Recent reports of Internet speeds along the Cali Coast/Mex Riv?

[Honolulu Blue]

Hi all.  I had great Internet (for a ship) on my trip on the Regal in December to/from Amber Cove, but I've heard distressing reports of bad or missing Internet on more recent cruises on other Princess ships.  

 

I have a cruise on the Majestic in a week and I'm seeking recent reports of the Internet along the Pacific Coast, as that is where we will be sailing.  I'm thinking of purchasing Internet access, and I obviously won't bother if it can't be relied on.  

 

Thanks in advance for your help!

[startedwithamouse]

3 hours ago, Honolulu Blue said:

Hi all.  I had great Internet (for a ship) on my trip on the Regal in December to/from Amber Cove, but I've heard distressing reports of bad or missing Internet on more recent cruises on other Princess ships.  

 

I have a cruise on the Majestic in a week and I'm seeking recent reports of the Internet along the Pacific Coast, as that is where we will be sailing.  I'm thinking of purchasing Internet access, and I obviously won't bother if it can't be relied on.  

 

Thanks in advance for your help!

Internet on CA Coastal cruises is perfect.  

[riffatsea]

I had no trouble with internet along California coast

[rj59]

For the 7-day coastal cruises, you'll spend a lot of time in US ports, so it might be worth spending your sea days without internet. There's free wifi just outside the Ensenada port too--just find the groups of crew sitting and surfing, or your cell phone provider might include Mexican data. I never had problems with internet in Mexico on the Majestic, and the only times I've heard of limited internet/tv is on Alaska cruises. 

[Cuedon]

California Coast on the Majestic has been fine... Mexico is barely functional.

 

It has to do with the number of people on board. Yesterday, turnover day, it was fine until around 1PM, then it mostly died for a few hours, before settling at slow.

 

The other thing about CaliCoast is that you have a decent shot at getting cellular access, so for a long stretch, I just used that (which was far faster), even when in the middle of nowhere. 

[Honolulu Blue]

3 hours ago, startedwithamouse said:

Internet on CA Coastal cruises is perfect.  

 

3 hours ago, riffatsea said:

I had no trouble with internet along California coast

 

Thanks.  This is encouraging.

 

1 hour ago, Cuedon said:

California Coast on the Majestic has been fine... Mexico is barely functional.

 

It has to do with the number of people on board. Yesterday, turnover day, it was fine until around 1PM, then it mostly died for a few hours, before settling at slow.

 

The other thing about CaliCoast is that you have a decent shot at getting cellular access, so for a long stretch, I just used that (which was far faster), even when in the middle of nowhere. 

 

2 hours ago, rj59 said:

For the 7-day coastal cruises, you'll spend a lot of time in US ports, so it might be worth spending your sea days without internet. There's free wifi just outside the Ensenada port too--just find the groups of crew sitting and surfing, or your cell phone provider might include Mexican data. I never had problems with internet in Mexico on the Majestic, and the only times I've heard of limited internet/tv is on Alaska cruises. 

 

Also thanks for these notes.  The other factor, of course, in Internet access on this cruise for me is that I'll almost certainly have 4G/5G access while in port (except for Mexico), and two of the port stops are quite long.

 

I'm intrigued by the reports that the cell towers can sometimes reach the ship even while at sea.  I assume we're at least 12 miles away from the coast as much as possible so we can run the casino as much as possible.  I don't think I'll try it though; too much potential for roaming and its related interruptions and potential nightmarish data bills.

[Astro Flyer]

This was the speed along the California coast between LA & SF on Discovery. Same speed along the Baja coast between LA & Cabo.

 

[Honolulu Blue]

1 minute ago, Astro Flyer said:

This was the speed along the California coast between LA & SF on Discovery. Same speed along the Baja coast between LA & Cabo.

 

 

Thanks.  That's fairly good for a ship.  But I usually hit double digits down on the Regal.

[Astro Flyer]

Just now, Honolulu Blue said:

 

Thanks.  That's fairly good for a ship.  But I usually hit double digits down on the Regal.

I only used it for email & internet and it worked fine. Although wouldn’t agree with their quote from a passenger they used on their MedallionNet webpage that the passenger barely noticed the difference from at home.

[Cuedon]

The entire Channel Islands area gave me good reception on cell (that is to say, between Santa Barbara and LA) and, for some reason, my phone thinks I parked my car where we anchored to tender. In the ocean. If you use a prepaid service, there shouldn't be any problems with roaming... They can't exactly pull more money out of you, after all; it just doesn't work. 

[cr8tiv1]

1 hour ago, Astro Flyer said:

I only used it for email & internet and it worked fine. Although wouldn’t agree with their quote from a passenger they used on their MedallionNet webpage that the passenger barely noticed the difference from at home.

 

That's about the speed I have at home....lol....No high speed internet for me.  Love it when I visit my kids and they have super sonic speed.  

[Ken the cruiser]

2 hours ago, Astro Flyer said:

This was the speed along the California coast between LA & SF on Discovery. Same speed along the Baja coast between LA & Cabo.

 

Just for comparison when we were on Celebrity for 9 Caribbean cruise legs since cruising started back up, the best download speeds we were getting with their Streaming internet service, which you had to pay extra for unless you were in a suite, was around 2.8 mbps. So, from that comparison, Princess does have the best internet at sea! 😂
 

Edited April 17, 2022 by Ken the cruiser

[shellbeachjim]

We’re currently on the Grand, and the speed is terrible. We’re on our way back from Hawaii, the day before Ensenada. Here’s the speed test I just ran. I’d say this was typical for the entire cruise. This isn’t dialup speed, but comparable to when DSL first became available years ago. 
 

[victory2020]

We were able to use internet calling on the Grand in Mexico & the coast

[Cuedon]

I feel like speed tests don't quite accurately represent the reality of things onboard: During the Mex->Cali turnover when pretty much nobody was on board yet, I had a connection report itself as 0.04mbps (and upwards of 2mbps upstream), when, minutes later, I had a download come in at about 1.2mb/sec. Same device, did NOT have a burden on the connection during the test, didn't attempt to refresh the connection.

[highloyo]

When I was on the Majestic Mar 5 to Mexican Riviera the internet was not very good. It would cut off constantly as well as very slow when connected. The IT people were not much help and explained its a bad connection area to satellites. 

[shellbeachjim]

As a follow up to my post yesterday, here are the latest speed test results while in port in Ensenada. Basic DSL when first introduced years ago was 384Kbps. 
 

[Ken the cruiser]

3 minutes ago, shellbeachjim said:

As a follow up to my post yesterday, here are the latest speed test results while in port in Ensenada. Basic DSL when first introduced years ago was 384Kbps. 
 

Wow! And you can still log onto cruise critic and post pictures like this one at that low of a speed. Interesting.

[shellbeachjim]

4 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Wow! And you can still log onto cruise critic and post pictures like this one at that low of a speed. Interesting.

Amazing, isn’t it? The image is 366KB, and took several seconds to upload. I didn’t put a stopwatch on it, but probably about 20 seconds. Our cruise ends tomorrow so we’ll be back home to normal speeds. The slow internet is annoying, but in the end doesn’t detract from the enjoyment of our cruise. 

[Honolulu Blue]

UPDATE: I purchased Internet on the Majestic Princess half an hour ago for the rest of the cruise. Attached is the faster of my two speed tests. Not half bad, IMHO. We're currently off the coast of San Francisco.

[Ken the cruiser]

26 minutes ago, Honolulu Blue said:

UPDATE: I purchased Internet on the Majestic Princess half an hour ago for the rest of the cruise. Attached is the faster of my two speed tests. Not half bad, IMHO. We're currently off the coast of San Francisco.

We'll be boarding the Caribbean Princess later today and it will be interesting to see what the speeds will be on our Panama Canal cruise from SF to FTL.

[justafem]

Just got off a B2B on the Ruby. 

 

The first leg, the internet didn't work for 3 out of 5 days, the other 2 days we were in port.  No TV other than the wake show (which is filmed and streamed on ship), no room service and no medallion service.

 

Second leg, internet was slow, medallion was hit or miss, but room service and TV was better, with several loading issues.  I'd say internet mostly worked 5 of the 7 days.  

 

Overall, ordering drinks or food with medallion wasn't dependable, but you could go online, slowly, more like old-fashioned dial-up for the majority of the trip.  Scanners worked about 50% of the time, so room numbers had to be taken at coffee bars and booze bars.  But the doors did open, so there's that.

[AF-1]

Sailed Grand to Cabo from LA and internet was great both ways.  

[Ken the cruiser]

Here are the download speeds for our first day on the Caribbean Princess. 
 

While in port in SF at Pier 27

 

 

I did another speed test after we set sail and were on the high seas off the CA coast heading south. It was around 2.9 mbps. 

 

 

[caribill]

19 hours ago, justafem said:

Just got off a B2B on the Ruby. 

 

The first leg, the internet didn't work for 3 out of 5 days, the other 2 days we were in port.  No TV other than the wake show (which is filmed and streamed on ship), no room service and no medallion service.

 

 

 

Any known reason there was no room service?