Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL) recently revealed that they've been working with DeCurtis Corporation to develop a new technology platform known as "Cruise Freedom™" in an effort that they hope, "meaningfully enhances the guest experience from the moment of booking throughout [guests] Norwegian cruise."
This week Oceania Cruises, a subsidiary of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, announced "Wavenet", a new internet technology coming soon to the fleet, which includes free basic access for all guests. WiFi on cruise ships was once, and in many cases still is quite expensive and slow, but it's become much better and cheaper over the past couple of years - changes certainly welcome by many guests as well as crew members...
Keeping in touch with friends or family on a cruise is easy if you're going to be purchasing an onboard WiFi package, but often guests look to handheld radios or "walkie-talkies" for a cheaper way to coordinate happenings on ever-larger ships with countless distracting events. This can certainly be an effective option for some, but you'll want to keep reading to learn about features, options, reasonable expectations, and a few "gotchas" before relying on two-way radios on your cruise. Warning, I'm an amateur radio operator, used to work in radio communications, and a bit of a nerd - but I'll try to keep things simple.
We love travel tech, and have talked about how we pack for cruises. If you’re looking to invest in luggage for your next trip you may have seen bags with built in batteries – but we think you should avoid them. In addition to some conceptual flaws we’ve noticed, you may soon have trouble flying with these bags...
Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd (parent company to Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises, and Azamara Club Cruises) made some big announcements this week around the technology in and on their ships. The “Sea Beyond” event was hosted this Wednesday in NYC, and RoyalCaribbeanBlog.com was there to get the scoop. Nobody covers Royal Caribbean like they do, so you should first get the whole story by checking out their coverage of Sea Beyond. These announcements however really had us thinking (we love cruising and technology) so we couldn’t let it go without jumping in and providing our take…
In a world where we're constantly connected, those new to cruising are frequently shocked to find out about the high cost and sometimes poor speed of cruise ship internet connections. We've written before about staying in touch at sea, as well as various lines' efforts to better connection speeds and prices on-board cruise ships. What we haven't discussed is why it's so tricky. We'll try to keep things relatively simple, but be ready to get nerdy as we examine why the speed of light isn't fast enough when it comes to WiFi on the high seas.
Whether you want to share your vacation memories as they happen or you're looking to be able to keep in touch with those back home, many of you have asked questions about staying connected while cruising, and there is no single answer. In the past couple of years cell phone carriers have made international roaming a bit more palatable, but cell phone roaming rates on ships are still completely impractical, at least for calls and data. What are your options if you want to stay in touch while cruising? We've got 11 tips to keep you connected without breaking the bank...
Today Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd, parent company to Royal Caribbean International and Celebrity Cruises had their first quarter earnings call, and in case your wondering, it seemed good news for shareholders. For cruisers there earnings calls don't generally offer much, so there wasn't any huge news, but interestingly, most non-financial comments were about onboard technology and Celebrity Edge...
Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings has penned a multi-year strategic partnership with Global Eagle, maker of in-flight entertainment systems. This agreement will bring enhanced internet and entertainment services to Norwegian Cruise Line's fleet of 14 ships. This is slated to include tiered plans for Wi-Fi, messaging services, and video. In the future, guests will be able to access an integrated portal from their own smartphones and tablets, which will allow access to live and on-demand TV programming, movies, and more. Further, the systems being put in place by Global Eagle will allow for dynamic adjusting on bandwidth for each ship based on demand. This comes only a week after announcing
Many of us cruise with quite a few battery-powered devices that we want to keep charged, but cruise ship cabins don’t have as many outlets as we’d like. Common power strips are prohibited from cruise ships for safety reasons, and there aren't "cruise ship power strips", but there are alternatives. Let’s look into your options, and briefly cover why power strips aren’t allowed...