Newbie cruisers often ask about what type of internet access they will have onboard a cruise ship, how well it works, how to use it, and how much it will cost.
First, one must understand that, because they are moving most of the time and because they travel around the world, cruise ships have to use satellite-based communications systems. Satellite-based communications is a very technically challenging problem to solve and and the solution is therefore very costly. And the connection is either very, very slow, or so slow as to be useless.
Most modern cruise ships have satellite connections with upwards of several hundred Kilobits per second bandwidth. By comparison, a typical home residence with cable modem or Verizon FIOS now has an internet connection capable of 15-50 Megabit per second range. Again, that's Megabits not Kilobits. So your typical home internet connection (shared with a handful of family users) has about 100 times the bandwidth of a large ship that must share its connection amongst dozens or even hundreds of users simultaneously! And, this slow satellite-based internet connection costs the cruise line at least tens of thousands of dollars per month, and naturally, they need to pass on these costs to you!
Given such internet bandwidth constraints and its associated high costs aboard a cruise ship, the best way to optimize your internet usage and to minimize the cost is to work offline. Most browsers and email clients now support offline use. Working offline means to be able to do things such as read emails or web pages while not being connected to the internet.
The reason most people never learned how to work off-line is because most of us have unlimited Internet connectivity at work and/or home, so working off-line is not necessary. We are all accustomed to casually browsing the web, hitting CNN.COM for example, and spending 10-15 minutes reading each article. However, on a cruise ship, when internet bandwidth is scarce and its use is costly (at up to 75 cents/minute!), working offline is critical to minimizing your internet-related expenses.
Microsoft's web browser, Internet Explorer for example, has an offline mode. You simply connect to the internet, and visit the sites and pages you are interested in (but don't read them while connected). Then after hitting all your sites, disconnect. Since your browser was in offline mode, it basically stored the text and images of each page locally on your hard disk so you can now read them at your convenience--rather than rushing because you are connected and spending 50 cents a minute!
You do the same type of thing with email using any number of commercially available offline mail readers, e.g. Outlook Express. Even the most popular web-based email services such as Google's Gmail or Yahoo Mail now offer offline clients. Simply connect, fetch and send your email, and then disconnect. You can read or compose messages at your leisure. Later, you can reconnect and get/send emails again.
If the benefits are still not clear, here are two identical scenarios, but one offline and one online, for getting the same five hypothetical emails, reading them and then composing five replies:
Work online via web-based email
1. Connect to Internet
2. Start browser (30 seconds)
3. Hit your email web server (30 seconds)
4. Open email and read it (1 minute)
5. Compose a reply and send it (2 minutes)
6. Repeat 4 and 5 four more times (12 minutes)
7. Logoff
Total time and cost: 16 minutes and $8.00
Working offline using your own computer
1. Open email client
2. Connect to Internet
3. Send/receive emails (30 seconds)
4. Disconnect
5. Casually read all new emails and compose replies while relaxing by the pool, in your cabin or at the lounge!
6. Reconnect to Internet
7. Send/Receive all messages (30 seconds)
Total time and cost: 1 minute and $0.50
And a couple other thoughts:
1. On a cruise ship, avoid using the internet during peak usage times. The bandwidth bottleneck during peak times can make the internet connection virtually unusable to try to connect during dinner, in the early morning or late evening hours, or when the ship is in port.
2. Remember to turn off Windows and other automatic software updates. You don't want these services to initiate download activities in such a non-broadband situations.
As you can see, if you learn work in off-line mode, you can cut your internet usage and cost by by a huge amount without much inconvenience at all!
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Friday, August 28, 2009
Credit Card Acceptance in Europe
In response to a recent question about credit card acceptance in Europe, I went back through my Quicken transactions and came up with the following statistics for the number of restaurants, stores, museums, churches, attractions or service providers that accepted (or were willing to accept) credit cards over our recent 25 days in the Mediterranean:
3 of 17 museums, churches or attraction (Vatican Museums, Basilica di Santa Croce in Firenze and the Time Elevator in Roma!)
6 of 15 vendors or shops (low because this includes street vendors)
2 of 4 tour companies (5 tours total)
0 of 22 taxi drivers or transfer companies
0 of 4 train, tram or cable car tickets
12 of 21 restaurants (lunch and dinner only, and does not include gelati places)
In purely dollar terms, if you exclude the cruise and hotel portions of the trip (the two most expensive items), credit cards were only accepted for less than a third of all our expenses.
As you can see, credit card acceptance definitely lags in Europe and around the Mediterranean so you'd better have lots of cash!
3 of 17 museums, churches or attraction (Vatican Museums, Basilica di Santa Croce in Firenze and the Time Elevator in Roma!)
6 of 15 vendors or shops (low because this includes street vendors)
2 of 4 tour companies (5 tours total)
0 of 22 taxi drivers or transfer companies
0 of 4 train, tram or cable car tickets
12 of 21 restaurants (lunch and dinner only, and does not include gelati places)
In purely dollar terms, if you exclude the cruise and hotel portions of the trip (the two most expensive items), credit cards were only accepted for less than a third of all our expenses.
As you can see, credit card acceptance definitely lags in Europe and around the Mediterranean so you'd better have lots of cash!
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Bad Baseball
Columbia, Maryland is apparently now the epicenter of bad Major League Baseball. The Washington Nationals and the Baltimore Orioles are currently the worst and third worst teams in baseball. And if you go another 250 miles out, you will find the fourth worst basedball team in the majors in the Pittsburgh Pirates. Well, at least tickets are easy to come by...
Sunday, August 16, 2009
The Future of Social Networking
The current crop of social networking, microblogging, mobile communications and collaborative technologies is quickly creating a new paradigm for human interaction, socializing and communications. Sites like Facebook, for example, provide a new and powerful way to communicate and stay in touch with friends and family.
But I wonder what fundamental changes will occur in human interactions after another generation or two. Will people know how to interact in person anymore? Will all this lead to more physical isolation or even total disconnect of people, and thus reduce or eliminate the need for these very technologies? Can it all lead to a world of mostly electronic interactions between human beings?
Wouldn't it be ironic if the popularity of these new technologies led to substantial reductions in human interactions, and that itself eventually kills the very technologies that initiated the trend in the first place?
But I wonder what fundamental changes will occur in human interactions after another generation or two. Will people know how to interact in person anymore? Will all this lead to more physical isolation or even total disconnect of people, and thus reduce or eliminate the need for these very technologies? Can it all lead to a world of mostly electronic interactions between human beings?
Wouldn't it be ironic if the popularity of these new technologies led to substantial reductions in human interactions, and that itself eventually kills the very technologies that initiated the trend in the first place?
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Single Supplement on Cruises
Recently a single cruiser commented on the apparent unfairness of the cruise business's single supplement. Passengers wishing to cruise solo typically have to pay 150% to 200% of the per person cruise fare. The protester did not feel that it was fair that, as a single traveler, she should have to pay so much more when she was not consuming the food or using the services of two passengers. During the discussion, she and others brought up hotels and airlines as examples of other travel industry sectors that price per room and seat respectively, and wondered why cruises couldn't be priced similarly to be more fair. However cruises, hotels and airplanes are not comparable and thus are not and cannot be, priced similarly.
A hotel room is priced as basically a facility charge, i.e. you are paying mostly for a room. That room is a fixed cost to the hotel that does not change much whether you put one person or four people in it. The incremental cost of accommodating the second, third and fourth person into a hotel room is negligible.
Airplane flights are priced per seat and that cost is fixed. So if you are big and need two seats, you pay for it. Otherwise you pay for a single seat. It does not matter to the airline whether you are single, traveling with a spouse or significant other, or with 20 other family and friends. They each pay the same fare because there are no additional services being provided in the base fare.
A cruise operates with an entirely different operational paradigm. Because a good portion of a cruise's profits are based on excursions, on-board activities and purchases, a cruise line is heavily dependent on the number of passengers on-board. Thus, cruises must be priced per person. A single traveler costs a cruise line all the potential revenues and profits of the other passenger that does not exist. There is a significant "opportunity cost" is lost because the single traveler takes up a cabin that is designed and priced to be double occupancy.
In addition, and just as important, a cruise's costs are relatively fixed. They plan for a specific number of passengers or customers, i.e. a ship full of staterooms with double occupancy. In other words, they have enough staff, and order enough food, drink and supplies, for a full ship. Thus with each single traveler, one traveler's worth of overhead, services and consumables are "wasted".
In conclusion, one cannot apply the "logic" of hotel or air flight pricing to cruise pricing. Thus, the single supplement for single travelers makes complete sense from a business and practical perspective. The cruise line business model clearly favors passengers traveling in groups of two or more, and does not work well for single passengers. So single travelers, if you can't afford the single supplement, you'd better find someone to share that stateroom with!
A hotel room is priced as basically a facility charge, i.e. you are paying mostly for a room. That room is a fixed cost to the hotel that does not change much whether you put one person or four people in it. The incremental cost of accommodating the second, third and fourth person into a hotel room is negligible.
Airplane flights are priced per seat and that cost is fixed. So if you are big and need two seats, you pay for it. Otherwise you pay for a single seat. It does not matter to the airline whether you are single, traveling with a spouse or significant other, or with 20 other family and friends. They each pay the same fare because there are no additional services being provided in the base fare.
A cruise operates with an entirely different operational paradigm. Because a good portion of a cruise's profits are based on excursions, on-board activities and purchases, a cruise line is heavily dependent on the number of passengers on-board. Thus, cruises must be priced per person. A single traveler costs a cruise line all the potential revenues and profits of the other passenger that does not exist. There is a significant "opportunity cost" is lost because the single traveler takes up a cabin that is designed and priced to be double occupancy.
In addition, and just as important, a cruise's costs are relatively fixed. They plan for a specific number of passengers or customers, i.e. a ship full of staterooms with double occupancy. In other words, they have enough staff, and order enough food, drink and supplies, for a full ship. Thus with each single traveler, one traveler's worth of overhead, services and consumables are "wasted".
In conclusion, one cannot apply the "logic" of hotel or air flight pricing to cruise pricing. Thus, the single supplement for single travelers makes complete sense from a business and practical perspective. The cruise line business model clearly favors passengers traveling in groups of two or more, and does not work well for single passengers. So single travelers, if you can't afford the single supplement, you'd better find someone to share that stateroom with!
Sunday, August 9, 2009
The Fifteen Oddest Moments During Our Mediterranean Vacation
1. In organizing two CruiseCritic social gatherings onboard, I was inexplicably considered a travel agent and HAL had to confiscate my passport for a couple days.
2. On the cruise, coffee, espresso, cappuccino and fresh squeezed orange juice are free, but you have to pay for sodas.
3. Can’t take pictures in the Sistine Chapel because Sony owns the photo rights.
4. Having to pay for using the toilet in some places in Italy and other countries.
5. Pooping, flushing and washing your hands in Italy was a challenge at first, because most men’s toilets in Italy don’t have seats, the flusher is wall mounted, and most sinks are operated by a hidden foot pedal.
6. Noticing that there are more gelati stores in Italy than any other type of food or retail outlet.
7. La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona reminded me of the Bug’s Life Tree in Animal Kingdom in Disney World.
8. The nicest bathroom in the Mediterranean was on the old City Walls of Dubrovnik!
9. Paying to take pictures inside the Bardo Museum and Sidi Bou Said in Tunisia.
10. Taking pictures inside the Ancient Olympia Museum is permitted, but you are prohibited from “posing”.
11. Greek women all seem to wear their pants one size too small.
12. Stuffing 75+ people into a public bus on the ride from Oia to Fira in Santorini
13. Watching the poor Greek Royal guards dressed in heavy formal uniforms and standing in the heat motionless for an hour at a time.
14. A Roma taxi driver claiming she didn’t know where the Pantheon was.
15. Watching 150-200 people stand in line waiting to buy tickets to enter the Colisseum knowing that, not 400 meters away, there is another ticket window with no line.
2. On the cruise, coffee, espresso, cappuccino and fresh squeezed orange juice are free, but you have to pay for sodas.
3. Can’t take pictures in the Sistine Chapel because Sony owns the photo rights.
4. Having to pay for using the toilet in some places in Italy and other countries.
5. Pooping, flushing and washing your hands in Italy was a challenge at first, because most men’s toilets in Italy don’t have seats, the flusher is wall mounted, and most sinks are operated by a hidden foot pedal.
6. Noticing that there are more gelati stores in Italy than any other type of food or retail outlet.
7. La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona reminded me of the Bug’s Life Tree in Animal Kingdom in Disney World.
8. The nicest bathroom in the Mediterranean was on the old City Walls of Dubrovnik!
9. Paying to take pictures inside the Bardo Museum and Sidi Bou Said in Tunisia.
10. Taking pictures inside the Ancient Olympia Museum is permitted, but you are prohibited from “posing”.
11. Greek women all seem to wear their pants one size too small.
12. Stuffing 75+ people into a public bus on the ride from Oia to Fira in Santorini
13. Watching the poor Greek Royal guards dressed in heavy formal uniforms and standing in the heat motionless for an hour at a time.
14. A Roma taxi driver claiming she didn’t know where the Pantheon was.15. Watching 150-200 people stand in line waiting to buy tickets to enter the Colisseum knowing that, not 400 meters away, there is another ticket window with no line.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Lessons Learned From Our Mediterranean Vacation
1. Don’t overplan with too much walking for seniors and kids. Use more taxis, or car and bus tours to get around.
2. Make sure to carry lots of snacks for mid-morning and mid-afternoon blood sugar boosts.
3. Using a reputable tour company that has good communications takes a lot of stress out of the pre-trip planning. Jany from Romeinlimo, for example, was always helpful, courteous and responsive despite my frequent, and probably sometimes annoying, emails. She was that rare coordinator who understands that she needs to answer questions and do it promptly in order that her customers can have confidence that a specific tour will take place when, where, how and for how much, the customer expects.
4. As tours and transfers consume a huge part of a vacation budget, sharing them with others makes a lot of practical and financial sense. And it's more fun!
5. Due to the cruise length and breadth of ports (the two B2B itineraries were clearly designed to compliment each other), the distances between ports are smaller than on other cruise itineraries. Thus we could spend more time in most ports and this greatly increased touring flexibility and reduced stress.
6. Despite HAL’s reputation for skewing older demographically, the guests on our sailing were the youngest we’ve ever sailed with. The Mediterranean itinerary is definitely more demanding physically and perhaps this skewed the guest list to younger and more physically fit guests.
7. HAL’s approach to turnaround days on B2Bs was a very pleasant surprise: no annoying morning announcements; special lunch, spa and tour options; and no muster drill.
8. Loved HAL’s silent disembarkation process (as compared to our RCI and Carnival experiences). Very effective, quiet and orderly.
9. The port shuttles that charge a fee are almost always a rip-off.
10. Bring and wear sandals for the beaches in Croatia—very rocky and painful to walk on barefooted!
11. Relatively few places accepted (or wanted to accept) credit cards. While perhaps half of restaurants took plastic, virtually none of the museum, church or site admissions accepted them. This resulted in me withdrawing and using much more cash than originally planned.
12. Even when a restaurant accepted credit cards, nearly every one of them wanted tips in cash only.
13. As long as you are not a timid or conservative driver, renting a car makes a lot of sense in many ports. The rental process is very quick and easy. Renting a car is much more convenient, gives you a lot of flexibility to go where and when you please, and is more cost effective than hiring a private driver or taxi.
14. In Italy (and perhaps other places in Europe too), you need to buy your train or bus tickets BEFORE you get onboard one.
15. To drink directly from the ancient public water fountains in Roma, stick your finger into the end or bottom of the pipe, and the water will shoot up the small hole in the top surface of the pipe.
16. To board and ride a bus in Santorini, you need to be really aggressive, push your way onboard and squeeze into any available orifice. Then the onboard worker will push and squeeze his way to you somehow to collect the 1.20 Euro fare.
17. When taking pictures of large buildings, objects or scenery that won’t fit in a single camera frame, take multiple shots (making sure to overlap the images) and use photo stiching or merging software to create the final aggregated image when you return home. A great way to get those too-big-to-fit shots and for panoramas!
2. Make sure to carry lots of snacks for mid-morning and mid-afternoon blood sugar boosts.
3. Using a reputable tour company that has good communications takes a lot of stress out of the pre-trip planning. Jany from Romeinlimo, for example, was always helpful, courteous and responsive despite my frequent, and probably sometimes annoying, emails. She was that rare coordinator who understands that she needs to answer questions and do it promptly in order that her customers can have confidence that a specific tour will take place when, where, how and for how much, the customer expects.
4. As tours and transfers consume a huge part of a vacation budget, sharing them with others makes a lot of practical and financial sense. And it's more fun!5. Due to the cruise length and breadth of ports (the two B2B itineraries were clearly designed to compliment each other), the distances between ports are smaller than on other cruise itineraries. Thus we could spend more time in most ports and this greatly increased touring flexibility and reduced stress.
6. Despite HAL’s reputation for skewing older demographically, the guests on our sailing were the youngest we’ve ever sailed with. The Mediterranean itinerary is definitely more demanding physically and perhaps this skewed the guest list to younger and more physically fit guests.
7. HAL’s approach to turnaround days on B2Bs was a very pleasant surprise: no annoying morning announcements; special lunch, spa and tour options; and no muster drill.
8. Loved HAL’s silent disembarkation process (as compared to our RCI and Carnival experiences). Very effective, quiet and orderly.
9. The port shuttles that charge a fee are almost always a rip-off.
10. Bring and wear sandals for the beaches in Croatia—very rocky and painful to walk on barefooted!11. Relatively few places accepted (or wanted to accept) credit cards. While perhaps half of restaurants took plastic, virtually none of the museum, church or site admissions accepted them. This resulted in me withdrawing and using much more cash than originally planned.
12. Even when a restaurant accepted credit cards, nearly every one of them wanted tips in cash only.
13. As long as you are not a timid or conservative driver, renting a car makes a lot of sense in many ports. The rental process is very quick and easy. Renting a car is much more convenient, gives you a lot of flexibility to go where and when you please, and is more cost effective than hiring a private driver or taxi.14. In Italy (and perhaps other places in Europe too), you need to buy your train or bus tickets BEFORE you get onboard one.
15. To drink directly from the ancient public water fountains in Roma, stick your finger into the end or bottom of the pipe, and the water will shoot up the small hole in the top surface of the pipe.
16. To board and ride a bus in Santorini, you need to be really aggressive, push your way onboard and squeeze into any available orifice. Then the onboard worker will push and squeeze his way to you somehow to collect the 1.20 Euro fare.
17. When taking pictures of large buildings, objects or scenery that won’t fit in a single camera frame, take multiple shots (making sure to overlap the images) and use photo stiching or merging software to create the final aggregated image when you return home. A great way to get those too-big-to-fit shots and for panoramas!
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Best and Worst Bathrooms in the Mediterranean?
Another interesting tidbit was that, in 25 days in the Mediterranean, the nicest bathroom we encountered was on the walls of Dubrovnik, facing the Adriatic! It was near and just past this spot...
Never expected that! The worst bathrooms were in Italy.
Never expected that! The worst bathrooms were in Italy.
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