Viking can’t seem to fix it’s on board App

[Zouave]

On Viking Orion Tokyo to Vancouver.  Ever since boarding the Viking itinerary app has listed the stop in Petropavlovsk as Petra, Jordan.  We’ve mentioned it to staff several times but it never gets corrected.  Important because you need weather information for the cruise port.

[Pushka]

17 minutes ago, Zouave said:

On Viking Orion Tokyo to Vancouver.  Ever since boarding the Viking itinerary app has listed the stop in Petropavlovsk as Petra, Jordan.  We’ve mentioned it to staff several times but it never gets corrected.  Important because you need weather information for the cruise port.

 

Yesterday the Panomax camera showed vision of Orion in Bali! Somethings up! 

[tampatramp]

28 minutes ago, Zouave said:

On Viking Orion Tokyo to Vancouver.  Ever since boarding the Viking itinerary app has listed the stop in Petropavlovsk as Petra, Jordan.  We’ve mentioned it to staff several times but it never gets corrected.  Important because you need weather information for the cruise port.

We were just in Petra and it was cold and rainy; which doesn't help you since you'll be in Petropavlovsk, Kamchatka Siberia. It is a shame the only way to find out the weather  there is on the Viking app. I wish Viking had free wifi and there was a weather site somewhere I could look up. Yes, they should correct their site.

[ropomo]

44 minutes ago, tampatramp said:

I wish Viking had free wifi and there was a weather site somewhere I could look up. Yes, they should correct their site.

 

You have a great idea, can we collaborate?  Maybe we could call it something like weather.com?  I think we could make a fortune.  Don't know about the "free wifi" idea though.  Seriously though, yes I agree that is something they should have a firm control over, keep questioning since its probably something controlled by someone just clicking the right button.

[watchdiva]

Weather as of today shows sunny with temps in the 40’s and 50’s for the coming week.  You have free wifi so should be able to check online.

[Pushka]

1 hour ago, tampatramp said:

We were just in Petra and it was cold and rainy; which doesn't help you since you'll be in Petropavlovsk, Kamchatka Siberia. It is a shame the only way to find out the weather  there is on the Viking app. I wish Viking had free wifi and there was a weather site somewhere I could look up. Yes, they should correct their site.

 

Fair point. I do like the Panamax when it works, which it is now, as that is a fabulous and unique feature. 

[Zouave]

The true issue here is the ship knows of the problem but corporate, who controls the app, can’t seem to fix it.  We have seen same situation in the Vancouver debarkation circus.  Corporate knew a long time ago about limited berthing and only told ship and passengers about the problem after boarding.  Flying by the seat of your pants results in the butt getting burned on landing.

[Captain_Morgan]

at the risk of being 'ignored' by the sensitive contributors for being 'negative' (not like i care) i will say that in speaking with crew on previous cruises, they all said that even their WiFi signal is inconsistent at best and far from reliable.  in fact many apparently even log into the passenger network in an effort to get a more reliable signal as its their only means of communicating with family, which sadly then gets them blocked by onboard IT.

 

according to those who've been around since the start, the signal was great with 1 ship but has steadily declined with the addition of others which leads to the belief that the source bandwidth is being divided across the expanding fleet which results in a degraded signal.  i'm no IT expert but it seems plausible, and i'm sure i'm not the only one who's experienced the dreaded buffering when trying to watch the in room TV...

[philw1776]

Never had wifi problems onboard VO cruises unless I was in something like a fjord.  
No TV problems either but have only watched 1 1/2 movies over a couple ocean cruises, so not a typical viewer.

[NanciEA]

We were just on the Hong Kong to Tokyo leg and for one of the days it listed on the app and on the TV that we would be in Kiel, Germany. This never changed and we eventually just started joking about what a long excursion that would be! The wifi worked fine for us, although we thought it was slightly better in the public areas than our cabin. It was certainly strong enough to look up the weather on our phones. I jokingly mentioned the Kiel, Germany stop to costumer service desk and they said they had notified headquarters, but they couldn't seem to fix it. 

[cocopico]

7 hours ago, Captain_Morgan said:

 

according to those who've been around since the start, the signal was great with 1 ship but has steadily declined with the addition of others which leads to the belief that the source bandwidth is being divided across the expanding fleet which results in a degraded signal.  i'm no IT expert but it seems plausible, and i'm sure i'm not the only one who's experienced the dreaded buffering when trying to watch the in room TV...

Our experience has been just the opposite. We’ve been on Star, Sea, Sky (twice) and Jupiter, and our experience has been that the Wi-Fi has generally gotten better each time. I can’t imagine they are “sharing” the same original bandwidth among ships as the fleet expands. I’m sure some of the variance relates to the position of a particular ship, the number of folks using it at a particular time and the type of use.  And I have definitely experienced the dreaded “buffering” while trying to watch live TV, which has the salutary effect of encouraging me not to watch live tv while on vacation! 🙂

[Peregrina651]

 

If it weren't for first world problems, some of us would have no problems at all.

[ropomo]

10 hours ago, Captain_Morgan said:

according to those who've been around since the start, the signal was great with 1 ship but has steadily declined with the addition of others which leads to the belief that the source bandwidth is being divided across the expanding fleet which results in a degraded signal.  i'm no IT expert but it seems plausible, and i'm sure i'm not the only one who's experienced the dreaded buffering when trying to watch the in room TV...

 

This makes absolutely no sense.  Demand for bandwidth will be confined to one ship.  As others in this thread have stated, we have not experienced issues.  Any issues are more likely related to pax demand for bandwidth at any given time.

[Captain_Morgan]

2 minutes ago, ropomo said:

 

This makes absolutely no sense.  Demand for bandwidth will be confined to one ship.  As others in this thread have stated, we have not experienced issues.  Any issues are more likely related to pax demand for bandwidth at any given time.

 

As stated,  i was only repeating what was said at the time by crew onboard, and i clearly stated I was not an IT expert.  At the end of the day any time a 'free' service is offered its likely to be used to excess thus diluting the end product

[Pushka]

Technology, in terms of upfront costs, and then service provision, must be the bane of every company’s life. As consumers we expect more and more. It’s like with schools, I’m old enough to have remembered being excited by the first calculator. Now every school must need to have a huge spend on computers as well as all the other costs that haven’t disappeared, just to be competitive. While I do enjoy having the free use of wifi to check base with family etc, it isn’t the kind of issue that bothers me much. It’s great when it works but I kind of expect it not to most times. 

[Zouave]

5 hours ago, Peregrina651 said:

 

If it weren't for first world problems, some of us would have no problems at all.

What kind of rose colored glasses are you using?  An error like this is (and the previous cruise leg) an indication of a lack of attention to detail.  The disembarkation circus in Vancouver is the result in attention to detail.  Remember the failure to watch engine lubrication levels in Viking Sky?  

 

Stow your “all is well” attitude in your fourth point of contact.

[Paulchili]

12 hours ago, philw1776 said:

No TV problems either but have only watched 1 1/2 movies over a couple ocean cruises, so not a typical viewer.

TV movies (and lectures, etc) of course are not affected by satellite reception unlike live TV or wifi.

We are currently on Orion and on several occasions while watching “live” TV news the signal was lost while at anchor in port. You watch the news for some time and then the signal is lost (and I don’t mean for a minute or two) - all this while the ships hasn’t moved an inch. I’d love to hear the explanation for that.

Wifi has been reasonably good and reliable - I was even able to watch some live basketball games on my iPad.

Edited May 11, 2019 by Paulchili

[Heidi13]

2 hours ago, Paulchili said:

TV movies (and lectures, etc) of course are not affected by satellite reception unlike live TV or wifi.

We are currently on Orion and on several occasions while watching “live” TV news the signal was lost while at anchor in port. You watch the news for some time and then the signal is lost (and I don’t mean for a minute or two) - all this while the ships hasn’t moved an inch. I’d love to hear the explanation for that.

Wifi has been reasonably good and reliable - I was even able to watch some live basketball games on my iPad.

When at anchor the ship is moving continuously, unless operating in DP mode. If at anchor, the ship continuously moves around the anchor, within the scope of chain.

[Paulchili]

4 minutes ago, Heidi13 said:

When at anchor the ship is moving continuously, unless operating in DP mode. If at anchor, the ship continuously moves around the anchor, within the scope of chain.

Sorry but I am not buying that.

The satellite is thousands of miles above and the ship moves 20 feet or so in an otherwise unobstructed area at open sea and this accounts for loss of signal? I can see this being the case as the ship moves in a fjord where moving even a small distance can possibly block the signal but not in our case.

Besides, this also happened while docked in Otaru without any movement whatsoever.

[Heidi13]

6 minutes ago, Paulchili said:

Sorry but I am not buying that.

The satellite is thousands of miles above and the ship moves 20 feet or so in an otherwise unobstructed area at open sea and this accounts for loss of signal? I can see this being the case as the ship moves in a fjord where moving even a small distance can possibly block the signal but not in our case.

Besides, this also happened while docked in Otaru without any movement whatsoever.

I was not commenting on the impairment of satellite signals, as that has so many variables - latitude of the ship in relation to the position of the satellite, location of the dish on the ship, surrounding land, etc.

 

I was correcting your erroneous statement that while at anchor the ship did not move an inch.

[Paulchili]

15 minutes ago, Heidi13 said:

I was correcting your erroneous statement that while at anchor the ship did not move an inch.

OK

I think you knew what I meant. When an average TV satellite is 36,000 KM above the earth and the ship moves a few feet in open sea, for the purposes of the location of the ship vs satellite the ship might as well not have moved an inch.

What I am saying is that the minimal movement of the ship while at anchor does not explain to me the loss of signal.

Edited May 11, 2019 by Paulchili

[Aussie Cruise Nuts]

We are onboard Orion now - been on since Hong Kong on 21 April.   First Viking Cruise (of 16 Ocean Cruises and 2 River Cruises) and in our experience this is the fastest and most consistent wi-fi we have experienced at sea - and it’s unlimited and fully included in the price.  

Ok, it’s not as fast as home, but fully operational for a cruise, and naturally at its slowest (but still works) when most pax are using.   We have successfully FaceTimed our family several times, easily dowloaded our home daily newspaper digital edition each day (something not easily achieved on Seabourn, our most cruised line - the record was 35 minutes on one Seabourn cruise  and that’s minutes I was paying for !!!!).   I’ll take Vikings wifi policy any day. 

 

Agree that speed can be a a little faster in the public spaces vs suites, but we are very happy with the wifi (and our Suite, food, drinks and the excellent ever friendly smiling crew) on our first Viking Ocean Cruise. 

 

Yes, noticed the “errors” on the Viking App and had a laugh at the Kiel Canal and Petra, Jordan itinerary diversions, but not a big deal in our view.   

 

Guess we may be Glass half  full people.      

 

Rod 

[Little Monty]

2 hours ago, Aussie Cruise Nuts said:

  

 

Guess we may be Glass half  full people.      

 

 

 

G'day Rod .. I hope you are enjoying the cruise.

I also hope your 'half full' attitude is shared by the great majority.

 

Cheers from me, LM

[Aussie Cruise Nuts]

Thanks Little Monty.  

 

I feel your ovservations are correct as the great majority onboard we meet and talk to agree with your sentiments.     But there are always those who find fault and can’t move past it.  

 

More pity them as we are here to enjoy the cruise and all it offers, not find fault with the few things that go astray (hello, it’s called life).  

 

Having a blast and will continue to do so.  

 

Rod. 

[lackcreativity]

7 hours ago, Paulchili said:

Sorry but I am not buying that.

The satellite is thousands of miles above and the ship moves 20 feet or so in an otherwise unobstructed area at open sea and this accounts for loss of signal? I can see this being the case as the ship moves in a fjord where moving even a small distance can possibly block the signal but not in our case.

Besides, this also happened while docked in Otaru without any movement whatsoever.

We loose our Comcast signal here at home on a regular basis, and I am pretty sure our house doesn't move at all. Wireless service can be spotty anywhere.