Couple of questions

[hlperez]

I am soon about to go on my first Marella cruise package to the Canaries and have a couple of questions:

Do they give you anything to eat or drink on the plane or do you have to purchase them?

Where can I book Wifi for the ship?  I can't find it on the Cruise Planner.

 

Thanks for your help.

[Jim The Scot]

Hi H,

 

You have to purchase eats and drinks on the plane

 

Cant help regards Wifi for the ship as have never used it,waited till we reached dry land

 

Enjoy your cruise

[AlanCruise]

You don't need to book WiFi in advance. Available on the ship - it's up to you to decide if you want to spend the money. You are in port for most days and can use the standard mobile phone connections, check what your phone company policy is now on roaming to the EU.

[davecttr]

Food and drink is provided on long haul flights but I don't think the Canaries is counted as a long haul flight. They are on sale aboard but yo can buy water and snacks etc once you are through security at the airport. It is over 4 hours to the Canaries.

[howmuch!]

We always use mobile data.

 

Reports I've seen on social media sites, suggest Marella wifi is very expensive and slow. There is an app onboard (navigate app) that uses ships wifi for free, which is quite useful for daily menus, drinks menus etc, as well as whats happening aboard, and you can keep tabs of your on-board account.

 

Enjoy the cruise, I'm sure you will be hooked by day 4.

[Kalynan]

I agree that the wifi on board is rubbish and not worth buying in my opinion.

 

This was clearly evident back in the time when Passenger Locator Forms had to be completed for assorted countries and to even return to the UK - Marella provided limited free wifi for passengers to compete these forms and the connectivity & upload speeds etc were completely rubbish.

[davecttr]

Why is the WiFi aboard rubbish if they have installed many Km of data cable and hundreds of WiFi hotspots in recent refits?

 

Because all the new infrastructure has been installed to improve the performance of the onboard Navigate App. Connection with the outside world is an important bottleneck because of the limited bandwidth capacity of the satellite connection, both in the number of users and the satellite latency which is the time it takes the signal to get to the satellite and back. Satellite latency is much slower than cable. 

 

Hundreds of people trying to connect at the same time does not help either.

[jaxw17]

No food and WIfI very expensive and slow use in ports. Remember to put your phone on airplane mode or you will be charged a fortune

[Tizzy-Jo]

My mobile supplier only charged £2 a day for roaming which I was more than happy with. As soon as I was off the ship I checked emails etc. The only day I couldn’t have it was sea day. I can live without wifi one day no probs. 

[pennib]

On Explorer at the moment. £90 for 2 weeks. Book it on the ship. I am glad we did as it has been pretty good. We like to download the daily Telegraph each day and this has been fine. You can only use 1 device at a time so you just have to remember to logout so that someone on another device can get on. You can use more than 1 but you have to buy a separate package for each one.

[nancyneptune]

On 11/10/2022 at 3:47 PM, hlperez said:

I am soon about to go on my first Marella cruise package to the Canaries and have a couple of questions:

Do they give you anything to eat or drink on the plane or do you have to purchase them?

Where can I book Wifi for the ship?  I can't find it on the Cruise Planner.

 

Thanks for your help.

 

 

We always purchase a meal deal airside to eat on the plane as they often run out of food and snacks on the plane or their is a limited choice.

[pennib]

Hi Nancyneptune. We have just come off Explorer round the Canaries again and loved it. You book your WiFi at reception desk on the ship. £90 for our 2 weeks. I found it OK and it was enough for what we wanted to do.  You don’t get anything on the plane. If you can have something to eat in the airport before you go. Drinks on the plane are not cheap buy hey ho, you are going on holiday. 
we love Explorer as it is a small ship. The food and service are excellent and we have booked the same trip for 2023. We have done around 25 cruises with various companies and consider what you get on Explorer is excellent value. We will have a good immediate comparison in a couple of weeks time as we will be on Britannia again. 

[Nokiaman]

Tui only provide food and drink on long haul holidays which they class as 7 hours plus so not even Cape Verde. 

I believe the WiFi is very expensive and you get small data amounts. 

I still have EU roaming on my phone so i use that when in New ports and sometimes cruising in the night depending on how close to shore. 

Might be best to check if u get free roaming still or pay £2 a day to use it which will be cheaper than the ships WiFi 

[Pensioncruiser]

Just follow the staff when docked they know location of free WiFi.