Internet speed & Reliability on Enchanted Princess

[mybagsarepacked]

Hello all,
We have booked on the Enchanted for this fall. My husband will be doing some work while on board and reliable and fast internet is a must. Several video reviews on YouTube are very complimentary of the ship-but report dreadful opinions regarding the reliability of the Internet. Any input greatly appreciated.

 

 

[AZjohn]

6 minutes ago, mybagsarepacked said:

Hello all,
We have booked on the Enchanted for this fall. My husband will be doing some work while on board and reliable and fast internet is a must. Several video reviews on YouTube are very complimentary of the ship-but report dreadful opinions regarding the reliability of the Internet. Any input greatly appreciated.

 

 

If reliability and fast internet is a must, then you best make other vacation plans.

I don’t want to come across blunt, but seriously just being honest from my personal experience.

You would be setting yourself up for major resentments.

Cheers

[antsp]

If reliable and fast is a requirement, don't go on a cruise. Its generally neither. 

[Rick&Jeannie]

30 minutes ago, mybagsarepacked said:

Hello all,
We have booked on the Enchanted for this fall. My husband will be doing some work while on board and reliable and fast internet is a must. Several video reviews on YouTube are very complimentary of the ship-but report dreadful opinions regarding the reliability of the Internet. Any input greatly appreciated.

 

 

Perhaps you could share what the itinerary is...that can make all the difference.

[ericosmith]

A couple of weeks ago it was reliable but certainly not fast.  There just doesn't seem to be enough bandwidth when everyone is awake and on the ship.  Trying to use a remote desktop for example was absolutely impossible most times.  Perhaps if he can do his work at 3:00am he might be ok.

[Valiamo]

43 minutes ago, mybagsarepacked said:

Hello all,
We have booked on the Enchanted for this fall. My husband will be doing some work while on board and reliable and fast internet is a must. Several video reviews on YouTube are very complimentary of the ship-but report dreadful opinions regarding the reliability of the Internet. Any input greatly appreciated.

 

 

Our last cruise (on Enchanted's sister ship the Discovery) had horrible internet service.  It was SLOW (less than 1 mbs service) and just trying to pull up an email was an exercise in waiting, and waiting and waiting.   There will be some pockets of better service (when passengers are on shore), but typically slow service. 

 

You will NOT get fast service.  At best it will limp along, it is good for the casual email, hit a forum or two but not much else.  Bandwidth is reserved for ships communications and their tools and passengers get the remnants. 

 

I work remote, lots of telecalls, collaborating on documents, prepping presentations and small uploads of final documents.  Had I tried to work on my past cruise, I would have failed.   

[suzyed]

18 minutes ago, Valiamo said:

Our last cruise (on Enchanted's sister ship the Discovery) had horrible internet service.  It was SLOW (less than 1 mbs service) and just trying to pull up an email was an exercise in waiting, and waiting and waiting.   There will be some pockets of better service (when passengers are on shore), but typically slow service. 

 

You will NOT get fast service.  At best it will limp along, it is good for the casual email, hit a forum or two but not much else.  Bandwidth is reserved for ships communications and their tools and passengers get the remnants. 

 

I work remote, lots of telecalls, collaborating on documents, prepping presentations and small uploads of final documents.  Had I tried to work on my past cruise, I would have failed.   

We're  just off the Enchanted and had no problems at all. 

[mevs904]

We’ll be on the Enchanted on the Mediterranean in April and do not have high expectations about the Internet.  Thankfully, we’ll only be using it for emails to our family.

[MissP22]

6 hours ago, suzyed said:

We're  just off the Enchanted and had no problems at all. 

We were on the Enchanted in early Jan (Caribbean) and unless you're referring to just emails or accessing small files/web pages in the early morning it's seemed to painfully slow once everyone was awake. 

When the speed dropped off to 50 Kbps it took me hours to download a 1 hour program from my provider starting at 4 AM when the speed was 1.7 to 2 Mbps. During a sea day I had a Zoom meeting at 1 PM & it disconnected so much I finally gave up.

 

[azbirdmom]

The Internet on the Enchanted in December was better than it was for us on the Discovery in July and October.  That said I don't think you can count on it being good enough for him to work on the ship.  Carnival Corp is starting to roll out service using the Starlink satellites but there hasn't been any announcement about when that will happen on Princess.  That should be a gamechanger when it does happen but for now if he absolutely needs to work, a land based vacation may be a better option.

[MissP22]

I read that the Grand is supposed to be the first Princess ship for Starlink. 

[LACruiser88]

2 minutes ago, MissP22 said:

I read that the Grand is supposed to be the first Princess ship for Starlink. 

Do you recall where you read that?  I have not been able to find any info on when Princess will start using Starlink???

[Rick&Jeannie]

13 hours ago, Valiamo said:

Bandwidth is reserved for ships communications and their tools and passengers get the remnants. 

Actually...I'm pretty sure that the ship has its own satellite channel for the critical/important comms that they require.  

[Valiamo]

38 minutes ago, Rick&Jeannie said:

Actually...I'm pretty sure that the ship has its own satellite channel for the critical/important comms that they require.  

I do agree with this... Safety of the ship is most important here and not a passengers ability to view an email or post a photo.   

 

From the ships I have been on,  overall service is not reliable enough to be able to conduct business (eg: work remotely), yes one can read an email, but to work that is a different story.

 

[Happy2cruise]

14 hours ago, suzyed said:

We're  just off the Enchanted and had no problems at all. 

Same here when we did our December cruise on the Enchanted.

[MissP22]

2 hours ago, LACruiser88 said:

Do you recall where you read that?  I have not been able to find any info on when Princess will start using Starlink???

It might have been on YouTube.  Don's or Tony's channel.

[Shelly97060]

Don’t expect the ship internet to be anything like what you are use to on land as far as speed.  Emails without attachments generally send and receive but anything with an attachment is slow.  Large files are very challenging to open, send or receive. Website pages with lots of graphics ( photos) are very slow.  Internet messaging seems to work well in most instances but WiFi calling can be hit or miss. 
 

much if the reliability depends on where ship is and how many people are actively using the internet ( very early mornings and very late at night it seems faster to me).  YMMV of course.

[Rick&Jeannie]

Deleted...

Edited January 27, 2023 by Rick&Jeannie

[Rick&Jeannie]

3 hours ago, LACruiser88 said:

Do you recall where you read that?  I have not been able to find any info on when Princess will start using Starlink???

https://www.cruisehive.com/spacexs-starlink-rolls-out-across-carnival-cruise-brands/92632

[LACruiser88]

22 minutes ago, Rick&Jeannie said:

https://www.cruisehive.com/spacexs-starlink-rolls-out-across-carnival-cruise-brands/92632

I was the one that posted the original press release from Carnival Corp regarding the contract with Starlink last week. There is no mention as to which Princess ships will be the first to implement Starlink or when this will occur. 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 27, 2023 by LACruiser88

[Rick&Jeannie]

1 minute ago, LACruiser88 said:

I was the one that posted the original press release from Carnival Corp regarding the contract with Starlink last week. There is no mention as to which Princess ships will be the first to implement Starlink or when this will occur. 

Sorry!  I missed the comment from MissP22 in reference to the Grand "being the first".  Yeah, I've not heard anything about a potential list.  Can't wait, though!

[Jimmys Chippy]

Currently on the Enchanted, it’s better than it was on here back in May 2022, much better than on the Sky in September 2021.

[Thrak]

1 hour ago, MissP22 said:

It might have been on YouTube.  Don's or Tony's channel.

 

Can you perhaps locate this info again? I would be really interested in finding out if Grand is really to be the first Princess ship to receive this update and when I can expect that to happen. (We are booked on Grand for 32 days this fall.)

[mybagsarepacked]

10 hours ago, Jimmys Chippy said:

Currently on the Enchanted, it’s better than it was on here back in May 2022, much better than on the Sky in September 2021.

This is quite encouraging, Thank you so much.

 

[mybagsarepacked]

On 1/26/2023 at 10:34 PM, Valiamo said:

Our last cruise (on Enchanted's sister ship the Discovery) had horrible internet service.  It was SLOW (less than 1 mbs service) and just trying to pull up an email was an exercise in waiting, and waiting and waiting.   There will be some pockets of better service (when passengers are on shore), but typically slow service. 

 

You will NOT get fast service.  At best it will limp along, it is good for the casual email, hit a forum or two but not much else.  Bandwidth is reserved for ships communications and their tools and passengers get the remnants. 

 

I work remote, lots of telecalls, collaborating on documents, prepping presentations and small uploads of final documents.  Had I tried to work on my past cruise, I would have failed.   

Thank you so much for weighing in. He may just decide to take some actual vacay time for this one… appreciate your response so much.

Stacy