Internet scam

My wife has carried out a review in regards to this ship, this is an additional comment for those who are interested.

We have cruised with the Princess lines about 7 times and in each case I have found the same problem in regards to their Internet access. First I would advise you that I am an ex IT Controller and have been involved in IT for about 41 years (yes even before it become know by many).

The Crown Internet was very very slow and when I queried this with the operator he advised that it was due to the satellite reception. I then advised him that it had nothing to do with this and the problem was with the on board server, after a short time he became aware that I was conversant with IT and he suddenly disappeared!!!

To log on to their system takes about 50 seconds, where it should have taken only 5 seconds at the most. The page refresh was so bad it took me back to the days of early Windows. It took me 49 minutes to send 2 short emails and this is at 75cents per minute.
The Crown had a nice little leaflet which advised you that the signal has to go via a route of 22,000 miles from server to satellite to ship and has what is called latency. I know what that is and it has nothing to do with the slow response of their server, it is just trying to hide behind technical jargon.

To prove my point, I compared their “Escape Travel Center” with the Internet access. The Escape is trying to get you to book another cruise and the page refresh is immediate. I also checked other PC’s on the ship and without exception the operations were carried out without delay.

If the satellite was that bad, how is it that the cabins have news channels running all day long? If the reception was that bad the channels would never be able to run.

I could carry on and on with examples of this poor service and can only say the the Princess lines is ripping off their customers with this very poor service and it must be deliberate.