Quality of WIFI on Princess Cruises

[Moriac Mick]

I'm interested in any first hand experience that people have had with the onboard WIFI on Princess Cruises.

We are booked on a South Pacific cruise (Noumea, Mystery Island, Suva)

My understanding from friends is that the quality can be very poor but the Princess website seems to suggest it has improved a lot of late.

Many Thanks.

[Hogbay]

1 hour ago, Moriac Mick said:

I'm interested in any first hand experience that people have had with the onboard WIFI on Princess Cruises.

We are booked on a South Pacific cruise (Noumea, Mystery Island, Suva)

My understanding from friends is that the quality can be very poor but the Princess website seems to suggest it has improved a lot of late.

Many Thanks.

What's the weather going to be like when you're cruising those islands ? It's not a  wifi issue ,but a satellite issue  . 

[Kiwi_cruiser]

6 hours ago, Moriac Mick said:

I'm interested in any first hand experience that people have had with the onboard WIFI on Princess Cruises.

We are booked on a South Pacific cruise (Noumea, Mystery Island, Suva)

My understanding from friends is that the quality can be very poor but the Princess website seems to suggest it has improved a lot of late.

 

Welcome to the group Moriac Mick! 🙂

 

We did a relocation cruise from LA to Auckland on the Majestic Princess in October 2022, it was alright for the first few days of the cruise, and then it went to crap.

 

We got another Princess Cruise book for Christmas so I will be interested to see if its any better or still not very good.

[Tranquility Base]

Currently on Coral.

Internet good ( peak times ) to very good (off peak )

Noticeably better than 4 to 6 weeks ago.

Edited August 17, 2023 by Tranquility Base

[arxcards]

Generally their wi-fi is very good, with reliable reception around their ships.

 

Connecting to the rest of the world via internet can have problems, as mentioned.

Weather, location (not much coverage way south or way north), how good the ship tech is at tuning their gear to the relevant satellite(s) etc.

 

The big constraint on ship wifi internet has been latency (ping). The time it takes to communicate via satellite makes it seem like the connection is slow, when it is just about distance. The Princess ships have recently been updated with Starnet. These satellites are much closer than the previous technology, offering a quicker and more stable connection, and also faster DL speeds.

 

On our most recent cruise, Foxtel Go was IP blocked, as the ship is not "in Australia". On other Princess cruises last year, we were streaming Foxtel Go with no issues, so even the old technology was capable in the right conditions.

[Aus Traveller]

On the World Cruise on the Coral, the internet wasn't too bad at first, but when we got into the Mediterranean, it was terribly slow and kept dropping out. This continued for weeks. We were told that the ship would be switching to Starlink after Dover. Cabling was installed throughout the ship and when this was completed, the internet improved immeasurably. We were issued a partial credit for the earlier problems.

[ekka49]

13 hours ago, Tranquility Base said:

Currently on Coral.

Internet good ( peak times ) to very good (off peak )

Noticeably better than 4 to 6 weeks ago.

It will be interesting to know how the internet holds up, as you cross the Pacific Ocean.

 

[Porky55]

As Aus Traveller said, wifi has improved immeasurably since the change to Starlink. (And, I understand that only those who complained received partial credits 🙄)

 

We can now stream the Aus nightly news each morning, social media, photos, weather apps etc. 

 

Heard that Coral was the last to be upgraded to this new service, so if you have cruises booked on other Princess ships, wifi should be much better too.

 

And ekka49, we will see in the Pacific, but it's my understanding that Starlink has more satellites at a much lower altitude so we shouldn't see any loss of service 🤞 Will let you know.

Edited August 18, 2023 by Porky55