Anybody onboard currently?

[Toronto Guy]

6 minutes ago, tgg said:

On Onward in December, there was the usual loyalty discount on internet service but NO discount on the $ 7.95 high speed option.  

It seems they found a new way to get some more money out of us.

[tgg]

5 minutes ago, Toronto Guy said:

It seems they found a new way to get some more money out of us.

 

It was a good way to use some of the OBC on a 23 day cruise. Of course, It would have been even better to use it for a new watch.😉

[Toronto Guy]

40 minutes ago, tgg said:

 

It was a good way to use some of the OBC on a 23 day cruise. Of course, It would have been even better to use it for a new watch.😉

I think they need to start putting an asterisk on the loyalty discount as it's quite misleading. 

[roberts2005]

Still debating if it is worth it.   We are port intensive and ashore I have an ATT plan at $10 a day with a max of $100 for billing cycle.

[excitedofharpenden]

7 hours ago, Toronto Guy said:

I was not aware that there were 2 levels of internet available.  This could explain why it worked brilliantly on the Onward my first time (streaming movies in my cabin); and why it was worse than ever on the Onward 8 months later.  I didn't see the options on the website for this.  What are the prices?  Can you get loyalty discount on the high speed starlink option too?

I didn't know about it either, but read about it on this board. Once on the ship I could see it was advertised as available. 

 

Phil 

[excitedofharpenden]

7 hours ago, Toronto Guy said:

It seems they found a new way to get some more money out of us.

I have no issue paying extra for a higher level of service. Perfectly reasonable. It's how things work in life.

 

The new Azamara CEO intimated that free WiFi would be more widely available. I'm sure if this happens it will be the slower system with an option to pay extra for faster. I'm fine with that. If you offer faster for all then with the limits it slows it down for everyone. 

 

Phil 

[Scots Caz]

8 hours ago, Toronto Guy said:

I was not aware that there were 2 levels of internet available.  This could explain why it worked brilliantly on the Onward my first time (streaming movies in my cabin); and why it was worse than ever on the Onward 8 months later.  I didn't see the options on the website for this.  What are the prices?  Can you get loyalty discount on the high speed starlink option too?

I was also on Onward when Starlink was introduced and believe they opened it right up to test full functionality then subsequently limited the 'standard' and added the option to get workable speeds. 

Be aware though if you purchase the upgrade they add on a benefit for phone calls that appears on your OBC screen in the cabin. Caught a few people out that spent this credit elsewhere then found it was only good for phone calls so ended up paying $ for their purchases.

[Toronto Guy]

3 hours ago, Scots Caz said:

I was also on Onward when Starlink was introduced and believe they opened it right up to test full functionality then subsequently limited the 'standard' and added the option to get workable speeds. 

Be aware though if you purchase the upgrade they add on a benefit for phone calls that appears on your OBC screen in the cabin. Caught a few people out that spent this credit elsewhere then found it was only good for phone calls so ended up paying $ for their purchases.

Sorry, I'm not understanding what you mean about the phone calls.  Can you elaborate?

[excitedofharpenden]

3 hours ago, Scots Caz said:

I was also on Onward when Starlink was introduced and believe they opened it right up to test full functionality then subsequently limited the 'standard' and added the option to get workable speeds. 

Be aware though if you purchase the upgrade they add on a benefit for phone calls that appears on your OBC screen in the cabin. Caught a few people out that spent this credit elsewhere then found it was only good for phone calls so ended up paying $ for their purchases.

That's what it was!  I saw it and had no idea what it was about. 

 

Phil 

[fruitmachine]

9 hours ago, roberts2005 said:

Still debating if it is worth it.   We are port intensive and ashore I have an ATT plan at $10 a day with a max of $100 for billing cycle.

Does your phone support eSIMs?  If not, then it may be worth replacing it with the savings you will make.

An eSIM typically supports data but not voice and costs a tiny fraction of your home carrier's roaming costs.  I paid less than the equivalent of $20 for a 30 day bundle of 10GB data.  Even tethering my laptop, I used less than half of that in 10 days of cruising.  There are may options available from multiple suppliers.

 

Phones will let you use your 'home' SIM for voice simultaneously with an eSIM for data, so you can remain in voice contact for emergencies.

[uktog]

18 minutes ago, fruitmachine said:

Does your phone support eSIMs?  If not, then it may be worth replacing it with the savings you will make.

An eSIM typically supports data but not voice and costs a tiny fraction of your home carrier's roaming costs.  I paid less than the equivalent of $20 for a 30 day bundle of 10GB data.  Even tethering my laptop, I used less than half of that in 10 days of cruising.  There are may options available from multiple suppliers.

 

Phones will let you use your 'home' SIM for voice simultaneously with an eSIM for data, so you can remain in voice contact for emergencies.

Excellent advice - I used Airolo on my Japan intensive. Because we were relatively near land most of the time it also provided very good WiFi on a lot of the evenings whilst moving between ports. Like @fruitmachine I paid a low price. I went for 50gb for 30 days for €25 as we were using it as a navigation system during our land based trip. However we could have had a lot less. Even allowing for uploading all our photos and videos we only used 15gb 

[Toronto Guy]

I like going the e-sim route when in Europe and port intensive.  I walk a LOT on shore so using the data for navigation is a no-brainer, and when I walk too far having data for Uber access helps a lot too! 😉  That being said, a southern Caribbean port intensive itinerary was a different story entirely - the networks available in the Caribbean were really spotty and not reliable at all.

 

[aussie travel bird]

14 hours ago, excitedofharpenden said:

That's what it was!  I saw it and had no idea what it was about. 

 

Phil 

Phil strangely enough it's only a credit to use from your stateroom phone, how ridiculous....and yes lots of people have been caught out.

[Laganlady02]

On 6/4/2024 at 11:45 AM, roberts2005 said:

Thank you for your posts.  We board on Sunday.  Do you know who is the captain then?

Can you tell me who the Hotel Director is currently. 

Thanks

[aliaschief]

Just wanted to say how pleased we were in Barcelona last Sunday using Azamara transfer. Upon disembarkation we located our bags,there were porters available to cart luggage as we proceeded through immigration. Following immigration we dropped two bags to the Forward Luggage folks then proceeded to bus driven to airport and more porters available to assist to check in counter. Super efficient.

Those two Luggage Forward bags were delivered to our house yesterday three days later.

Luggage Forward is not cheap but we on the World Voyage had a $500.00 each credit as part of our booking.

We miss our Onward home and crew.