Sorry gang. Carnival’s WiFi (which costs $.75 a minute), is pretty flaky and pretty much sucks. Flickr stalls when I try to upload even low res photos (yes, with full signal strength) and this very post cost just me five bucks because it’s so slow. Gmail doesn’t load either….so I can’t check email.
Hopefully there will be a faster connection on land once in Cozumel.
Jody and I are having fun. I’m writing and taking pictures every day….I’ll post as soon as I get a good WiFi connection.
Update: Buyer Beware: If you purchase WiFi services from Carnival from your laptop in your cabin, NO WHERE on their Intranet does it state that you won’t be credited for unused blocks of time. So don’t buy any more than you have to.
I bought a 100 minute package, and when I was coming close to using it up, I purchased another 100 minute package. When it became quite obvious that the WiFi connection was substandard, unusable, and not worth the money, I stopped using it…never tapping into my second package.
I stopped down to the Internet office and spoke with the Carnival Cruise Internet Manager, Tim, asking if I could get credited for the unused time.
Tim was rude, dismissive and completely unprofessional (and a dork, if you want to know the truth).
Tim told me that if I had “made a mistake and accidentally purchased more time because you clicked the wrong button”, he could credit the account no problem. But since I knowingly made the purchase but simply didn’t use the time, “It’s not my problem”.
“It’s not my problem”, he said.
I’m standing there like…did you just say that to me? It’s not your problem? Did you really just said that to a customer? I was flabbergasted.
Cruise Tip: If you buy more Carnival WiFi time that you need, lie about it to Tim, and he’ll credit your account. Otherwise, it’s not his problem.
March 18th, 2008 at 6:31 am
Nice to see that Carnival is milking their customers for every cent they can- I guess that’s how they offset their cheap rates. $.75/minute is highway robbery…
The hospitality business in general doesn’t understand that free wi-fi is going to attract customers while rip-offs like this just piss them off. It’s stupid to cheap out on this- now they’ll just lose you as a repeat for the big dollars.
June 2nd, 2008 at 5:21 pm
The lower the per minute price the more net profit Carnival will make off the internet. Many of the 4or 5 star hotel charge $10.00 a day. This makes sense and I would pay a $10.00 charge.
June 2nd, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Thanks for the comment, Keith. I also would pay $10 a day, but at .75/minute, Carnival charges $360.00 a day.
July 13th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
We took a Carnival cruise in May, and had the same problem. you have to purchase the minutes, the 100 minute package is the best deal, you figure in a week you will certainly use that and more…..and then you try and log on from your room, nope, not once during the entire week did it work from our cabin. so you pack up your computer and take it down to the internet library, and….no connection. I had to load a different browser (was using IE), tech loaded Opera. it worked that time, but the next time, nope, had to have him mess with the computer all over again. bottom line, even if you use their computers, the connection is very very slow,and you can be in the middle of typing an email and the connection is lost, and so is your message. unless you have to check in daily, don’t bother buying blocks of minutes. Took my cell phone, had no problem at all making calls or receiving them, so do that for your emergency, and don’t count on the internet! It’s a real waste of money! and don’t get me started on the “beverage card for $48″. we will not be using Carnival again.