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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

#61

Post by lagadu »

dale_huevo wrote: post #12

One of the fringe benefits of going on a cruise is that you can disconnect from the Internet for a week. Hit up the bar, make love to your wife, gamble a bit. All without your phone constantly buzzing in your pocket. If you go on a cruise to immediately open your laptop it seems like a waste of time and money.

I hate to sound preachy so I apologize if I'm coming off like that but if someone's relationship with the internet is so bad that being put in a situation where being forced to stay off it is seen as a positive, perhaps the whole relationship should be taken a hard look at?

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

#62

Post by [deleted] »

dale_huevo wrote: post #12

One of the fringe benefits of going on a cruise is that you can disconnect from the Internet for a week. Hit up the bar, make love to your wife, gamble a bit. All without your phone constantly buzzing in your pocket. If you go on a cruise to immediately open your laptop it seems like a waste of time and money.

[deleted]

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

#63

Post by kccqzy »

jasonjayr wrote: post #9

I imagine one of the ships officers will be tipped off by the IT team about the unusual number of free-internet activation attached to your booking id, and either give your room a visit to knock it off, or just bill some multiple of the $170 anyway. It sounds like it should only be used only a few times per booking, and this is going to hit at least 4/hour for multiple hours a day, so it will stick out like a sore th…

I imagine the ship officers don't even understand how the internet on the ship works, much less detect fraud. Perhaps all they have is a button to restart the system in case someone complains it's not working.

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

#64

Post by duxup »

asadm wrote: post #52
duxup wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just seems like a lot of expense that by working you're decreasing the value. Also depends on who you're traveling with / anyone. I've been on trips with the "I have to work" folks, it's a pain, they're not really "there" you end up trying to schedule around them. Then they just show up unaware / uninvolved in whatever is going on.

i think you needed to set expectations. on every trip, i reach a point where i don't have any social-interaction points and so i go back to my cave and code.

Oh I have, I just don't go with the "I have to work" people, or everyone is on the same page and it's just not a thing.

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

#65

Post by duxup »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #13
jasonjayr wrote: post #9

I imagine one of the ships officers will be tipped off by the IT team about the unusual number of free-internet activation attached to your booking id, and either give your room a visit to knock it off, or just bill some multiple of the $170 anyway. It sounds like it should only be used only a few times per booking, and this is going to hit at least 4/hour for multiple hours a day, so it will stick out like a sore th…

> imagine one of the ships officers will be tipped off by the IT team If it’s any of the major cruise lines there almost certainly isn’t anyone in IT paying that much attention.

They probably have some paper pasted next to the equipment to look if the blinky lights are doing the thing, and how to power cycle things.

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

#67

Post by rootsudo »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #27
jotux wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Went on a cruise last summer, the internet on board was starlink. It was advertised at $30/day.

It's interesting to contrast Starlink on airlines vs Starlink on cruises. AFAICT, all the airlines rolling out Starlink have made it free on their flights. Which implies cooperation from Starlink -- either Starlink has made "free" a condition of their service, or they've just priced it cheap enough to make free a reasonable option for airlines. There's no good reason why Starlink for cruise ships should be priced sig…

Almost, the reason it's free is because competition from t-mobile for the internet provider and that the legacies are providing it free and well almost legacy airlines like southwest and alaska.

Whatever one legacy does, the other do - charge bag fees, the others do too within a quarter. Free internet (Delta afaik was the leader here) the others offer free internet.

Soon it will go the way of having an added fee or being tied to your ticket on the airline, w/ Tmobile its already linked to your phone number.

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

#68

Post by jiveturkey »

ceejayoz wrote: post #39
bryanlarsen wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting to contrast Starlink on airlines vs Starlink on cruises. AFAICT, all the airlines rolling out Starlink have made it free on their flights. Which implies cooperation from Starlink -- either Starlink has made "free" a condition of their service, or they've just priced it cheap enough to make free a reasonable option for airlines. There's no good reason why Starlink for cruise ships should be priced sig…

Planes, at most, have a couple hundred people onboard. Cruise ships are getting towards the 10k person mark. One cruise ship will be substantially more load on the local satellites and ground station than a plane will.

The bandwidth of a single starlink terminal is going to be saturated at airplane capacity anyway. The extra number of people on a cruise ship just means service degradation, not excess bandwidth consumption.

The price difference is just based on what the market will bear. Trapped on a cruise for a week, you are much more desperate for Internet. Plus you've paid a lot more for the trip and the fee doesn't feel so large compared to all the other upsells. The cruise often is the vacation, whereas air travel is just the means to an end.

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

#70

Post by benbristow »

TrackerFF wrote: post #57

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.

I'm assuming these large cruise corps can get a decent bulk/business discount though.
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