Will I have access to the internet or telephone while on board?
This is a loaded question! The short answer is yes. The longer answer is as follows: Internet and phone services on board your vessel are capable via satellite. As a result, your internet connectivity varies greatly on the location of the ship, the movement of the ship and the quality of the connection.
You should never count on having a connection like you have in your home or office.
It is important to read the expedition company’s information brochure to verify what kind of services they offer.
Wifi is available on some ships, which allows you to connect using your laptop or phone. This type of internet connection is typically very expensive for you as it involves a large amount of data usage.
Surfing the internet, uploading photos, accessing your personal email account uses a great deal of data and is usually slow.
As a great alternative, most ships will offer you a ‘webmail’ option. This is to say that you will set up your own, onboard email account. You can send and receive emails (without attachments) on this account as much as you like and can use common computers on board or in some cases, connect through your laptop. This is a more economical choice.
Using webmail does not mean that you have access to your own email account, FaceBook, Skype, Twitter, etc. As a result, you must bring with you a list of the email addresses you wish to be in contact with.
Access to telephone is more straightforward. Telephones in your cabin or in the reception are available for your use and telephone cards can be purchased to make calls at your leisure.
In all cases, it is very important to read the information provided by your expedition company to learn how their specific system works.
Remember that using the internet and phone could potentially be a very expensive activity. Do not expect to be able to upload photos, stream videos, or talk on Skype while onboard the vessel.
Generally, the connections do not allow for this level of connectivity.
