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Why Cruise Ships are My Favorite Remote Work Location

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Re: Why Cruise Ships are My Favorite Remote Work Location

#71

Post by AlexMuir »

mathattack wrote: post #65
AlexMuir wrote: post #5

I too work from a lot of different places, but I find that I absolutely need internet to be productive. Pulling a Gem for instance, or checking Stack Overflow. My favourite places to work are all-inclusive holiday resorts. Lanzarote and the Algarve most recently. Being all inclusive means there is no thought process in eating or drinking. Nor any need to shop, clean, cook. The most difficult thing is finding out what…

I agree completely on the internet access. Very hard to work through issues without online resources nowadays. How did we do it before there was such great online help like StackExchange?

I now find a lot of better answers through Github issues and personal blogs. I should remember to search Github code when I'm stuck trying to figure something out.

Re: Why Cruise Ships are My Favorite Remote Work Location

#72

Post by pacofvf »

ngoel36 wrote: post #27
joelgrus wrote: post #3

I can see how the lack of Internet is awesome for preventing you from checking Facebook / Twitter / HN all day. At the same time, I'm not sure how productive I could be without near-constant access to StackOverflow. :)

http://kapeli.com/dash

awesome, I clicked the purchase button and.... only for mac :(

Re: Why Cruise Ships are My Favorite Remote Work Location

#73

Post by mathattack »

AlexMuir wrote: post #71
mathattack wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree completely on the internet access. Very hard to work through issues without online resources nowadays. How did we do it before there was such great online help like StackExchange?

I now find a lot of better answers through Github issues and personal blogs. I should remember to search Github code when I'm stuck trying to figure something out.

The point is similar though - need the cheap internet connection on both.

Re: Why Cruise Ships are My Favorite Remote Work Location

#74

Post by graeme »

I had this same experience working in Cuba for a month. I was writing, so I didn't need internet. They don't have it there, except for occasional slow access in certain access points, where I went to handle correspondence once a week.

I stayed in a family's house. They cooked, cleaned and made coffee. I had zero responsibilities. Results:

I wrote 50% more than usual. I read 7 novels, including Moby Dick. I socialized more than usual. I exercised and went for long walks every day. I studied for the GMAT.

Not having internet was very helpful, but outsourcing all domestic tasks made a huge difference.

Re: Why Cruise Ships are My Favorite Remote Work Location

#75

Post by larrys »

ssharp wrote: post #54

Having been of a few cruises, I'd like to point out a few things: 1) Listed prices generally DO NOT include gratuities. Low level cruise employees like the cleaning crew, cabin stewards, waiters, cooks, etc. are paid ridiculously low wages, because cruise ships are registered to countries like Panama and the companies do not need to adhere to U.S. standards. I don't recall offhand, but for a 7-day cruise the "automat…

"2) Internet is expensive, slow, and charges by the minute). "

When I've been on cruises (this dates back to as early as 2002 iirc) I've always been concerned with this.

And there are times as well (when sailing) that you are out of reach by satellite and have no connectivity at all. Unless things have changed you aren't going to be streaming video or doing anything that requires bandwidth. Once again, from my experience, things could have changed as I haven't cruised in at least 4 years.

With respect to internet on cruises it's a totally YMMV. I was concerned enough about access that I actually tracked down and contacted the operator of the service [1] for the particular ship I was on (and they do this for many cruise lines) and spoke to an engineer to ask questions before taking a particular cruise. I wasn't going to rely on what the cruise ship customer service told me. One of the questions I had was "do you block any ports"? The engineer (quite knowledgeable not customer service but engineering) said they didn't but it turned out that (at the time) they blocked anything that carried voice or obviously video (like ichat, skype etc.). Have no idea if that is still the case.

But here is the strangest thing. Back in perhaps 2004 on a particular ship you couldn't (get this) connect by wifi with a Mac!.

That's right you had to have a windows machine to connect to the ships wifi. Made no sense. But true. Nobody on the ship with a mac could connect only PC laptops. Ended up having to use the crap in the "Internet Cafe" which made 1996 using AOL seem quick. Literally couldn't even get email during certain times since all ship traffic went through one pipe.

For the next cruise I also brought a PC laptop. (But on that ship I didn't need it).

[1] It was this company: http://www.mtnsat.com/

Re: Why Cruise Ships are My Favorite Remote Work Location

#76

Post by virtualwhys »

AlexMuir wrote: post #5

I too work from a lot of different places, but I find that I absolutely need internet to be productive. Pulling a Gem for instance, or checking Stack Overflow. My favourite places to work are all-inclusive holiday resorts. Lanzarote and the Algarve most recently. Being all inclusive means there is no thought process in eating or drinking. Nor any need to shop, clean, cook. The most difficult thing is finding out what…

The Algarve rocks for work, surfing, sunny weather...and not much else ;-)

Might head down for the winter again, would be my my 4th I think, and I still only grok about 5% of the language (Brazilian Portuguese is worlds easier for me to comprehend).

My remote work setup is simple: rent an apartment with high speed internet for a few months and dive in.

Re: Why Cruise Ships are My Favorite Remote Work Location

#77

Post by kronholm »

brador wrote: post #66
drewbug wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, that work has already been done: http://stackapps.com/questions/3610/stackdump-an-offline-bro...

If someone could make this into an Android app with wifi hotspot functionality that would be awesome.

I wouldn't mind doing that, but not what sure you mean with "wifi hotspot functionality"?

Re: Why Cruise Ships are My Favorite Remote Work Location

#78

Post by wbeckler »

gmays wrote: post #53

Great post. Being new in my entrepreneurial career I'm just learning the pleasures of working from anywhere. I live in San Diego, but a few weeks ago I drove up to NorCal to visit the parents. While there I attended Startup School in the bay area. The next week I flew to Boston and stayed with a friend in Cambridge and attended WordCamp Boston. I attended the Business of Software conference next and stayed at the Sea…

How did you arrange a roomshare at a hotel? friend or online service?

Re: Why Cruise Ships are My Favorite Remote Work Location

#79

Post by benhebert »

I took a cruise earlier this year with my girlfriend and we paid $600 combined. After tips and a lot of boozing, we ended up spending around $1000 combined an average of $100 per day. You can do it for a lot cheaper as well, plus we weren't using the internet.

I'd do it again in a heartbeat and work if there was a steady internet connection.

Re: Why Cruise Ships are My Favorite Remote Work Location

#80

Post by noarchy »

Posts like this seem self-congratulatory, to me. Working in this field, we're well-compensated, and in a position of relative privilege based on that alone. Add to that the flexibility (when we have it) to not be tied down to a daily commute or an office/cube-farm, and we're living in another world entirely. We shouldn't forget this.
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