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Bermuda-registered ships

Include Pacific and Orient (P&O) and Princess Cruise ships that charge passengers hugely for poor Internet Access

By Keith Archibald Forbes (see About Us) at e-mail exclusively for Bermuda Online

To refer by email to this file, please use "bermuda-online.org/inaach" as your Subject.

Interestingly, on all Viking River Cruises ships, which don't call at Bermuda and are not Bermuda-registered either, there is now free ship-wide wireless internet service, or WIFI. Which means that for all their passenger they are now also a WIFI Hotspot. So they can show these signs: 

Bermuda does not have any such ports which are. And no Bermuda-registered ships offer free ship-wide WIFI or WIFI hotspots.

All Bermuda-registered ships of all types are administered by the Bermuda Government's Department of Maritime Administration. Bermuda-registered ships which are not cruise ships are too many to be listed here. But of the cruise ships, the following are known to be Bermuda-registered.

All Bermuda-registered ships fly this maritime flag of Bermuda

P&O Cruises

Arcadia (2005)
Artemis (1984)
Aurora (2000)
Azura (2010)
Oceana (2002)
Oriana (1995)
Ventura (2008)

Princess

Caribbean Princess (2004)
Coral Princess (2002)
Crown Princess (2006)
Dawn Princess (1997)
Diamond Princess (2004)
Emerald Princess (2007)
Golden Princess (2001)
Grand Princess (1998)
Island Princess (2003)
Ocean Princess (1999)
Pacific Princess (1999)
Royal Princess (2001)
Ruby Princess (2008)
Sapphire Princess (2004)
Sea Princess (1998)
Star Princess (2002)
Sun Princess (1995)

Arcadia

From November 25, 2009 Bermuda Online (BOL) tried to report daily on this P&O cruise ship on her voyage from Southampton, England to the Canary Islands, Madeira, Spain and Portugal. This was intended as the first time ever that a Bermuda-registered and Bermuda-flagged cruise ship had been specifically Internet-rated.  We wanted to determine for ourselves how this Bermuda-registered ship scores in Internet connectivity. Earlier, on two separate occasions some appreciable time before the ship was boarded, as travel writers we had asked P&O for details of the ship's Internet access, speed and costs. No reply was ever received. This discourtesy was duly noted. This is what we found out subequently:

• Is Arcadia's Internet connectivity speed up to par, fast? No, we found it is awful, hugely expensive and  so insufferably slow. it consumes huge amounts of expensive time just to find your own Internet Service Provider. (See "Arcadia's Internet Access Pricing" below).
•  Is it an asset to Arcadia's Hamilton-Bermuda port of registration? No, it is a huge liability, Bermuda ship register staff need to know and to demand massive improvements. We were hoping to be able to bring you a series of special reports from our correspondent on this very large vessel but cannot, for the reasons given above. 
• Would we recommend Arcadia to other passengers at this time who need regular access to the Internet including World Wide Web ?. No. Not with her present quality of Internet access, but yes, certainly, after (a) it changes her ISP for cause and (b) responds to passenger enquiries about Internet access speed and  pricing instead of P&O persistently ignoring such requests by passengers before they pay their deposits. 

Arcadia at Southampton, England

Arcadia's Internet Access Pricing

Network name: mtndsi

For speeds calculated by this author on November 25, 2009 at no more than 33 Kbps (not Mbps), so slow that some Bermuda web mail websites such as Logic could not be accessed at all. 

• Time Plan 1. 250 Minutes for 14 days, equivalent to 17.85 minutes a day at this slow speed. Cost £sterling 62.50 plus account activation charge of £2.50 =£ 0.26 a minute.
• Time Plan 2. 100 Minutes for 14 days, equivalent to 7.14 minutes a day at this slow speed. Cost £ sterling £35.00 plus account activation charge of £2.50=£0.375 a minute
• Pay-as-you-go. £0.50 per minute plus account activation charge of £2.50 each time you log on.

What is not said at all by any staff on board Arcadia, in any of the three wireless access locations of Deck 2 Globe/Spinanaker; Deck 3 Cybercentre/Cafe Vivo/Horizons Rooms or Library and Deck 9 Gymnasium/Belvedere/Aquarius Pool Bar, is that at most of the ports visited by Arcadia, there is free wireless Internet Access once passengers leave the ship, provided by either the ports authorities or the shopping malls centrally located in the ports. It was noticed by passengers how many cruise ship staff members go ashore with their laptops to take advantage of this free WIFI service ashore. Unfortunately, on the Arcadia you won't be able to access the internet from your cabin, only from the places on the ship specified above. But again, this is not stated in advance, only after you have boarded the ship.

Suggestions due to above

• It's noted cruise lines will not tell you in advance what ship's internet access prices are is or at what speeds apply. Wait until they answer your questions before you pay your cruise deposit and cost of your cruise ticket.
• Don't accept the ship's charges. Instead, wait for a port with free WIFI as many crew do.
•  Bring your own laptop. Don't use a ship's laptop that won't be configured to suit you or have the software you need 
• Do any of Bermuda's three ports of Hamilton, St. George's and Dockyard offer free WIFI to cruise ship passengers as other ports do? This should information should be given in advance by cruise lines to their Internet-savvy passengers. 

Conclusions

In many other respects Arcadia is a nice ship and her Captain, Staff Captain, other members of the ship's executive board and crew deserve to be complimented. Millions of UK pounds have been spent purely on her 21st-century state-of-the-art ship's theater and her hugely talented members of her theatrical and musical cast. 

But in Internet access service, reliability, speed and price the ship is presently a dead loss, using what appears to be 1990s internet technology and her officers and staff are being let down hugely in terms of Internet access. As P&O is owned by Carnival Cruises - which also owns Princess Cruises and the Cunard Line - other ships in Carnival's ownership are as likely to be as infected by this very serious case of terminal Internet pulmonary embolism. The irony is that before you board the ship passengers have to inform the ship of any disease that could infect others. But does Arcadia tell passengers of its own terminal Internet Access infection affecting passengers? No. They deserve to know.

The double-irony is that if you get to the Arcadia to board her in Southampton, and go by train from anywhere in the UK to Southampton, you'll get FREE WIFI access on the train. 

See Cruises to Bermuda and

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