Carnival and Royal Caribbean quietly fix a huge cruising problem

Some people brag about putting their phones in the safe as soon as they board a cruise ship. They say they want to disconnect and leave the world behind them.

That's a noble ideal, but it's impractical for most people. Many cruisers have family and work reasons to stay in touch while they're at sea.

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In some cases, people consider staying connected as part of their vacation. That could mean sharing photos on social media, watching TikTok videos about their port stops, or relaxing with a streaming movie or television show.

Just a few years ago, those things were borderline impossible to do on a cruise ship. On my first cruise in late 2018 on Carnival Conquest, the top-tier internet package was barely capable of sending an email on a sea day.

To send the work emails I needed each day, I had to get up early in the morning to access the precious internet bandwidth, and doing any meaningful work was basically impossible. Over the next few years leading up to the Covid pandemic, both Carnival and Royal Caribbean made marginal internet improvements, but service was slow and unreliable.

As a regular cruiser during that period, I could work, but doing anything more than bringing up a web page or sending an email was best saved for port days. You could work on the ship, but a video meeting was out of the question and WiFi phone calls dropped pretty regularly.  

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Royal Caribbean and Carnival now offer Starlink    

While Elon Musk may spend most of his time as a right-wing troll who has turned the former Twitter into a hate-filled cesspool, he has also continued to be a technological visionary. His Starlink company has brought internet service to places that lacked it, provided a lifeline to Ukraine during Russia's illegal invasion, and offered an affordable, viable option for cruise ship internet.

Carnival Cruise Line (CCL) has adopted it across all its brands, as has Royal Caribbean. However, both cruise lines have actually been pretty quiet about adding Starlink to their ships.

That may be an attempt to modify expectations, or it could be part of an effort to keep the system manageable by encouraging more passengers to buy Internet packages. Carnival CEO Josh Weinstein did, however, comment on the improved internet service during his company's second-quarter earnings call.

"We completed the rollout of Starlink this quarter, another revenue uplift opportunity and a real game changer for our onboard connectivity experience, enabling us to deliver the same high-speed WiFi service available on land throughout our fleet. Not only does this technology provide our guests with more flexibility to stay connected, it enables our crew to stay in touch with friends and loved ones, and it enhances our onboard operational systems, a win-win-win," he shared.

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How well does Starllink actually work on cruise ships?

Weinstein may be getting ahead of himself when he calls Starlink "the same high-speed WiFi service available on land." Royal Caribbean makes an equally boastful, but more qualified statement about its Voom internet service on its website.

"Royal Caribbean Voom, the fastest internet at sea, is now available on every Royal Caribbean ship. With six times faster onboard WiFi speed than you’ll find on any other cruise ships in the world, the internet connectivity is unlike anything you’ve ever experienced on a cruise ship," the cruise line claims.

Royal Caribbean's claims are slightly more true than Carnival's CEO's claims. 

Starlink, which I have used on multiple Royal Caribbean and Celebrity ships, but not on a Carnival ship, offers a much-improved cruise ship internet experience. It still, however, has its limits, and its effectiveness varies based on demand and your location on the ship.

In a broad sense, I can usually attend a one-on-one video meeting onboard if I find a spot with a strong signal. I can attend multi-person video meetings, but it works better if I turn my own video off.

Starlink isn't offering land-like speeds or reliability, and it's worse on sea days when more people use the internet, but it generally allows you to work on a cruise ship. It's possible to post photos to social media and calls usually (but not always) work.

Carnival and Royal Caribbean took a clear problem and mostly fixed it. Starlink isn't the same as sitting in a Starbucks, but it's mostly good enough, which is a major improvement.   

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