technology help

[KEIA]

Hello Everyone!

 

Quick question for those of you who are into technology (I'm really not, so I would appreciate your help and opinions)

 

When I booked my cruise last year I didn't think I would need access to email or phone, and I know a lot of people say "it's not vacation if you can't get away." I understand that, but things have come up within the last few days where I will need to be checking my email. I won't need to make phone calls, but I will need to check and send emails at least a few times while I'm gone.

 

This is my question...Is it better to take my laptop and use Wifi (I'm sailing on the Emerald Princess) or just take my iphone and use that? I would rather not have to carry my laptop around, but if it's cheeper in the long run, then I will.

 

I've read a few posts about iphones and data stuff, and to be honest, I'm still a little confused on what would be better for me to use.

 

Any suggestions?

 

Thanks in advance!

 

Also, the reason I mention using the ships wifi instead of their internet room is because every princess ship I've been on, the internet wasn't working in their room. Maybe it will be better on this ship...

[cb at sea]

I'm not sure of Princesses charges, but on other lines, whether you use your own laptop or the ship's computers, you're charged the same for internet access. Unless you'll be using your laptop to download photos or something, I'd just use the ship's equipment. Saves lugging another thing!

[paul929207]

Princess charges 75 cents per minute for either WiFi thru your laptop or on their computers. Packages are available that will bring the cost down to as "little" as 40 cents per minute. Either way, you are using a satelite connection that is slow.

 

Another opton is to use an internet cafe in the ports. These are usually much cheaper.

[ab0si]

It would be very unusual for WiFi to be up and running while the wired computers (those in the "internet room") were down. Possible, of course, but not likely.

 

I'd use the 'puters on board if you are not taking your laptop for other reasons. Alternatively, you could use internet cafes while in port. the latter is going to be cheaper (and faster).

 

AT&T service (iPhone) is very expensive overseas.

[*Luv2Cruz*]

If you bring your laptop, you can draft your email replies offline and then just connect to send. Should save you a bit that way!;)

[fendbass]

Unless you must check e-mail at a particular time, I would opt for using the Internet cafe that you will find at every port. Pretty cheap... $5 for 15 minutes sticks in my mind.

 

If I were in your position, and have to check e-mail on the ship, dump each e-mail you want to save to a file, and read it offline. Draft your response in a file, when you connect again, just copy the file into the e-mail response. Get online and offline as quickly as you can. You can also buy blocks of time

 

One other thing I haven't seen mentioned here. Internet connectivity on the ship is dreadfully slow, unless they have improved on that. You could literally sit for several minutes trying to open an attachment.

 

To my way of thinking, it is not worth the trouble and expense, but, my requirements are different than yours

[novasonic]

Is it better to take my laptop and use Wifi (I'm sailing on the Emerald Princess) or just take my iphone and use that? I would rather not have to carry my laptop around, but if it's cheeper in the long run, then I will.

I'm a bit confused with your question--do you mean you are debating whether or not you should use onboard wifi with either your laptop or your iphone? Or do you mean that you are comparing using onboard wifi with your laptop and cellular data transmission with your iphone. The latter would cause you to incur substantial data roaming charges because you would be outside of your native service area.

 

In any case, it's really a matter of preference. A laptop is heavier, but I personally think it's better suited for the job. Typing on the iphone is somewhat of a nightmare for me :o I do believe that in order to use onboard wifi you need to authenticate yourself as a user through a web browser. I have also read somewhere (I can't recall where) that Safari has problems performing this task and that IE/Firefox are better suited, but I'm not sure if it is entirely true because I have no personal experience with it. Also, the iphone is not yet capable of handling Flash-based objects so if authentication is Flash based (which it probably isn't) then there would be a big problem there.

 

By bringing your laptop you could also use it to store pictures if your memory card is full or you could watch movies and such during downtime!

[sailorwannabe]

I agree with Fendbass...the connection on the ship is extremely slow! I took my laptop and BlackBerry. Used BlackBerry for most things, but when I lost it in a taxi at one of the ports and had to send an e-mail to my office to tell them to turn off the service I tried to use my laptop but that took FOREVER (meaning it costs a pretty penny and I never really got a decent connection to bring up my Outlook). I then went to the ship's internet cafe, but that took forever as well. Eventually got my e-mail sent to my office, but that one short e-mail ended up costing around $10 because the connection was so slow. I ended up using internet cafe's in ports (they're usually around the ports just for this reason) and it was much faster and cheaper. Good luck!

[parody]

From my point of view, the only good reason to take a laptop is because you have or expect to receive a file in some application like Excel or Word in which case you need access to your hard drive. For simple, run-of-the-mill emails, I would stick to using the ship's onboard Internet cafes or seek one out at your various port stops. Note that if you are a frequent user of Princess, there are discount options available. In fact, up until a year or so ago, Princess Elite members could use the ship's Internet for free.