Heads Up: Sky Princess Wifi has no wifi

[Unicorn and Rainbows]

Sky Princess has no internet. We're on day 10 of a 16 day cruise and have not had internet since we embarked.

Starting in Fort Lauderdale, internet has not been working.

Simple WhatsApp messages may work, short texts may work. Might take a while, but for the most part they will eventually be sent. Sending/receiving photos/attachments doesn't seem to work. 

Medallion is not working.

Ship is in Funchal, Portugal today, March 20th, and pax have been advised to use the wifi at the terminal.

I am typing this from a spot in the terminal. It is crowded. 

Just a heads up.

 

 

[LunaSeaRetreat]

32 minutes ago, Unicorn and Rainbows said:

Sky Princess has no internet. We're on day 10 of a 16 day cruise and have not had internet since we embarked.

Starting in Fort Lauderdale, internet has not been working.

Simple WhatsApp messages may work, short texts may work. Might take a while, but for the most part they will eventually be sent. Sending/receiving photos/attachments doesn't seem to work. 

Medallion is not working.

Ship is in Funchal, Portugal today, March 20th, and pax have been advised to use the wifi at the terminal.

I am typing this from a spot in the terminal. It is crowded. 

Just a heads up.

 

 

Thanks for the update. We had to cancel this cruise last month and was wondering how things were going.  Enjoy your day in Funchal.

Cynthia

[Eglesbrech]

Thanks for the information. Have they indicated when this likely to sorted?
 

How are they managing things without the medallion eg opening your stateroom?

[minnesotasisu]

1 hour ago, Eglesbrech said:

Thanks for the information. Have they indicated when this likely to sorted?
 

How are they managing things without the medallion eg opening your stateroom?

two totally different things. The MedallionNet internet, the MedallionClass app, and the Medallion itself are often confused as all being one in the same. They are different. They may act together at times but do not necessarily rely on each other always.

 

 

Edited March 21, 2022 by minnesotasisu
added info

[Eglesbrech]

6 minutes ago, minnesotasisu said:

two totally different things. The MedallionNet internet, the MedallionClass app, and the Medallion itself are often confused as all being one in the same. They are different. They may act together at times but do not necessarily rely on each other always.

 

 

Thanks for that explanation, appreciated.  So the op has reported that both the WiFi and the medallion are not working. Two systems then.

 

I was interested in the practical affects which these system problems have  on passengers (if any) and perhaps the op may be able to tell me.

 

Hopefully it all fixed and back to normal soon anyway.

[Kmkub]

Wow. That's kind of scary. My husband usually has to work while we cruise. Have they provided any explanation? 

 

I guess that's a question for when you disembark. 

 

 

[Coffeeluvr05]

Oh man, what a bummer! Me and my hubs would be super bummed to be on a transatlantic without wifi.  I hope that it is not affecting the ship's intranet...meaning, room service/ocean now and general use of its internal system.  

[Gondaue]

I'm onboard, too. 

The MedallionNet internet, and the MedallionClass app have not worked for the entire cruise.

A number of us who work for a living are spending our one day in Funchal not seeing the island but working in the terminal because we need access to the internet in order to do business. The terminal staff has been wonderful. WiFi speed in the terminal is blazing, thank goodness.

Not a peep from the Captain or Cruise Director addressing the lack of WiFi or updating pax on what to expect.

I take that back -CD Andi (who is in desperate need of elocution lessons) has joked about it.

For those of us who counted on "Best WiFi at Sea", it's not a laughing matter.

The chatter is that there will be no internet for the entire cruise.

No intranet, either.

Limited tv, too.

 

[MN Syrup Cruiser]

Greetings from the Regal Princess.  We, too, are on a trans Atlantic cruise (departed FLL on March12).  And, as the passengers on the Sky, we have not had internet for the entire crossing.  We are now one day away from Cadiz, Spain.  So, ten days without internet.  It is now very spotty at best.  Princess has refunded all charges for purchased internet.  

[delphis98]

Just now, Eglesbrech said:

Thanks for the information. Have they indicated when this likely to sorted?
 

How are they managing things without the medallion eg opening your stateroom?

Medallion opens stateroom but the " medallion class app " doesn't work at all.  That's the app for ordering stuff with your phone, communicating with travel partners etc

 

[delphis98]

Just now, MN Syrup Cruiser said:

Greetings from the Regal Princess.  We, too, are on a trans Atlantic cruise (departed FLL on March12).  And, as the passengers on the Sky, we have not had internet for the entire crossing.  We are now one day away from Cadiz, Spain.  So, ten days without internet.  It is now very spotty at best.  Princess has refunded all charges for purchased internet.  

Thanks for this. We have heard gossip on sky princess that it's an issue with a satellite affecting all transatlantic voyages, and we've also heard it's a part needed on this ship. No official explanation or timeline for repair has been given.  Questions to guest services are met with no new info.  Not sure if they don't know what's wrong or just aren't saying.   ATM doesn't work either. Does your atm work? Seems internet related .

[Gondaue]

"We have heard gossip on sky princess that it's an issue with a satellite affecting all transatlantic voyages".

Nonsense. Satellites are working fine on other cruise lines crossing the Atlantic.

[LACruiser88]

Sounds like refunds are in order for those who purchased the Plus Package and Internet packages.  They should also add some FCC's for the inconvenience.

[Peira]

FCC's? No thank you. I have no plans to cruise this line again. Pax have been told $ spent on WiFi will turn into OBC. No thank you. I want refund to my cc. Where is the Captain in all of this? I'm not interested in garbled messages about how many fathoms are in the sea. I also need internet in my line of business. If there won't be internet for the entire time, be upfront and tell us.

The whole thing is fishy. Have bills not been paid? Inquiring minds want to know.

 

[reedprincess]

4 hours ago, Unicorn and Rainbows said:

Sky Princess has no internet. We're on day 10 of a 16 day cruise and have not had internet since we embarked.

Starting in Fort Lauderdale, internet has not been working.

Simple WhatsApp messages may work, short texts may work. Might take a while, but for the most part they will eventually be sent. Sending/receiving photos/attachments doesn't seem to work. 

Medallion is not working.

Ship is in Funchal, Portugal today, March 20th, and pax have been advised to use the wifi at the terminal.

I am typing this from a spot in the terminal. It is crowded. 

Just a heads up.

 

 

What are you doing for all the medallion functions - getting into cabin, ordering drinks, casino, etc if the Medallion isn't working? Sounds like an absolute nightmare..

 

And for all of you who've jumped in (or want to clarify yet again) that medallion and MedallionClass app and MedallionNet are three different things - I know. Truly, I do.  However, the OP clearly states, Medallion is not working.

 

As for internet and app - that's a severe blow to the cruisers. I'd be rightly upset to irate also, particularly if I had needed to do some work, etc while aboard.. and to not have any communication at all is unacceptable.. it's quite out of character for the line to be so closed mouth with such a major issue aboard..

 

OP - and others - I sincerely hope there's some resolution for you very soon.  

[azbirdmom]

Someone on another forum posted this excerpt from an email that they received from Princess four days prior to the Sky transatlantic.  Another poster on the ship said that they changed coms companies and that's why it doesn't work.  Not sure if that's just another rumor but it's clear that the outage is affecting all TA cruises.

 

[Peira]

Yes, I received that email, 4 days before the cruise began. I trusted Princess when they said "Internet will be available during your cruise, but because there may be times..." I can deal with internet being occasionally down, after all we are crossing the Atlantic. No internet at all is a different animal altogether.

 

 

[delphis98]

No room service, as of a day or two ago. Network issue. 

[azbirdmom]

I just watched the video about MedallionNet on the Princess website to see if they said anything about transatlantic cruises posing a problem.  Nope!  In fact it should be good as it's covered by the faster MEO satellites as well as the older GEO network as a backup per the screenshot from the video.  So clearly something isn't going how it should, and they knew about it beforehand.

 

[Tracyken]

I’m on the next Sky cruise.  I do hope this is fixed.  At the very least Princess need to be honest about it.  I’m in the middle of a building project and have said I’ll be contactable.

[arizonaperson]

This was posted-Live from the Sky prior to the voyage by Rick & Jeannie.(I think their flight  was cancelled,so I believe they missed the ship )

 Many years ago when my husband was on his first platinum voyage and got the free 250 minutes ,the Internet was down most of the cruise and he was very disappointed that he couldn’t use his free minutes. We begged and begged to have some sort of credit for this even though it was “free “,but princess would not budge on board at all. So frustrating that princess is saying they have the best Wi-Fi on board but sometimes stuff happens. 

 

 

We were notified by Princess last night about the need to fill out the UK Personal Locator Form along with the fact that we are going to have issues with internet service.  Here is an excerpt from that email:

 

Regarding internet service levels, as you may be aware, as a ship moves across the Atlantic its antennas routinely shift between satellites that cover specific regions of the globe, which can result in low to no connectivity.

Internet service will be available during your journey, but because there may be times when you may be unable to connect during your cruise we will refund the cost of pre-purchased MedallionNet® Wi-Fi packages as onboard credit. For guests who purchased Princess Plus, we will refund $10 USD per day as onboard credit, plus any pre-purchased MedallionNet device upgrades.

 

A lot of people on the roll call have been surprised by this.  This was the case on the Regal when it did its transatlantic coming to the US back in November.  After about one day after the Azores we were notified by a letter in our cabin that we would essentially have limited to no service until we got very close to Fort Lauderdale.  Since the Sky is basically doing the same route in reverse...we have the same issue.

 

So...don't expect a lot pf posts after about the first day until about day 6.  It *is* possible to get short messages out but I never had a lot of success with pictures back in November.  We'll do what we can, though!

Edited March 21, 2022 by arizonaperson

[PescadoAmarillo]

But somehow I was able to stream video in 2019 on the Ruby Princess transpacific all the way from LA to Sydney. You’d think if there were going to satellite issues they would be in that area that is far less travelled. 

[Thrak]

In 2019 we sailed from 14 days Barcelona to Florida on Emerald Princess. At that time they were touting the new Medallion Net Internet service on the ship. We had almost zero connectivity for most of the cruise. It seems that the TA cruises simply don't get any decent satellite connectivity. We had a lot of unhappy passengers.

[travelers07]

7 minutes ago, PescadoAmarillo said:

But somehow I was able to stream video in 2019 on the Ruby Princess transpacific all the way from LA to Sydney. You’d think if there were going to satellite issues they would be in that area that is far less travelled. 

Yes- way more than satellite issue. And as someone said earlier, no more room service on the tv or app. 
 

At least I had T Mobile for the day. Wonderful!

 

Captain just announced change- substituting Gibraltar for Casablanca. Not surprised.

[Alcairns]

Another passenger on board reported that they were  waiting a part that was due to be delivered to Ponta Delgado.