As of 2026 this is a rapidly evolving topic! Most major cruise lines have switched to SpaceX Starlink service for internet access. Starlink is far far faster and more reliable than the prior marine satellite internet service cruise ships used to provide. On many of my recent cruises with Starlink service, I've had no problem streaming video such as YouTube and video from other providers. Email, web browsing, social media, etc., which are much less demanding on bandwidth work flawlessly.
Many airlines have also switched to Starlink with more planning to do so in the near future. I'm personally family with Starlink as I have a dish on the roof of my home in Vancouver, Washington, and also a mobile Starlink dish at my vacation house in Southern California. I don't yet use Starlink as my main internet provider at home as cable internet has far faster bandwidth (and fiber which is not available at my home, even faster). Being a content creator and spending hours on the internet every day, it is important for me to have the fastest internet that is available to my location.
I've been using internet on cruise ships since it first became available on ships. Originally the ships would charge about 40 cents for every minute of connect time. In other words, $24 per connect hour! Even if you were just sitting at your computer thinking of what to type next, you were still being charged 40 cents for every minute you were connected to the internet. It was VERY important to remember to disconnect when you were done with the internet or you'd still be charged $24 per hour while your computer stood idle! Plus, that connection was extremely slow and unreliable. It was slower than the old dial-up speeds! Today's Starlink internet that is fast enough to watch streaming services is a far cry from that old internet access.
Also, in the "old days," I had to make sure to book a cabin as close as possible to the internet computer center. Back then, only the internet computer center had a WiFi hub. Nowhere else in the ship would you be close enough to connect to the WiFi signal! But today, ships are saturated with an excellent WiFi signal no matter where your cabin is located. Modern ships use WiFi for everything, keeping passengers informed of daily activities, menus, and even helping passengers find where others in their party are located in the ship.
I know a lot of passengers complain about the high cost of internet on ships, but I see it as a bargain compared to what they used to charge. Not only does it cost way less than in the old days, but with the tremendously enhanced speed and reliability, I can get my internet tasks done a lot faster!
What you are allowed to use the internet for on ships is also evolving. You probably realize that you should always keep your mobile phone in "Airplane Mode" while on a ship to avoid being charged the extremely high cost of marine cellular service. But since my mobile phone is connected to the internet on the ship I used to use the mobile phone feature of making calls over the internet instead of via the cellular network. Originally there was no charge for this and it would work fine, even without a connection to the cellular network. But some cruise lines are now blocking this feature preventing making or receiving calls, as well as blocking and receiving texts, using the "internet calling" features of many mobile phones.
So far people are reporting that the WhatsApp and Facetime Apps still work for making and receiving phone calls. The drawback of these Apps is that you can only communicate people who also have these Apps. These Apps don't work very well if you need to make and receive calls to and from businesses or other people who don't have these Apps or you don't know their ID on the Apps. However, there are still some VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) that do work over the ship's internet. Some seem to be blocked and others go through. But again, it can be a bit inconvenient as you use a different phone number than your usual mobile phone when using a VOIP service. You can call out, but people can't call you back unless you give them your VOIP phone number. Maybe this can be resolved by temporarily forwarding your mobile phone number to your VOIP phone number while on a cruise.
On a more technical note, I use Filezilla FTP to upload reports and photos to my websites while on a cruise. On my most recent cruise I noticed that the ship's internet blocked the use of Filezilla FTP. I tried using a VPN, but that didn't fix the problem. I managed to figure out a different work around for this, but it was a bit inconvenient.
More content to be posted soon!
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