.

[*Miss G*]

Tom’s experience sounds to me to be the problem too.  The lowest level internet service will not get you email.  Ask your parents if they see an option to upgrade to the next level. It should have a little blurb about accessing email for an extra $$.  If they click on that they should now be able to access.

[*Miss G*]

Oh sorry, I just realized they are not onboard... that this is a question for the future.  Purchase the mid-level service and you will have access to email.

[frlb561]

34 minutes ago, Tom_Cruise said:

In my experience... HAL has three levels of internet service.  For me, the cheap, bottom level would not work for email.  Upgrading to the second level got email working.

  

Interesting, I'm not sure what they chose last time. As it will be 3 of us, I will be pushing for the premium! Thanks!

Edited April 23, 2019 by frlb561

[frlb561]

26 minutes ago, *Miss G* said:

Tom’s experience sounds to me to be the problem too.  The lowest level internet service will not get you email.  Ask your parents if they see an option to upgrade to the next level. It should have a little blurb about accessing email for an extra $$.  If they click on that they should now be able to access.

 

Interesting, not sure what level they had but they did mention having to re-up the minutes at least twice. So maybe they picked the lowest thinking they wouldn't need internet much! 

 

I will have to look out for what it says about email. Thanks!

[*Miss G*]

6 minutes ago, frlb561 said:

 

Interesting, not sure what level they had but they did mention having to re-up the minutes at least twice. So maybe they picked the lowest thinking they wouldn't need internet much! 

 

I will have to look out for what it says about email. Thanks!

 

HAL used to sell internet service by the minutes.  They now sell it by the “type” of service and you get unlimited minutes.  The middle tier is usually the best option.

[kwb101]

If memory serves,  the cheapest Internet service onboard only allows connections to social media sites. The middle (surf) plan is for most other sites. However, HAL does block some sites like DuckDuckGo (a search engine), which is strictly text, so there's no excuse that it uses took much bandwidth. 

[Paulinda]

When we were on the NS this past March my wife was having an issue with her IPhone and the midlevel internet package we were using.  She ended up going to the tech guy on board and he got it working properly.  The guy wasn't the friendliest around but we had no issues with her phone and she was able to use it OK.

[TAD2005]

All HAL ships now sell internet by the unlimited plan, not by minutes anymore.  So if they had to keep buying time after depleting what they had, this had to be a while ago, before the 3-tier plans were started.

The basic Social Media plan will not allow anything except social media, no e-mail, banks, etc.  The Surf plan works for most people because it allows everything except VOIP services like Skype, and also blocks video streaming sites like You Tube.   

A little hint.... If you have access to a VPN using PPTP, you can use Skype and You Tube with the Surf package.  The PPTP VPN routes your traffic to the target IP and Carnival's servers do not see the DNS requests for Skype or streaming video so they allow it to pass.  Carnival handles all internet for cruise lines owned by them, including HAL.  This worked for me on the Eurodam for 28 days, and I made many Skype audio calls using the Surf plan,  Some websites I access have You Tube links embedded and they also worked when I was connected through my VPN.   Disconnecting from the VPN, Skype and You Tube would not work.

[Cyclone99]

10 hours ago, TAD2005 said:

All HAL ships now sell internet by the unlimited plan, not by minutes anymore.  So if they had to keep buying time after depleting what they had, this had to be a while ago, before the 3-tier plans were started.

The basic Social Media plan will not allow anything except social media, no e-mail, banks, etc.  The Surf plan works for most people because it allows everything except VOIP services like Skype, and also blocks video streaming sites like You Tube.   

A little hint.... If you have access to a VPN using PPTP, you can use Skype and You Tube with the Surf package.  The PPTP VPN routes your traffic to the target IP and Carnival's servers do not see the DNS requests for Skype or streaming video so they allow it to pass.  Carnival handles all internet for cruise lines owned by them, including HAL.  This worked for me on the Eurodam for 28 days, and I made many Skype audio calls using the Surf plan,  Some websites I access have You Tube links embedded and they also worked when I was connected through my VPN.   Disconnecting from the VPN, Skype and You Tube would not work.

 

Is the speed different among the three plans, or is the connections that are blocked/allowed the only difference?

[kazu]

27 minutes ago, Cyclone99 said:

 

Is the speed different among the three plans, or is the connections that are blocked/allowed the only difference?

 

In my experience, there is no difference in speed.

 

Only what you can access.  My past experience and on board experience now, as well 😉 

[TAD2005]

Because we were cruising the South Pacific, there were some areas where everyone was complaining about slow service.  The even posted a warning of slow service in the daily program.

I did run some Ookla speed checks.  Average download bandwidth varied between 3 Mb/s and 15 Mb/s.   Oddly enough the upload speeds were almost the same.   When I was connected through my VPN, I had no difficulties with Skype audio calls, never tried video calls.  I did see a lot of buffering in the You Tube videos that I tried to watch, but only during the announced days when the service would be slow.  28 days, Surf program, was $249.  Every time I logged in, I was presented with the opportunity to upgrade to the premium plan but with a slowly decreasing asking price.  

[3rdGenCunarder]

15 hours ago, TAD2005 said:

Because we were cruising the South Pacific, there were some areas where everyone was complaining about slow service.  The even posted a warning of slow service in the daily program.

I did run some Ookla speed checks.  Average download bandwidth varied between 3 Mb/s and 15 Mb/s.   Oddly enough the upload speeds were almost the same.   When I was connected through my VPN, I had no difficulties with Skype audio calls, never tried video calls.  I did see a lot of buffering in the You Tube videos that I tried to watch, but only during the announced days when the service would be slow.  28 days, Surf program, was $249.  Every time I logged in, I was presented with the opportunity to upgrade to the premium plan but with a slowly decreasing asking price.  

 

The slowly decreasing price was because of fewer days left to buy. I saw the same price changes on the K this winter.

 

Edited April 25, 2019 by 3rdGenCunarder

[3rdGenCunarder]

On 4/23/2019 at 8:55 AM, frlb561 said:

  

Interesting, I'm not sure what they chose last time. As it will be 3 of us, I will be pushing for the premium! Thanks!

 

The highest level is for streaming, so unless you want to do that you don't need to buy that level. It's not related to how much time you use--time is unlimited. If you're thinking of three of you sharing a plan, that's OK, but only one device may be logged on at a time. I found that if I logged off on my phone, then later used the NL computer, it told me I had another device logged on (meaning the phone) and gave me the opportunity to end that session and begin the new one on the new device. I was super-careful about logging off, and always turned off my phone, but the $%^&*( system kept claiming I was logged on. No big deal to just say "yes" to logging off my phone, but it shouldn't have happened. 

 

Anyway, if it's just email you're after, you should be OK sharing the mid-level 'surf' plan.

 

[TAD2005]

HAL, and their parent company Carnival, do not throttle your bandwidth based on the plan you purchase.   They block specific sites and port numbers based on which of the 3 plans you choose.   The middle plan, Surf, works best unless you need to use some type of VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) service like Skype.   You need the Premium plan to use that, and same for any video streaming services like You Tube.

[Stratheden]

I use the Apple email program on an iPad and I had no problems at all. I had the middle plan.