Royal Caribbean have announced that their high speed Internet product “Voom” is now available across their entire fleet of 25 ships.
Travellers who have cruised with Royal Caribbean in the past know that the previous connectivity onboard the ships transferred data at a glacial pace that was really only useful for checking emails, sending messages, and so on.
Here’s a speedtest from my last cruise showing a download rate of 0.24Mbps, with an upload rate of 0.14Mbps.
Voom seeks to change all that by providing connection speeds that claim to be what guests are used to on land – fast enough to stream Netflix, make VoIP calls, and more.
The technology is made possible by O3bMaritime which uses steerable Satellite beams that track the ship on its course in real time.
I checked cruise planner for an upcoming cruise, and a variety of packages are available for purchase.
There’s two service plans available:
- Voom Voyage: Basic Internet access for web browsing, social media, etc. but without streaming.
- Surf and Stream: Unlimited Internet access with streaming support.
While Royal Caribbean doesn’t mention attainable download speeds, it would be safe to assume there is a difference between the two tiers.
The pricing showing in the cruise planner for a cruise in December is:
| Voyage | Surf and Stream | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 device | $12.09 | $16.74 |
| 2 devices | $22.33 | $29.78 |
| 3 devices | $30.70 | $41.87 |
| 4 devices | $37.20 | $52.10 |
| 5 devices | $41.86 | $55.82 |
These prices are in Australian dollars, and certainly seem reasonable considering the technology involved.
It is worth noting that on Royal Caribbean the number of devices is counted as simultaneous logins. If you want to (for example) use both a phone and a tablet/laptop, you can purchase a single device plan as long as you are only using one at a time.
I’ll be sure to post a follow-up during the upcoming cruise with my experience.