Seeking WiFi/Data Plan advice

[ThatLever]

I have three questions about the WiFi/Data plan:

 

1) What's the most affordable way to get this, in advance or onboard?  I've got some OBC to burn, so onboard might be better even if a bit pricier.

2) Do you pay per device or once for multiple devices in the cabin?

3) How's the shipboard WiFi quality? Is it even worth it?

 

If it was just for DW and I, we'd skip it an go internet free for the week.  However my 15yo DD might go insane without access to her favorite YouTube channels, so I figured I'd check for the peace of all of us.

 

For ref: we'll be sailing on the Nieuw Amsterdam Inside Passage in August

[CruiserBruce]

Some reading around the board would get you lots of info and experience. 

 

There has not been any difference in price buying prior to boarding  or on board.

 

You pay per cabin. But only one device can be on at a time.

 

"Worth" is a decision only you make based upon your needs and values. Due to the nature of the system,  there will be times with little or no service, or slow service. In our decades sailing with HAL the quality of service has improved. But it is not like being hardwired to broadband full time.

[crystalspin]

The service on HAL has improved, but it still usually makes you think of dial up speeds (at least in higher latitudes, i.e. farther from the equatorial satellites). Above about Seattle/Vancouver's latitude it becomes worse, but my husband was able to join a conference call (VOIP) from north of France on the Zuiderdam, and to do his VPN medical charting with some dropped out periods all the way to Copenhagen.

 

About the price -- keep watching online. I caught an unannounced flash-sale or maybe an error about two months pre-sailing. It was 199.99 for Premium on a 16-day sailing, which is 249.99 on the attached table. The funny thing was, our onboard receipt showed the price as $249.99 and that we had paid it! It was like they didn't want to admit they had sold it for less, but yes I did have the emailed receipt for $199.99.

 

You will need Premium for streaming video. 

[oceanmom]

Just got the following in an email from HAL which indicates you can buy the Premium plan before boarding and save $20%. That would be the $199.99 price you received, crystalspin, which is also the price offered on our 14-day cruise if purchased on the HAL website.

 

STAY CONNECTED AT SEA Stay connected while on board and save up to 20% when you book the Premium Internet Plan prior to embarkation.*

[TAD2005]

As others have said, if your DD wants to use You Tube, you must purchase the Premium internet package, the most expensive of all 3 plans.   HAL will block any website that links to a You Tube video, and also blocks all You Tube access unless you are on the premium plan.   In some parts of the world (northern latitudes) the satellite internet link is slower, and you will see lots of You Tube buffering (the dreaded rotating circle) while trying to stream videos, even with the Premium plan.   Tell your DD to ditch the phone for the cruise and go out and socialize face-to-face.  She will have a much better experience. 

[Shmoo here]

I found this info on the HAL website:

Available Packages:

1. Social: Per day package, $14.99. (Access the most popular social websites and applications. May not allow for audio/video calling and streaming.)
2. Surf (most popular): $24.99. (Surf your favorite sites including e-mail, news, sports and more. May not allow for audio/video calling and streaming.)
3. Premium: $29.99 (From e-mail to streaming, receive the highest volume of data. Supports audio/video calling and streaming where coverage allows.)

The question I have is - are those prices (specifically #'s 2 & 3) per day cost?

 

 

[crystalspin]

Yes the package is much less. I forgot to attach the chart (which Kazu just linked in a similarly titled thread). Here it is.

[kazu]

12 minutes ago, TAD2005 said:

As others have said, if your DD wants to use You Tube, you must purchase the Premium internet package, the most expensive of all 3 plans.   HAL will block any website that links to a You Tube video, and also blocks all You Tube access unless you are on the premium plan.   In some parts of the world (northern latitudes) the satellite internet link is slower, and you will see lots of You Tube buffering (the dreaded rotating circle) while trying to stream videos, even with the Premium plan.   Tell your DD to ditch the phone for the cruise and go out and socialize face-to-face.  She will have a much better experience. 

 

Caution - you tube does not work well at all on some ships.  It can't download.

 

We were told that by the internet people on board on both the Prinsendam and the Rotterdam.

 

[kazu]

9 minutes ago, Shmoo here said:

I found this info on the HAL website:

Available Packages:

1. Social: Per day package, $14.99. (Access the most popular social websites and applications. May not allow for audio/video calling and streaming.)
2. Surf (most popular): $24.99. (Surf your favorite sites including e-mail, news, sports and more. May not allow for audio/video calling and streaming.)
3. Premium: $29.99 (From e-mail to streaming, receive the highest volume of data. Supports audio/video calling and streaming where coverage allows.)

The question I have is - are those prices (specifically #'s 2 & 3) per day cost?

 

 

 

They are per day costs if you just want to use the internet for one day.

 

they don't apply to the internet unlimited that you purchase for the entire length of the cruise depending on it's length.  The longer the cruise the more "reasonable" the internet rate gets. 

[crystalspin]

2 hours ago, ThatLever said:

If it was just for DW and I, we'd skip it an go internet free for the week.  However my 15yo DD might go insane without access to her favorite YouTube channels, so I figured I'd check for the peace of all of us.

I would never tell anyone to "ditch the phone" if that is something which enriches their experience. But considering the distance from the satellites, and the equipment on board HAL ships, her time trying for YouTube's will be frustrating when/if it works at all. You might suggest that she emails or FB'es her friends with what she is experiencing, instead.

 

Then you could settle on the Surf package (getting Premium does not make Surfing go faster, it only unblocks more demanding websites), which you could buy onboard and use that OBC!

 

ETA: However if that 20% off is showing for you, Surf at $99.99 vs Premium at $139.99-28=$111.99 may be worth it for avoidance of teenage angst.

Edited July 5, 2019 by crystalspin

[TAD2005]

16 minutes ago, crystalspin said:

I would never tell anyone to "ditch the phone" if that is something which enriches their experience. But considering the distance from the satellites, and the equipment on board HAL ships, her time trying for YouTube's will be frustrating when/if it works at all. You might suggest that she emails or FB'es her friends with what she is experiencing, instead.

 

Then you could settle on the Surf package (getting Premium does not make Surfing go faster, it only unblocks more demanding websites), which you could buy onboard and use that OBC!

 

ETA: However if that 20% off is showing for you, Surf at $99.99 vs Premium at $139.99-28=$111.99 may be worth it for avoidance of teenage angst.

Young people have to learn to exist without their phones 24/7.   There is nothing more disturbing than to see a whole family out for a family dinner in a restaurant, and the whole time they are there, the entire family, even the parents, have their heads buried in a cell phone, only looking up to put a bite of food into their mouths.   For the expense of that dinner, and for all the good it accomplishes, they could have stayed home and ordered pizza.   "Ditching the phone" may not be totally possible for a once-in-a-lifetime (for some families) experience like a cruise, but 100% connectivity should not be the primary requirement for a DD or DS.

[opa&oma]

41 minutes ago, TAD2005 said:

Young people have to learn to exist without their phones 24/7.   There is nothing more disturbing than to see a whole family out for a family dinner in a restaurant, and the whole time they are there, the entire family, even the parents, have their heads buried in a cell phone, only looking up to put a bite of food into their mouths.   For the expense of that dinner, and for all the good it accomplishes, they could have stayed home and ordered pizza.   "Ditching the phone" may not be totally possible for a once-in-a-lifetime (for some families) experience like a cruise, but 100% connectivity should not be the primary requirement for a DD or DS.

OK,  thanks for the lecture grandpa!  LOL (with love)

[ThatLever]

Thanks for all the details!

 

Luckily, I've got a great kid.  DD isn't on her phone 24/7, she understands the value of putting it down and appreciating the world around her.  She spends much of the summer at girl scout camp and isn't allowed to have her phone there. She's excited for the excursions and will definitely check out Club HAL, but she'll also appreciate getting some time to herself (especially in the evening after spending much of the day with us) and decompressing by watching her favorite YouTube channels is her equivalent of our watching TV shows or movies (plus, I know she's not going to be interested in going to most of the shipboard evening activities).  All of us like some down time and her preferred quiet activity is YouTube.

 

That being said, if the connections are as spotty as people are saying and it'll cost $100+ just to access a streaming site, it's probably not worth the cost. Heck, she'd probably rather have me put that $100 towards annual access to premium channels she can watch the other 51 weeks of the year.

 

Happy sailing!

 

 

[crystalspin]

6 hours ago, ThatLever said:

Heck, she'd probably rather have me put that $100 towards annual access to premium channels she can watch the other 51 weeks of the year.

Aha, I was thinking of suggesting you give her the option of the $$$ vs either of the two internet options. Great minds think alike!

 

As far as unplugging. Those that think it's an "addiction" should have a read at "Natural Born Cyborgs." Cell-phones become extensions of people's brains, rather like making lists for those with compromised short-term memory problems. Who doesn't need a list???

 

ETA: and I ask this as one of a couple who put off buying smartphones five to ten years beyond our peer groups. Boy did we kick our own behinds after getting "onboard" with modern technology! Who knew that THAT is where PDA's and PalmOS had gone??? Better late than never...

Edited July 6, 2019 by crystalspin

[Underwatr]

Depending on your cellular carrier you might have good data coverage in Alaskan and Canadian ports and some number of miles out to sea. I'm on a plan with T-Mobile that treats Canada the same as the US for data access and speed, so while I did make use of the shipboard data (it was still per-minute on Amsterdam in 2017) I didn't worry about running through my smallish package of minutes.

[ThatLever]

1 minute ago, Underwatr said:

Depending on your cellular carrier you might have good data coverage in Alaskan and Canadian ports and some number of miles out to sea. I'm on a plan with T-Mobile that treats Canada the same as the US for data access and speed, so while I did make use of the shipboard data (it was still per-minute on Amsterdam in 2017) I didn't worry about running through my smallish package of minutes.

 

Good thought! I'm on T-Mobile as well and will check how my plan treats Canada.  But if she can pick up local cell signal in AK, then that might make her happy.

 

Regardless, it'll be easier than when we went to Japan and had to rent a mobile hotspot for the trip (although I have no regrets over doing that as it allowed us to use Google Maps everywhere which was the only way we could navigate Tokyo).

[Underwatr]

I'm pretty sure TMobile treats Canada exactly the same as the US, but verify with your plan ( I have their One Plan).

[Librarymomb]

On 7/5/2019 at 6:55 PM, oceanmom said:

Just got the following in an email from HAL which indicates you can buy the Premium plan before boarding and save $20%. That would be the $199.99 price you received, crystalspin, which is also the price offered on our 14-day cruise if purchased on the HAL website.

 

STAY CONNECTED AT SEA Stay connected while on board and save up to 20% when you book the Premium Internet Plan prior to embarkation.*

Thanks so much for posting this!

 

...was able to purchase for my upcoming Sept cruise.  Btw, HAL didn't show it as a "special discounted price" but according to the chart of daily plan costs, it was 20% off.  I would not have known this had you not posted so thanks again.  Currently, only the Premium plan is available to buy pre-cruise.  I only really need the middle package and was hoping that it too would be offered at a discount but for $10 more, decided to go with Premium.

[DougandEric]

For our 11/16/2019 Eurodam cruise from San Diego to Ft. Lauderdale, the price for the Premium internet package for 15 days was $187.99 - sounded like a good price to me so I bought it yesterday.  I don't expect to stream movies / YouTube (regardless of what the description says) but it's nice to be able to get to where you want to when you need to and not worry that you forgot to disconnect and burn up your minutes.

 

We also have T-Mobile unlimited and for the Panama Canal cruise, we have coverage in all countries at no extra charge for text/data (Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia). I've had very few instances where we weren't covered.  Love T-Mobile.

[esther e]

I see the Premium package is $211 for my 17-day cruise.  I want the Surf package though, but it doesn't seem to be offered -- perhaps because the cruise is too far out?  I'm wondering if I purchase the Premium, can I switch to the Surf when it's offered, or just wait for a few months?

[Cyclone99]

1 hour ago, esther e said:

I see the Premium package is $211 for my 17-day cruise.  I want the Surf package though, but it doesn't seem to be offered -- perhaps because the cruise is too far out?  I'm wondering if I purchase the Premium, can I switch to the Surf when it's offered, or just wait for a few months?

I don't think the Surf package has been offered as an advance purchase. If you want that one, you would need to buy it on board for the $179.99 shown on the chart.

[Epicureangirl]

I found this post particularly interesting since I have a daughter of the same age who will be doing Alaska with us in August.   I find it a bit scary that your question has turned into a commentary on kids today and parenting, I thought you were being quite considerate. 🙂  I just asked my daughter just now if she was worried about not having internet for the week and she said "No, for 7 days -- not at all".  She knows she'll be able to get some wifi in ports if she wants to post pictures or send a note to friends.  

 

Entertainment-wise, she took advantage of the old-school DVD library onboard, frequented cruise trivia and tried out some new (to her) board games with us or played cards. A lot of the entertainment will not be of interest (my daughter left part way through several shows), so you're smart to think she may need to keep herself busy a few evenings after dinner. Club HAL was good when she was in the younger age-group, but we haven't found a HAL itinerary yet where the teens usually frequent the club even though they can play video games there.  On longer itineraries the teens sometimes find each other and hang out and play cards and socialize, but I'm not sure the busy and short Alaska itinerary will be like that and it always depends how outgoing your child is.  Honestly it seems like there are only brief amounts of time free between each meal!

 

I should also mention my daughter has already done a 17 day cruise without internet and didn't die, complain or drive me nuts.  If she did a cruise that long again without ports that have reliable and free wifi, she DEFINITELY said would want some internet time. 

 

Do what's right for your family and enjoy your cruise!

[Moriah]

After going back and forth on this, I decided to go ahead and purchase the Premium internet for my 2 week cruise in August. The chart lists the price of "Surf" as $170 and Premium as $220, and buying Premium online costs $175 - only $5 more than getting Surf onboard, so I just went ahead and got it. One less thing to worry or think about on board. Having unlimited ability to check in with work or kids or whatever is nice.  I still think internet is "too expensive" on ships, but... it is what it is.