laptop vs ships internet

[sunshade]

Is it worth it for us to bring the laptop or just use there computers to email home (just a few lines daily)?

[AZjohn]

Hi Sunshade,

For us, we found it was a lot less hassle to just use the cruise lines computers. Though I don’t know Celebrity’s prices, we didn’t see any difference in prices between using our own lap top or the ships computers on other lines. We also (well, mostly my wife because I like to forget about the world during our cruise) just checks her personal e-mails for a few minutes each day, so for us it really didn’t make a big difference where we used the internet. For some people, they like the privacy of using it in their cabins, but for us it’s not worth lugging around the laptop while traveling to/from the airports to the ship.

John

[ECCruise]

Is it worth it for us to bring the laptop or just use there computers to email home (just a few lines daily)?

 

Unless you are sailing on Century, you are going to have to lug your laptop to one of the WIFI hot spots anyhow, so for limited use the onboard internet cafe is the way to go. Price is the same as using your laptop.

[Andy]

Is it worth it for us to bring the laptop or just use there computers to email home (just a few lines daily)?

 

Hi Sunshade !

 

For the most part, I would say leave your laptop home .... IF you dont plan to spend a great deal of time on the internet and/or creating emails. Where a laptop offers savings, is when you need to create emails. On a laptop, you can do that offline, and not incur charges. On Celebrity's PC's, the clock is ticking when you do this. At aprox 65 cents per minute, it adds up.

 

Unfortunately, in my line of work, I need to stay in touch with my office several times a day, so a laptop is important. For you, I hope that's not the case :)

 

Enjoy your Cruise !

[sunshade]

Thanks for all the info. We are sailing on Century and I think we will just use the computers on the ship. I am just going to be emailing home to check on how things are going without Mommy & Daddy around!!

[hajekfam]

Actually we were very glad we brought our laptop - the internet speed was much faster than the computers in the internet cafe. We were able to use it in our room on the Millennium due to the location of the cabin in relation to a hot spot - however, there are quite a few hot spots.

We had to print out our car rental contract so we had a chance to use the internet cafe. We were on a month long cruise and the hot deals on rentals did not cover our rental period before we left so we booked the car while on board. It took us a lot longer to just get to the car rental site using the internet cafe than it took us to research the rates, book the car, and finish the prepay info on our laptop.

[hcat]

If you sail on Century your e-mail will be SLOW! Sometimes it took over 20 min to check one message...the staff is great giving back credit when that happens--it was truly torture to get on line there! Everyone complained ..staff said not enough bandwidth--We just wanted to check mail & get boarding passes but wasted alot of time-- I would not lug a laptop for less than good computer service.

[FloridaHockeyGuy]

If you sail on Century your e-mail will be SLOW! Sometimes it took over 20 min to check one message...the staff is great giving back credit when that happens--it was truly torture to get on line there! Everyone complained ..staff said not enough bandwidth--We just wanted to check mail & get boarding passes but wasted alot of time-- I would not lug a laptop for less than good computer service.

 

Going to be on Century for Baltic cruise in June. Were you referring to the email being slow on a laptop, or the ship's computers? Or both? I need to periodically check messages from my biz back home (Yes, I know that is terrible, but I would rather get away 90% than not at all), and would honestly prefer to do so when I have a spare moment while DW is doing stuff to get ready, gone to bed, etc. But IF it is faster in the Internet Cafe, then I might as well just shoot out there for a few minutes.

 

Appreciate the guidance. Thanks.

[ccletzgo]

Celebrity says that one of the hot spots on the milli class is the aft ocean view grill. I am curious to know if you can pick that up from the end of those FV balconys.

 

I'm gonna try:o

[hajekfam]

Going to be on Century for Baltic cruise in June. Were you referring to the email being slow on a laptop, or the ship's computers? Or both? I need to periodically check messages from my biz back home (Yes, I know that is terrible, but I would rather get away 90% than not at all), and would honestly prefer to do so when I have a spare moment while DW is doing stuff to get ready, gone to bed, etc. But IF it is faster in the Internet Cafe, then I might as well just shoot out there for a few minutes.

 

Appreciate the guidance. Thanks.

\

We found that everything was slower on the ship's computers than on our laptop. Email was much quicker using our own laptop even in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. It almost seemed as if Celebrity set their computers for a slower speed so that you would use more minutes.

You could almost compare the difference in speed between the ship's computer and our laptop to the speed using dial-up (representing ship computer speed) and broadband (representing laptop speed).

[JennAngel9]

Having just returned from the Century w/ my laptop I will say that the wireless was running EXTREMELY (even relative to general cruise satellite speed) slow. I am still baffled by how I could get better speed service between French Polynesia and the Cook Islands than between Miami and Nassau. :p

 

I would be shocked if the ship's computers were capable of loading google any slower than the wireless in my room (Aft Sky Suite on Deck 12)-- where, admittedly, there was only 1 bar.

 

The only other thing I wanted to mention is that the internet "area" where I had to go to sign up, was just off the martini bar, and seemed to be the main ventilation area for the smoking side. Granted, I am very sensitive, and I believe there is a 2nd area for internet use that may be better, but I would bring my laptop again solely to avoid having to sit in a fairly thick cloud of secondhand smoke. Then again, if it's really 2-3 minutes (at Century's internet speeds, I doubt you could get anything done in 2-3 minutes) it probably won't be a huge problem.