downloading pictures at sea

[peppymouse]

Quick question for all you cruisers out there. DW and I are going on our first cruise (Emerald) this Friday (shhhh...... don't tell our kids or they will want to come as well). We were wondering how to go about downloading our memory cards on board ship. We will be taking blank discs with us to download. Is there any type of free service?

 

Thanks in advance,

James & Liz

[Toto2Kansas]

No, there is nothing free, but if you don't mind paying for it, check with the photo shop, they can download your pics to a CD for a price.

[star gazer]

You might consider an additional memory card. My current card is 2 GB and is equivalent to over 1100 photos.

[custompcsys]

I bring my laptop and download pictures every evening, then wipe my SD card and put it back in the camera for the next day. I also have a 2GB thumb drive I use to back them up once I download them...just in case :)

[sailorJo]

Quick question for all you cruisers out there. DW and I are going on our first cruise (Emerald) this Friday (shhhh...... don't tell our kids or they will want to come as well). We were wondering how to go about downloading our memory cards on board ship. We will be taking blank discs with us to download. Is there any type of free service?

 

Thanks in advance,

James & Liz

 

The on-board computers do not have the software for downloading pictures. You should either bring your own laptop or have them downloaded to a CD by the photography crew for a price.

[peppymouse]

Thanks very much folks for all of the information. It's very much appreciated!!

 

James & Liz

[mpdahmer]

Memory for most cameras is so inexpensive now you can get an additional couple of GB's for very little.

Just be careful, if your digital camera is older then a couple of years then it may not be able to take anything larger then a 2GB card. So check before you buy.

[chasetf]

The on-board computers do not have the software for downloading pictures. You should either bring your own laptop or have them downloaded to a CD by the photography crew for a price.

My advice is for the cost they charge to cut a CD you can buy the equivalent (or more) memory. Plus..... on these boards I have read many horror stories by folks who got those CDs home and they were bad.

 

I personnally carry a cheap laptop to download as backup and carry sufficient memory so I do not have to overwrite. I have only had to overwrite once..... so I got more memory when I got home for the next trip.

 

Memory is cheap compared to losing your pictures :eek: which are irreplaceable.

[johnmik1]

I am on the Sea Princess right now and they have a download access at each computer.Can't comment on the cost,etc. as I haven't used them.

[Andee]

My husband takes a CD burner and downloads pictues ever evening. It's much smaller than a laptop, and less expensive, plus doesn't have any of the personal information a laptop would have, so if it should get lost or stolen, the risk would be much less.

[Paula B]

I am one of the horror stories that got home and the CD was bad and also they had somehow erased my memory card. Then the girl reformatted my camera. I have been trying to work with Princess since the end of April on recovering my pictures on the CD and they had told me there is to much damage to the CD to recover any of my 300+ pictures. Of course I can't recover pixs on my memory card because they erased it. They have offered to send me a CD with stock pictures + the cost of the CD being burned, I guess that is something but, my personal memories are not there for my Grenada, Bonaire, & Aruba ports. I have had them make CD's on 3 other cruises with no problem but, never again it's not worth losing all your pictures. Please buy yourself more memory card.

 

Paula B.

[gambit57]

There's a risk of losing your pics no matter which method you use.

 

Personally, I like buying extra cards and just spreading them out among the diff cards. I don't bother bringing a laptop. Takes too much luggage space and is another thing to worry about. Hard drives fail as well so it's not like there isn't risk there.

 

2GB costs $20 or less for a generic card. Costco currently has a coupon making a Sandisk Ultra II 2 GB card about $25 or so. That's a good card. I prefer just keeping my pics on the memory card vs downloading to CDs for a couple of reasons. 1) CDs are fragile. Memory cards are much tougher. It's much easier to damage a CD than it is to mess up a memory card. 2) Should something happen, you likely can't recover anything from a CD. With a memory card, you can run those data recovery software and get some, if not all, your data back.

 

As long as you format all your cards before each trip, you should be fine. I prefer sticking to the major brands (and paying a few bucks more if I have to) instead of going with a generic brand b/c the chance of failure is less.

[Mrs2cats]

Hi Peppymouse, we are on this cruise and I have been wondering about the same thing. I have two memory cards with me but I am worried that I will fill both of them.

[thehistorychic]

If you bring your laptop to download there are also many ports that might have free or little cost wi-fi that you can upload your pictures to flickr, photobucket, ect. That is what I did in two of my ports. It was more cost effective than on ship. It also kept the pictures in a couple of places in case of damage.

[c-to-sea]

First of all, yes, I have done a search and most of the threads are older. I am

looking for current info from anyone who has cruised recently about downloading

capabilities now. We are on Star in January to Antarctica with a new Fuji 7.1mp.

We have 2 x 2gb SD cards. My concern is getting backups along the way

in case anything happens to the cards (loss, damage). I also have a 4gb and a 1 gb

Data Traveller. Does anyone know for sure whether the cards can be copied to

these devices? If not, has the photo dept. graduated to DVD burns yet or are

they still only using CD's? I don't need to upload them to a site, I just need to

secure the pictures against loss. I will probably invest in at least one more

SD card as I want to take some mpeg movies as well as stills. Thanks for any

info.

[wernew2cruising]

First of all, yes, I have done a search and most of the threads are older. I am

looking for current info from anyone who has cruised recently about downloading

capabilities now. We are on Star in January to Antarctica with a new Fuji 7.1mp.

We have 2 x 2gb SD cards. My concern is getting backups along the way

in case anything happens to the cards (loss, damage). I also have a 4gb and a 1 gb

Data Traveller. Does anyone know for sure whether the cards can be copied to

these devices? If not, has the photo dept. graduated to DVD burns yet or are

they still only using CD's? I don't need to upload them to a site, I just need to

secure the pictures against loss. I will probably invest in at least one more

SD card as I want to take some mpeg movies as well as stills. Thanks for any

info.

Can't help with your dilema but i really would like to see your Antarctica pics. I am trying to convince DH we need to do this cruise next. would you be interested in sharing them when you get back?

[luvtahiti]

First of all, yes, I have done a search and most of the threads are older. I am

looking for current info from anyone who has cruised recently about downloading

capabilities now. We are on Star in January to Antarctica with a new Fuji 7.1mp.

We have 2 x 2gb SD cards. My concern is getting backups along the way

in case anything happens to the cards (loss, damage). I also have a 4gb and a 1 gb

Data Traveller. Does anyone know for sure whether the cards can be copied to

these devices? If not, has the photo dept. graduated to DVD burns yet or are

they still only using CD's? I don't need to upload them to a site, I just need to

secure the pictures against loss. I will probably invest in at least one more

SD card as I want to take some mpeg movies as well as stills. Thanks for any

info.

 

 

Take your SD card to the Photo Gallery on the ship. They will copy your pics to a CD for you. You can still keep your pics on your SD cards and use the CD as backup. Just let them know not to delete the pictures after the copy. If I remember correctly it is about $10 per CD.

[c-to-sea]

wernew2cruising

 

Would be happy to share when we return. However, the memory ain't what it

used to be so might need a reminder about the end of January.

[Paula B]

I had a CD made from my card on the ship and I told them not to delete my card. I wanted to use the CD for a backup. Well, never again I will buy extra cards. They ended up deleting my card plus when I got home the CD was bad no pictures.