Sunrise, Sunset and Satellite Internet

Sunrise as the Journey docks in Lisbon, Portugal.

Sunset out in Mid-Atlantic. I don't know the Latitude and Longitude where I took this picture, but based on the Captain's Noon announcement, I know that at this point the water below our ship was more than 14,000 feet (4,500m) deep and there was nothing in sight anywhere around the ship.

The last sunset of the cruise, on the Mediterranean Sea, somewhere between Alicante, Spain, and Barcelona.


Now for that Satellite Internet.

My friend, Idrus, asked if I read blogs while at sea. The answer is, I skimmed them a few times very briefly. If I had read them leisurely as I like to do daily here at home, I'd be asking for a financial Bailout right there along with AIG.

There was internet connection aboard the ship, and with hotspots all over the ship, if you had your own laptop you could access it in your own stateroom or almost anywhere else on the ship. There was also a pleasant internet room up on Deck 9 that was well equipped with computers and printers, accessible 24 hours a day and staffed by a knowledgeable young lady for several hours a day. Computer lessons were scheduled daily.

This service I believe is offered by an independent contractor, not the cruise line.

Internet service was convenient, but very expensive. Access was $0.65 per minute, unless you bought a package, the best of which was for $100 (USD) which allowed you 263 minutes, which worked out to $0.38 per minute. Unused minutes were not refunded, and packages were also non-refundable. Satellite connection is pretty slow and not quite predictable, so it was easy to spend $1.50 just to log in and log out. Downloading a blog page could cost the same as a cocktail. An e-mail with that picture you took in port earlier attached could cost another drink. You could easily use up that $100 package in a day or two if you are not very careful and calculating.