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.
May 16th, 2009 at 11:44 am
My wife and I work alot on the computer, we both have sprint cards and decided to take a cruise using our Marriot points, we could have gone to Hawaii, but I wanted something simple, leave out of Long Beach. 1 hour from our house, go to Mexico and work on the cruise….
They told us they had free wifi on the phone….. We got there and found out $100 for 250 minutes…. plus they block my Sprint Card….. We were also redirected to Canada because of Swine Flu…. Thats ok, but it was cold and windy and we had to spend all the time inside, no problem, we had to work about 8 hours a day…..
But with both us it would cost us over $2000 this week for wifi, I asked them if I could pay $500.00 for unlimited they said no…. I asked them I paid $500.00 for 1250 minutes could they give me 500 additional minutes since the cruise was giving away a contest of minutes anyways, they said no…..
I was not upset that other people only paid $199.00 to take our cruise that costs us equivalent of $700 each….I was not upset when we they did not upgrade us to room with a balcony because of the cancellation of our Mexico cruise, I was not upset when I tried to pay the extra $400 out of my pocket to get a balcony because apparently they were full, but we met a couple that upgraded the day of the cruise….
But after I pleaded with them over an over to please help me out with the internet and even communicated to them that my wife and I are tyring to determine if we must fly back at our first stop in Victoria because it is may be cheaper for us to FLY back so we can continue to do our jobs rather than paying the internet fees then I started getting frustrated… I asked can they help us determine what we need to do to disembark and possible flights….. They said that is our problem and they cannot help us with air arrangments or customs….
2 hours later we started getting messages on our room phone from the stating that they were mistaken and they needed us to fill out paperwork if we were to leave the ship and not return…… We never responded, they called every hour for a few days……we never responded…
We were the perfect cruise ship couple we are entrepenuers never crused before and live in Orange County….. We are now looking into the a 30 day cruise on Royal…… We have no kids and can basically live and work on a cruise as long as we have internet….
Carnival sucks
September 27th, 2009 at 6:01 am
Well!
That lot was an unpleasant eyeopener!!
My son and his wife has planned a cruise for us all
on “Freedom” to Carib etc! I had hoped to use WIFI onboaed!
But after reading these dismal tales, NFW! Oh well, I can live without it fortunately for the relatively short period aboard! Being retired, there is no business interests to keep abreast of, so that works. The “Beverage” codts on board seem excessive! If not darned right gauging! Our only crise experience has been with Holland-America where one expects to pay extra! Still will be great to have our little “family reunion” though!
Good Luck You All
Bon Voyage etc
March 8th, 2010 at 10:58 am
Your right to be upset, I have worked in hotel management, I would have refunded in a heartbeat I bet you speat over 1k on your cruise, dang.