Free at Sea upgrade Internet only. Transatlantic Rome to Florida Internet service

[trisha1165]

Hi All! I've been told I'm able to book NCL Epic Transatlantic Rome to FL so long as I work while sailing. This would be a HUGE bucket list tick for me so I'm looking for advise from "frequent cruisers". I'd like to know NCL price to upgrade just the internet from my Free at Sea. Second, anyone who has sailed Italy, France & across the Atlantic, recently - is there a good enough connection to access "insurance company webpages", as a prime example. I've spoken with 2 NCL reps over the phone but neither were able to answer these questions so I'm trying my luck her. Thanks for your help 🙂

[Phoenixon]

Can't speak to speed but should be around $400USD per person to upgrade to the unlimited premium wifi. Don't believe you can purchase it for only one traveller (based on double occupancy).

Edited October 19, 2023 by Phoenixon

[mking8288]

@trisha1165  Did our eastbound TA on the Epic in late April this year and satellite WiFi worked mostly for us, on the upgraded basic, unlimited plan.  Depending on the # of cruise days and your free ' FAS" airtime minutes, you get a trade-in allowance, typically $100 if it's for 150 minutes and higher $125 or $150 for 300 minutes, against the unlimited plans - currently priced at $30 per day.  For example, if your crossing is for 11 days or 12 days, it's $330 or $360 less $100 trade-in credit, net cost based on current pricing is about $230 or $260.  

 

To get your "work" done - have to assume that you are using the newer/newest laptop or notebook PC, supporting WiFi 5 (802.11.ac) and better yet, WiFi 6 (802.11.ax) and Plus (higher) to make full use of dual band WiFi onboard.  Starlink has NOT roll out to the Epic, scheduled for sometime in 2024 - apparently, NCL is upgrading the hardware & activating them while the fleet is in Europe,  EMC was the provider and on a good day, we managed to pull 5 to 7 Mbps download, 3 to 5 Mbps upload but sometimes better, YMMV.  Of course, there're times that we got really poor speed as it is NOT a guarantee and overall speaking, worked about 95% of the time, there're a few hours of outage, mainly between the Azores & EU mainland before we reached the coastlines of Portugal & Africa - said to be known "interference" (translation - little to no overhead satellite coverage) 

 

Have been using NCL's satellite WiFi for over 20 years, back to the good old ethernet Cat-5 days when it was painfully slow, connectivity has improved but it can be better.  If you follow the Signature link at the bottom here, you can browse & find related speed, results & how things measured up 6 months ago with the Epic Semi-Live trip report. 

 

BTW, premium WiFi does NOT give you faster speed nor priority, the difference is that it unblocked certain http ports (tcp/udp) and VPN access - for best results, disabled background upload & cloud storage use while on satellite.  If you are doing this for work, just "expense" it as it is then work-related & reimbursement claim should be valid.  With time zone differences changing en route, you should be able to get a good stretch of time to log-in and get the work done, as long as you aren't expecting continuous, non-interrupted access ... this isn't your Fios and/or cable broadband access with 32 or 64 nodes, rather dynamically shared & cached, up to 2,000 cabins.  

 

Good luck ! 

[jules181]

I did the NYC to Rome transatlantic in 2023 on the Escape.  I was not planning to work on the trip but had some emails come in that needed attention using my phone only. The internet was completely unreliable for approximately 2 days in the middle of the Atlantic.  It might work better if you're using it off hours, but even refreshing my email or downloading a voice only podcast was virtually impossible. The internet was much better outside of that time. We were able to stream MLB baseball to our stateroom TV and watch Netflix at other times. It was just those 2 out of the 16 days that nothing could be accomplished.  

 

I'm not sure of the exact timing of your cruise, but the middle of the Atlantic could be a dead zone, be aware of how that would impact your work activity.  

 

I did upgrade to the premium package as I had to teach a class and needed zoom to work. The internet was good enough to support zoom calls and I have been on the Epic before and on southern Carribean itineraries I've been able to connect to the corporate VPN. 

 

And there is no way as a manager I would allow an employee to expense cruise ship internet.  It looks like the OP has asked for something exceptional which is being allowed so long as they're connected. In my mind, the costs of connection are the employees responsibility.  

 

I would only consider allowing the expense if, on a pre-approved vacation where there was no expectation of connectivity, I need the employee to do something urgently. (but I can't see a situation where that would actually happen, nothing is that important and no one is that irreplaceable.). 

 

I would, however, write it off on my taxes as a remote working expense. (Costs of internet are allowed in my jurisdiction) 

 

With all the tech speak in the post above, cruise ship internet is so slow at the best of times that you will see no difference between wifi 5, wifi 6 or even the older standards.  Sure, the newer standards allow you to connect to the internal network at breakneck speeds, but what good is that when your connection to the external internet is slower than a third world country. 

 

Edited October 20, 2023 by jules181

[Catchum]

Can't comment on connectivity in Mediterranean ports as I connect to local networks. On a TA I would work on the assumption that some days you will not be able access the Internet at all. You may be fortunate and have constant, though slow, access but on our last crossing we had nothing for three days. If your boss is happy with that scenario you will be fine.

[Homosassa]

The only thing you can be sure  about on a cruise is that "ship" can happen.

 

I would not assume that the internet will be accessible at all times on any day of the cruise.

 

Besides the loss of satellite signal that can occur due to the ship's location, the availability will also depend on the number of passengers trying to use the system at any one time.

 

Sea days are always a problem as the system is often overloaded. Your TA will be  mostly sea days with passengers planning on using the internet during the day.

[alanstarr]

Just got off a 23-day B2B that included a TA. I upgraded my internet on the 2nd day of each leg; it was $170 for 1st leg and $185 for 2nd leg. Since I had $100 OBC from stocks, it worked out perfect.

 

 

[schmoopie17]

Can't speak to the price. However, on our Escape TA last November, the internet was awful for almost the entire 16 days...not just crossing the Atlantic. Couldn't even log into the "free" CC access. Even the gurus at the Internet Cafe couldn't get it to work. 

But as they say on CC...YMMV.

[Ellaleah]

1 hour ago, alanstarr said:

Just got off a 23-day B2B that included a TA. I upgraded my internet on the 2nd day of each leg; it was $170 for 1st leg and $185 for 2nd leg. Since I had $100 OBC from stocks, it worked out perfect.

I have read this before regarding upgrading Wi-Fi on the 2nd day.  Could you explain to me why the price difference is so great?  Thank you

[alanstarr]

6 minutes ago, Ellaleah said:

I have read this before regarding upgrading Wi-Fi on the 2nd day.  Could you explain to me why the price difference is so great?  Thank you

 

I wait until the 2nd day because I usually have land-based service for the 1st day; which saves me a day's cost.

Additionally, as long as you haven't used any time yet, they give you a credit for you unused FAS minutes (which was 150min for my 10-day cruise and 300min for my 13-day cruise). 

[alanstarr]

1 hour ago, schmoopie17 said:

Can't speak to the price. However, on our Escape TA last November, the internet was awful for almost the entire 16 days...not just crossing the Atlantic. Couldn't even log into the "free" CC access. Even the gurus at the Internet Cafe couldn't get it to work. 

But as they say on CC...YMMV.

The Getaway has been upgraded to Starlink, and it worked quite well throughout the journey (including the TA portion), Speed seemed to be throttled to ~4MB/sec, but that's fine for basic surfing. (I didn't upgrade to the streaming package.)
 

[jules181]

Do the Latitudes level discounts get factored in if you do the upgrade on board?

 

 

[Liljo22]

19 minutes ago, Ellaleah said:

I have read this before regarding upgrading Wi-Fi on the 2nd day.  Could you explain to me why the price difference is so great?  Thank you

As long as you do not use any of the FAS minutes, you are getting full credit for those minutes plus one less day charged on the upgrade.  

 

On my 7 day, its about $16 a day for unlimited and $26 a day for unlimited premium so I wouldn't say the price difference is great but anything helps.  

Edited November 6, 2023 by Liljo22

[Liljo22]

The good news is that the Epic has been upgraded to Starlink so you might be able to actually get work done.  

[SoloAlaska]

I’m sailing on Gem for a TA soon which is a similar itinerary and it’s ~357USD to upgrade to unlimited premium. 

[Asawi]

53 minutes ago, alanstarr said:

Additionally, as long as you haven't used any time yet, they give you a credit for you unused FAS minutes (which was 150min for my 10-day cruise and 300min for my 13-day cruise). 

I know this is something repeated a lot here at CC, but my experience is that it doesn't matter if you used any of your minutes or not. Maybe it's ship dependant (or rather Internet Manager dependent), but on both my recent Star cruises this has been the case. If it is important to you, don't risk it though!
(I'll be going on another ship in December and will check it out there as well because I'm kind of curious about this and I won't upgrade either way so nothing to lose.)