Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with cruiseships

Downloading torrents at sea?

thilmony — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 14:23:56 -0800

What's it like to use the Internet on my laptop on a cruise ship? I'm leaving Saturday on a Holland America cruise. This website talks about the wifi in parts of the ship for a fee, or some computer room with pc's on the Internet for a fee. Also rooms have "dial up" available. So a few questions...

I am bringing my laptop with, for copying my digital photos off the camera, itunes, etc.

I'd also like to check email -- I use gmail so that should be fine. If it costs too much I'll probably wait until we are at one of the ports.

On my my last vacation, I uploaded photos daily to flickr. Higher bandwidth than email or browsing the www... is that possible from the rooms on this "dial up"?

Is the dial up really DIAL UP? As in, do I need an ISP with a dial up account or is there something on the ship they let you use?

Another site says "direct dial to your Internet access provider through your laptop is very expensive possibly at $10 + per minute." - so maybe I should just upload to flickr at port?

So what's my real question? I guess I'd like to know details about your experiences using your laptop on a cruise ship - bonus points if it's Holland America!

Lost At Sea But Still In The Know

dieguido — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 11:17:25 -0800

I can't for the life of me think of this company's name and my GoogleFU is not working. I am looking for a company or service that supplies news to cruise ships. Instead of supplying entire newspapers to cruise ships, the ships often subscribe to a wire service where they receive a condensed version of the days news.

It's like subscribing to the AP or Press association but the stories are from multiple providers and shortened.

Is there anyone familiar with any of these companies or know of any companies that do this?

Do cruise prices fluctuate in the crazy fashion that airline tickets do?

Jimmie — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 10:49:31 -0800

Do cruise prices fluctuate in the crazy fashion that airline tickets do? Or do they just get more expensive as it gets closer to the departure date? I've been looking into a Royal Caribbean Cruise and the price has increased by 20% in just over a month period. One month ago the price was $400, and this past week it has been set steady at $500. The kicker is that the cruise doesn't set sail until Mid-April... at least 6 months from now so it just seems odd the price would jump so much.

This is for a 5 day cruise in Asia, which isn't as common as those for the Carribean, Bahamas, etc., so shopping around with other cruise lines is a limited option.

I've tried googling information on this but have only returned scammy looking cruise sales websites. Any industry insiders who know more about this?

Should I buy now or hold out and pray prices go down?