~*Laptop Question*~He

[Kam7185]

Hello, I'm leaving on a 16 day European Capitals cruise in a WEEK! Should I bring my laptop? Is wireless available in my cabin?

 

Thanks

[MercedMike]

On most ships wireless is only available in the internet cafe area and certain other areas around the ship, not in the cabins. We have usually found it just as useful to simply use the internet cafe.

 

But we still take our laptop, to download our pictures every night. I would hate to lose my camera someplace far away with all the pics on my memory card! Also it is fun to set up the laptop and have a slide show of the day's pictures. Take a few blank CDs and you might want to burn CD for shipmates if you get some good pics of them.

 

Have a GREAT cruise.

[Spinner2]

I always take my laptop and I enjoy using it aboard ship very much. There are many nice places where you can sit and look out at the water while you're working/playing on your laptop--on a desk or in your lap. I'm a website designer/developer and I'd prefer to keep my sites current even though I'm "on vacation" than have work pile up for my return, although I do make it clear to my clients that I won't be willing to do extensive design work when I'm on vacation and that my ability to upload changes is at the mercy of the ship's connection status. I've located power outlets on every HAL ship I've been on in spots where I would enjoy sitting with my computer; that's never been a problem and we've been on every class of HAL ship--all have convenient power spots. I usually store it in the bedside drawer that locks.

[prescottbob]

Ahoy!

 

We bring our laptop for #3 basic reasons. They are as follows:

 

1. We use it as a daily diary/journal/notebook of our travel(s).

2. We use it as our stereo system, i.e., we have over a hundred of our

favorite CD's (everthing from Sinatra to Groban to classical)

downloaded in the media center. We just have an inexpensive

Gateway for travel that holds73 Gigbites and the music only takes up

5 Gigbites. I hook the 'beast' up to two small Logitech stereo

speakers and we're in heaven for background reading and, well,

romanzing . Much better than the music provided by the stateroom

'box'.

3. We also use it to download pix, as previously mentioned, to hard

discs so you can clean up your memory card.

 

As a bonus, it you have downloaded music of your favorite special tunes in your 'beast' you can burn a blank CD and give it to the DJ in the Crow's Nest for your 'special' dance (e.g. "Besame Mucho", " Unforgettable", etc.)

 

In so far as internet service goes I prefer to ignore it while cruising at sea (plus HAL is certaily no bargain). While in port , however, I do visist an internet cafe for a few minutes (if time pemtis) to check emails. Just ask one of the crew members prior to landing at any port and they will direct you where the best and least expensive WiFi is. And I usually use the cafe computer and leave mine on the ship.

 

By the way, if you leave it on during the day while your out and about the cabin stewards love it. It goes without saying you'll need to pack a power strip (you'll need that regardless of carrying a laptop), blank CD's and I always a Radio Shack mini power surge protector.

 

In any event have a great trip whatever you decide.

 

Bon Voyage and Calm Seas Ahead! May God bless us all.

 

Bob and Judy (35 and counting)

[jtl513]

By the way, if you leave it on during the day while your out and about the cabin stewards love it.

Why? I don't understand why they'd care. :confused:

[prescottbob]

Ahoy John,

 

Well its 4:15 A.m. here in Prescott and we need to drive down to Phoenix Skyharbor to start our cross country trek to Ft. Lauderdale. Yawn......

 

To answer your question, we've been pretty lucky over the years to have great cabin stewards. They like the music and background 'skins' when visiting our cabin. We leave our stuff out normally during sea days (naturally we lock up cash, travel docss and jewlery) and have never had anything missing.

 

We came back one morning from breakfast and found our steward "booping and weaving" to an Oscar Peterson rift. We have quite a cross section of music on our 'beast' and I believe they, like anyone else for that matter, enjoys new music. Further, we always keep the volume low so as not to bother adjoining cabins.

 

Anywho, gotta go. Have a great cruise mi amigo.

 

Bon Voyage and May God Bless Us All!

 

Bob & Judy (35 years and counting)

[CruiseBumm]

Hello prescottbob, from a Tucson Robert. Never thought of driving to Florida to catch a cruise. We are driving to California this fall to catch a cruise with the family, that is a lot shorter drive. Well have a safe trip and enjoy the cruise:)

[prescottbob]

Ahoy Tucson Robert!

 

We actually went down to Sky Harbor to take a plane ride on a USAirways nonstop "cigar tube" to Ft. Lauderdale. Always an enjoyable experience. With any luck at all they will make the leg room even less than it already is and I can just 'suck' my knee cap during the entire flight (I'm 6'2"). We're staying at the Sleep Inn (not bad really for the cost : $89/night) that includes free transports to and from the airport and dock (plus a Walgreens, supermarket and 3-4 restrauants next door).

 

We have embarked 2X out of San Diego for #2 HAL cruises (15 Day Circle HA, 10 day Western Mexican Rivera) and wish we could use again but we wanted to do an Atlantic crossing/Europe so we needed to go out of FLA.

 

When we did use SD we stayed at a motel about 3-4 miles away (I can't right now remember the name) that was very nice (I think it was about $65/night) and parked our car their for $5/day while 'sailing'). Just took a taxi to the pier and back after the cruise. Worked out great.

 

Have a great cruise mi amigo. We board in another 3-4 hours so we'll be incommunicado for the next nine days (I use the ship's internet services only for emergencies, i.e., notifying friends that we had planned to meet of a cancelled port, etc.

 

Bon Voyage and Great health to one and all!

 

Bob and Judy

[Grannycb]

Check to see if your local library allows downloading books and movies. We get travel books and travel films loaded before leaving home. They are great when you plan on visiting multiple interesting places.

 

We have packed CDs to burn back up copies of our photos in the past. Next time, we will leave the CDs home and take a couple 4 GB flash drives - the little ones that fit on a key chain.

 

We leave our laptop out on the desk in our cabin but turn if off when we aren't using it. The computer is password protected.