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Internet Friendly Cruise Lines?

Posted by Cliff on from the for-those-that-can't-exist-10'-from-their-browsers dept.

ttyp0 asks: "The team of upper management at my company, including myself want to take a week long cruise vacation together. Unfortunately, being away from the office and unable access the Internet is terrifying in the case of an emergency. Are there any cruise lines that provide internet access in the cabins (ethernet jack)? If you've been on a cruise recently, who do you recommend?" Those boats are big enough, you figure at least one of the larger cruise lines have thrown a modest satellite and a small Internet cafe on one by now.

2 of 43 comments (clear)

  1. OK, here's the deal: by vegetablespork · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Let's assume you're indispensible to your employer like you say, and that you're not a pathetic geek that can't bear a few days without a Slashdot fix.

    - INMARSAT is not cheap, but could be available. Better grease up--when I say it's not cheap, I mean it's not cheap.
    - If you can't be incommunicado during your vacation, perhaps a cruise isn't the best choice of vacation?

    --

    Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.

  2. Carnival by dmadole · · Score: 2, Insightful
    I was on Carnival's Imagination a couple of months ago.

    No net access in cabins, but they had an Internet 'Lounge' that had about 24 machines running Internet Exporer kiosk-style (no menubar, buttons for BACK, RELOAD, etc., only).

    Speed was quite good, at least comparable to the 1.5Mb/sec DSL I have at home. The browser did have Java enabled. I was able to successfully use SSH and VNC (both Java applets from my web server) to get into my FreeBSD box back at home. Didn't try much else except HTTP(S). Of course, once I got VNC open and KDE running in that, I could do anything that way.

    Cost was 0.75 per minute, with discounts to something around $0.55 and $0.40 per minute for prepurchasing 100 and 250 minutes, respectively. I only tried it a couple of times, mostly out of curiosity, so I just used the per-minute plan.

    There was a two-hour window the second night of the cruise when access was free so you could try it out. Access was only available the first full day through the last full day of the cruise (i.e. not on the first night or last morning)