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Getting free internet on a cruise, saving $170

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Re: Getting free internet on a cruise, saving $170

#171

Side note, I’m pretty sure you can send iMessage on a cruise ship when connected to their WiFi with no internet package because apple has a mesh network between unrelated devices and finds one with an internet endpoint to funnel messages in and out. I’m just basing this on usage experience and my hypothesis.

I've tried this on a RCL ship and it didn't work, so YMMV

Re: Getting free internet on a cruise, saving $170

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think, in 2025 you are better off with this https://www.starlink.com/us/roam

Often forbidden on cruise ships as it would be on flights for the same reasons (possible interference). In an airplane it's also impossible to make it work though those tiny windows of course. But on a cruise ship balcony it would probably be fine.

It's also increasingly forbidden on cruise ships because their internet is today Starlink powered as well and additional Starlink receivers in the area are direct competition for bandwidth from the same satellites at the same time, and a cruise ship full of wifi-using passengers wants all the bandwidth it can get, in theory competition makes things worse for everyone, even the person with a personal Starlink receiver competing against the bandwidth flood of a cruise ship.

Re: Getting free internet on a cruise, saving $170

#173
post #87

Internet on any ship is expensive as soon as you're out in maritime area - where data transfer is done via satellite services. So it is not necessarily because a captive market, where the cruise liners can fleece you. They pay crazy prices to the telecom/ISPs. So if you're getting free internet out at seas, it is really at the cost of the ones actually paying the bills - or in this case, the cruise liner.

Could be, but getting a Gigsky e-sim is a lot cheaper than the internet on-board. And I was under the impression that in the end, that system is using the same internet uplink as the wifi (since I believe it's the ships themselves that send out the "Cellular at sea" network?)

In the "Cruise Only" section of https://www.gigsky.com/data-cruises it's $112 for 10 GB over 30 days. Per day that's certainly cheaper than $170 for 7 days but it's hard to say it's actually any cheaper per GB without knowing the other option's limit. Of course if 10 GB is enough for what you wanted to do in a week then it doesn't really matter but it might explain some of the pricing difference (ignoring bulk provider to provider pricing or other factors before we finally get to the "what do we think we can charge" pricing).

Re: Getting free internet on a cruise, saving $170

#174

Just need to point out: A cruise is a ^%$^#$ expensive vacation. For me, part of vacation is focusing on the moment, place, and people that I'm with. Cruises have plenty of entertainment onboard, so if you feel the need to do something like this to save a buck, maybe take a deep breath and try to take advantage of what's already there for your entertainment. If I ever take advantage of this hack... It'll be to downlo…

The author implies they're a highschool aged programmer. They're likely along for the ride with their parents and very online. I'd probably do the same thing at their age.

They aren't, look at their comments in this thread.

Re: Getting free internet on a cruise, saving $170

#175
post #44

on a recent trip, i stayed at a hotel that had a 1-hour free wifi trial per device. after it expired, i toggled mac randomisation and reconnected. worked again. did it four times, no issues. never paid. later checked the captive portal domain. it was hosted by a third-party vendor. not the hotel. same pattern as cruises. backend didn’t care who i was, just tracked mac and time. this blog just confirmed what i suspect…

When dealing with security issues, organisation typically lost likelihood of occurrence and impact. The impact for these is negligible, so they don’t invent in fixing them. There’s absolutely nothing to be lost if this gets explotes by the ocasional tinkerer.

Re: Getting free internet on a cruise, saving $170

#176

For what it's worth, based on somewhat frequent posts to r/cruise and Cruise Critic, travel routers are very often confiscated by ship personnel and held for pickup until departure day. They appear on major cruise lines prohibited items list (but curiously are banned on Carnival but not their subsidiary [name-redacted]).

> confiscated

Detection? APs are scanning for SSIDs and then staff are notified? Or multiple devices are detected on one connection?

Re: Getting free internet on a cruise, saving $170

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's even more reason to have LLMs do their work for them, not less.

Break things, break fast, break more, break the rest of it, keep breaking... What was the catchphrase? Breaking things doesn't help broken systems.

what exactly would this be breaking? it's an analysis of logs, not providing access to services.

Re: Getting free internet on a cruise, saving $170

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Starlink can...point 8 beams at the same cell Source for this capability?

https://mikepuchol.com/modeling-starlink-capacity-843b2387f5... Beams are 250MHz wide and they have 2GHz of allocation.

I don't think a single satellite can saturate a cell, but I think you're right on a couple gateways being able to soak up a couple beams from multiple birds. That might work on rare trans-oceanic cruises. But for the most-common routes, which nose along coastlines, there are other beam uses.

Re: Getting free internet on a cruise, saving $170

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would someone in corporate IT responsible for this not ask Claude to write a script that does this on a much more frequent basis Because they have nine trillion bugs in their booking system that have been on backlog since 1910. According to this source [1] (of dubious quality, granted) Royal Caribbean's entire IT department is about 140 people headed by an electrical engineer. [1] https://rocketreach.co/royal-c…

That's even more reason to have LLMs do their work for them, not less.

> more reason to have LLMs do their work for them, not less

Nobody argued for or against LLMs. Just that IT isn't a major investment for any cruise line. And that fixing a problem like this isn't even rationally high on a cruise liner's list of priorities.

If the payment portal is bugging out and the engineer tasked to fixing it is off vibe coding on the off chance that a high schooler is using too much internet (versus trying to steal mom and dad's drinks), I'm not sure I'm unsympathetic to the manager's very predictable reaction.

Re: Getting free internet on a cruise, saving $170

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Break things, break fast, break more, break the rest of it, keep breaking... What was the catchphrase? Breaking things doesn't help broken systems.

what exactly would this be breaking? it's an analysis of logs, not providing access to services.

> what exactly would this be breaking?

Whatever those nine trillion bugs the developer is supposed to be working on are up to.

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