Alex Bruno
Following months of rumors, Royal Caribbean said on Tuesday that its cruise ships would now offer a new high-speed internet option. In order to deliver high-speed and low-latency internet aboard cruise ships, the Royal Caribbean Group just announced a new cooperation with SpaceX’s Starlink. Along with all new ships for each of the brands, Starlink will be introduced to all Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises, and Silversea Cruises ships.
Since June 2022, Royal Caribbean has been testing Starlink aboard Freedom of the Seas; however, the company has not announced the testing or its plans to use Starlink. Royal Caribbean said in a news statement that the trials “got a fantastic favorable response from passengers and staff.” The deployment of Starlink, according to Royal Caribbean Group, would start “immediately” and be finished by the end of the first quarter of 2023.
According to Royal Caribbean Group CEO Jason Liberty, “Our aim as a business is to provide the finest holiday experiences to our guests responsibly, and this new service, which is the largest public deployment of Starlink’s high-speed internet in the travel sector so far, underlines our dedication to that objective.”
“The cruise experience for both passengers and staff will be improved by this technology, which will provide game-changing internet access to our ships. It will enhance and make high-bandwidth activities like video streaming and video calls more feasible. We continue to put a strong emphasis on innovation and quality for our visitors, our crew, the communities we visit, and our stockholders, as shown by our use of Starlink.”
Addressing a problem
The internet connections offered by Royal Caribbean have previously varied from mediocre to terrible, thus Starlink represents a huge increase. When compared to possibilities for land-based internet, satellite internet has often been a costly and sluggish commodity.
The need for internet aboard has greatly increased since so many of the internet requirements of passengers and crew are met by cloud-based services. Until recently, O3b MEO was one of the providers used by Royal Caribbean’s Voom internet service. Older ships in the fleet of Royal Caribbean did not get the O3b internet, although it was available on the company’s more recent ships.
Furthermore, anecdotal evidence suggests that it has not been doing as well as it once did, particularly when compared to rival cruise lines like Princess Cruises. You will probably find it performing well since the Freedom, Oasis, and Quantum classes employ more recent satellite technology, which results in faster speeds overall.
Older satellite technology is used by older ships. On the older ships, you can still stream, although you may sometimes have greater buffering.
More details to be revealed later
We’ll have to wait a little while longer to see which ship will have higher internet connections and what the costs will be.
Dates for the addition of Starlink to each ship were not specified in the announcement. Additionally, there was no mention of price. The current starting fee for Royal Caribbean’s faster tier internet is $19.99 per day, per device. The daily cost is somewhat reduced by multi-device subscriptions. Royal Caribbean International has been contacted by SpaceXMania about the timeline for installing Starlink on each ship.
Source: Royalcaribbeanblog
