Nintendo Switch - Is “Surf” enough or should I get unlimited.

[Jesseslola]

Hi, We will be on Edge Amalfi cruise and might be too boring for an 8 year old with out his games.

Is surf enough to get these games connected or do I need the more expensive package

 

thank you all

[cruisestitch]

With a specific question about a fairly new system, My advice would be to wait until you are on board, give it a try, and if you need to change your Internet package, consult the i lounge staff.

[Willow1213]

My husband has been able to use his Switch without any internet available. The games just need to be downloaded to the console ahead of time. If he’s looking to play multiplayer/online games then surf would not be fast enough and even unlimited would likely not be the same as home. 

[miched]

Sign him into the children’s program.   It will keep him busy and he won’t want to leave.  He will love it.  Heard many say that their kids won’t like it but they were wrong.   They said that  their kids didn’t want to leave for dinner or lunch or leave the ship when in port.  

 

Happy cruising 🌊🚢🇺🇸🌅

[MrsEmmaPeel]

There's a bigger issue than "speed" (what most people call bandwidth), or the Mb/s of the connection.  While "speed" is important for streaming videos, for networked gaming, _latency_ (the time it takes information to pass through the network from one end to the other) is often king.  People tend to refer to this as "ping time", which is the time it takes for a small network message, a "ping" to travel to the destination and back.

 

IIRC, most if not all cruise internet systems are satellite-based.  Even if those are the new medium earth orbit systems, physics is not in your favor.  The time it take just for the network packets to travel from the surface to the satellite, to the destination and back can be AWFUL (like, greater than half a second).  For many networked games, that's a non-starter, and no cruise package can fix that.

 

[Jesseslola]

Thank you Williow 1213 and thank you miched. 

Willow, I believe he wants to play with his friends. I am not ready to spend for unlimited though.

miched, Jesse is used to the RC Oasis class children’s program and he loves them. Hopefully Celebrity is the same.

 

[Jesseslola]

Thank you MrsEmmaPeel, for the info... I must say though, I did not understand a thing until I got to the last sentence.. lol!!,

Thank you all, that helped with my decision.

[MrsEmmaPeel]

If he wants to game with his friends, then as I noted above, I  think there is no option for you other than land based wifi off the ship in port.  Gaming with friends does not play well with satellite internet, no matter what package you use.  The latency/lag will be too much and he will be frustrated.

 

[gerelmx]

The BIG question is he going to cruise or to play nintendo?

[Jesseslola]

Hello, my grandson had been cruising since he was three months inside his mom and is used to RC Freedom and most especially the Oasis ships. There is no shortage of activities for kids on these ships.

From the reviews, we are worried that he will be bored  and you know what that equates to. Eleven days on the ship and nothing to interest a very active kid...hmmmm.

[yorky]

On 6/13/2019 at 1:44 AM, gerelmx said:

The BIG question is he going to cruise or to play nintendo?

Disney world last year my nephew walked around the whole time looking at his phone, noticed other children using their phones even when on rides like the river rapids. What used to be holidays of a lifetime are just irritating to many now, we live in the world of internet addiction which is better than the real world according to him.

[PTC DAWG]

7 hours ago, yorky said:

Disney world last year my nephew walked around the whole time looking at his phone, noticed other children using their phones even when on rides like the river rapids. What used to be holidays of a lifetime are just irritating to many now, we live in the world of internet addiction which is better than the real world according to him.

I see it as a parenting issue myself. 

[yorky]

6 minutes ago, PTC DAWG said:

I see it as a parenting issue myself. 

It’s not even close to being as simple as that. We are talking generation after generation hooked on the internet, social media is huge and many people don’t think they can live without their smart phones. Look in any cafe, restaurant, bus, train, even cinema. I think it’s just about impossible for most parents these days to control internet usage, simply because most of them are also hooked, it’s like a drug.

[MrsEmmaPeel]

Hmm - sadly, the thread has devolved into opinions on how people travel, which if we're honest, doesn't help the original poster or anyone else who might be searching CC for useful info on the internet service.  Obviously, the main reason I have been posting is that some forms of internet use aren;t just about "speed" (which is what the companies tout); some like gaming are just as dependent upon lag, which not even land-based cable providers tend to talk about much.

 

So I'll ask my own question in the hopes that some fellow geeks here on the boards might be able to post: has anyone gotten recent download bandwidth, upload bandwidth and (most interestingly) ping time numbers on Celebrity ships?

 

The fun part, of course, is that those numbers will vary by package, by overall user load and (most fascinatingly) by region of the ship.  The last one has been very interesting on the Princess boards, because apparently the princess ships are using Medium Earth Orbit systems, which do not have great coverage as you get far from the equator.  So Baltic and UK cruises could just see worse service than Med and Caribbean cruises.

 

But I'd still love to hear some hard data.  I'm wondering if ping times might be >500 miliseconds.  At that point, even a FaceTime or Skype conversation would notice a little of the lag.

 

[Cruise Junky]

Wouldn't the time zone difference make it very difficult to play with friends?

[Jesseslola]

Thank you MrsEmmaPeel,

 

To Yorky, we have 100% control when it comes to internet usage old and young alike, even if most of our families are IT professionals.

 

Last year in Harmony, we did not touch the internet except when checking on our 4 legged families left behind.