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Internet at Sea

Remember a time when cruising truly meant getting away from it all? Blissfully unaware of work piling up at the office, no cell phones buzzing with messages or computers cluttering up luggage, the cruiser simply tuned out and kicked back. Those blissful days are not so long ago; Norwegian Sky was the first cruise ship to feature an Internet Cafe when it debuted in 1999.

But times have changed, and the Internet has become such an ubiquitous part of our lives that many of us can barely go 15 minutes, much less a week at sea, without checking e-mail and texts. Yet, while Internet is offered on virtually all seagoing cruiseships (with the exception of a few barebones expedition ships), it is still maddeningly unreliable and slow. Why, in 2012, must using the Internet at sea be so frustrating? To add insult to injury, why must our frustration be so expensive?

There are answers, but they are not particularly encouraging. Steve Oosthuizen, the senior IT officer on Crystal Serenity, told Cruise Critic, "Most people don't understand the structure of how communications at sea work, and when they get on a ship [they] expect it to be the same as on land. That is never going to happen."

That's the bad news. The good news, however, is that there are steps that lines can take to improve the speed and tricks you can employ to get your Internet fix with less hassle. If you've ever cursed in frustration as your screen froze mid-e-mail or are quivering in fear of being unable to check in as much as you'd like on an upcoming vacation, here are the nine things you need to know about Internet at sea.

Read the full article on Cruise Critic
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