Starlink rolling out, please post ship, latency, and bandwidth you are seeing.

[outtoseacruise]

Last week it looks like they flipped the switch on Discovery Princess and Starlink was spotted onboard. While I was on Grand Princess and Royal Princess last week I was able to confirm with officers the equipment to install was brought onboard last week and the install technicians were there to install it. What I was told on both ships is they expect to have it operational on these ships sometime this month. I would also assume that they are also in the process of installing it on other ships in the fleet in the next month +/-?

 

If we could use this thread for those of us that need the Starlink to be able to work from sea and post the ship (Princess), latency, and bandwidth that others are finding onboard only please (not looking for what your getting at home or at your office). I know there are others like myself that need to know this type of information to determine if they can work on a specific ship in different locations. 

[Rick&Jeannie]

A poster currently on the Sky shared pics of Starlink antennas... She is just out of a dry dock. We will be boarding her on Saturday. 

[outtoseacruise]

36 minutes ago, Rick&Jeannie said:

A poster currently on the Sky shared pics of Starlink antennas... She is just out of a dry dock. We will be boarding her on Saturday. 

I would appreciate if you can post your findings on performance once onboard and throughout the cruise. It will be interesting to see what you get while docked and a day or 2 after you leave port. Unfortunately based on both coverage maps it probably won't be the best coverage if it is active with Starlink.

[antsp]

Does the above map images mean it won't wort in Norway

[Yehootu]

Looks like it'll be good for TA. Hopefully Regal will be online in Sept/Oct so I can stream football😃

[outtoseacruise]

2 hours ago, antsp said:

Does the above map images mean it won't wort in Norway

That is a good question, I presently have friends on a ship doing the transpacific that has Starlink and it hasn't been any better than old o3b from SES.

Since September I have sailed on 5 ships with Starlink in the Bahamas and Caribbean. 3 of those ships performed great between bandwidth and latency. 2 of those ships continue to struggle to offer the old performance from o3b (SES). 3 of those ships I sail often since I can work on them. The other 2 ships I avoid at all costs.

[SleepyBunny]

Sapphire has starlink now. Happy with speed in general and was easily able to backup pictures, access email, browse web/post to social media. I was also able to run payroll for my workplace with ease from Glacier Bay (normally a very demanding and tricky thing)! We were even able to FaceTime and watch YouTube during off-peak times - very impressed overall!

[Bgwest]

Excellent idea for a thread!!😃

[outtoseacruise]

4 hours ago, SleepyBunny said:

Sapphire has starlink now. Happy with speed in general and was easily able to backup pictures, access email, browse web/post to social media. I was also able to run payroll for my workplace with ease from Glacier Bay (normally a very demanding and tricky thing)! We were even able to FaceTime and watch YouTube during off-peak times - very impressed overall!

If you have any of the latency and bandwidth results can you please post? I was wondering if they added it in the Seattle drydock. 

[billco]

I was on the recent Sapphire Princess Alaskan cruise. Performance was better than what I had gotten in the past at that latitude with SES, but not great. Surprisingly, when back in Vancouver, I noticed we were back on SES.

[outtoseacruise]

26 minutes ago, billco said:

I was on the recent Sapphire Princess Alaskan cruise. Performance was better than what I had gotten in the past at that latitude with SES, but not great. Surprisingly, when back in Vancouver, I noticed we were back on SES.

It's a start and a lot better than o3b/SES. I have seen 2 ships where that has been the normal with the Starlink onboard. The attached images show the true potential Starlink has and is capable of at sea. I am not looking for perfection and I am happy with any of the below tests that allow me to work while onboard. The thing I haven't been able to figure out why 1 ship next to another in the same port can get the below results and the ship next to it gets results that are like what you have? From your results I feel it is the minimum I would need to be able to work without issues.

[RedIguana]

18 hours ago, antsp said:

Does the above map images mean it won't wort in Norway

The map shows some coverage there. But don't be surprised if there are dead spots when in the fjords, when the walls block line of sight to the satellites.

[roadster08]

Your question is reasonable but it is impossible to make assumptions without us knowing what are the fair use policies that starlink and Princess are setting for usage. There is not going to be unlimited bandwidth, and we all know that if people are going to stream video in HD or 4K and some users are trying to surf email, there will be problems unless starlink and/or princess put limitations on how much bandwidth each cruiser will be able to use.

 

So for now, the right question is what are the fair use policies that are going to be put on individual users? We don't even know how much bandwidth Princess has signed up for with starlink. 

[Rick&Jeannie]

2 hours ago, roadster08 said:

So for now, the right question is what are the fair use policies that are going to be put on individual users? We don't even know how much bandwidth Princess has signed up for with starlink. 

And it is likely that we will *never* have those details. 

[Mercruiser]

Great thread idea!

 

I've seen "drydock" mentioned a couple of times here. It might be convenient to install during a drydock, but it's not required. Azamara did most of their installs during a normal cruise deployment. I went on one Azamara cruise (Peru to Miami) in Feb with Starlink. It was very impressive.

 

I am surprised to see the 6 (?) Starlink antennas in the photo.  That would be some serious bandwidth if they all ran simultaneously. Very nice!

 

I'll be on Island Princess next month in Norway. I assume no Starlink yet on that ship. It's also a seriously far north cruise (> 60 degrees lat)  so most of it would only work with the relatively few Starlink polar orbit satellites.

 

Fortunately, it is a port intensive cruise so I'll be using Google Fi Unlimited Plus on my phone, and Airalo Europe eSIM on my DWs phone.

Edited May 11, 2023 by Mercruiser

[MileHighAko]

Was on Discovery last week. Was also on Discovery last September. The internet in Alaska was completely unusable last September. Last week I was consistently getting up to 2.5 Mbps in speed tests, never more, but never less than approx. 1.5 or 1.8 (I failed to take any screen shots, sorry). I think they're traffic shaping to make sure that there is minimum bandwidth for all, which is just fine because at 2.5 we were able to use websites just fine (sometimes a little slow), streamed a movie once or twice for the toddler, and even use FaceTime (video calls usually worked okay, but audio calls worked great). Was very pleased compared to the terrible experience last year.

[MissP22]

.

[Ynox]

Sky Princess has Starlink. Working very well and a game changer for me.

[Gracie115]

Different cruiseline but last November we were on Celebrity Apex with LOUSY internet for the entire TA.  Just off the Apex again 3 days ago after another TA and the new Starlink system was amazing the entire trip, never lost signal once over 15 days. Huge improvement.  No reason to think Princess ships would be any different.

[cruiserdf]

We got off the Discovery Princess on April 26th.  Many folks said that starlink was turned on.  I am not certain.  If it was, then there is an issue using Yahoo mail with starlink.  Yahoo mail would begin to load and then stop, rendering it useless.  I could only connect to Yahoo mail via cellphone as a hotspot in port.  The Internet Manager said it was not a Medallion.net issue.  He said gmail 'generally' would load and to use gmail.  I am not sure if he didn't understand you can't just switch which email service you use.  Overall speed was generally acceptable, other than not being able to access Yahoo Mail..

[Jeter02]

1 hour ago, cruiserdf said:

We got off the Discovery Princess on April 26th.  Many folks said that starlink was turned on.  I am not certain.  If it was, then there is an issue using Yahoo mail with starlink.  Yahoo mail would begin to load and then stop, rendering it useless.  I could only connect to Yahoo mail via cellphone as a hotspot in port.  The Internet Manager said it was not a Medallion.net issue.  He said gmail 'generally' would load and to use gmail.  I am not sure if he didn't understand you can't just switch which email service you use.  Overall speed was generally acceptable, other than not being able to access Yahoo Mail..

I was on the Discovery April 22-26. Internet t seemed to work just fine, but like you said yahoo mail wouldn't exactly load properly for the emails. I unfortunately did not attempt to stream a movie on the phone, which I wish I did. I'll be back on her in July. 

[GonzoWCS]

4 hours ago, Ynox said:

Sky Princess has Starlink. Working very well and a game changer for me.

Encouraging, thanks

 

Cheers

[jimd909]

Hoping it will be on Emerald Princess in July for the CA Costal.

[bagney]

Any update for the Grand Princess? We are boarding in less than two weeks.

[gamja]

Currently on the Carribean. No starlink yet.