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November 05, 2006

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Jim Ward

When will cruise ships offer afordable internet and email access? It seems like they look at these items as a cash cow and soak the user for fees far in excess of the costs. Good luck on using internet cafes to do your work. While on vacation in Italy in September, the employees of the cafes (called "internet points") freaked out at the sight of a USB thumb drive and I could not use my U3-enabled SanDisk Cruzer drive. Shameful!

Dick Eastman

I took a 7-day cruise last year and sent/received e-mails 2 or 3 times a day. The total Internet bill for the week was about $25.00.

Of course, I used a dedicated e-mail program, not webmail. I'd connect (at the cruise ship's outrageous prices) and download all the mail to my PC. Then I'd disconnect. The total online time was 2 or 3 minutes.

Then I would go back to my cabin, read the messages, type replies or new messages at my leisure, all while disconnected. All my replies/new messages were stored on my laptop's hard drive.

Later that day or perhaps the next day, I'd go back, connect online and send the e-mails I had composed. I then downloaded the next batch of new e-mail messages. Again, I was connected 2 or 3 minutes. The result was a very cheap online bill. I was also surprised at how fast the satellite Internet connection performed.

Almost any standard e-mail program can do that. I used to do the same a few years ago when I used my cell phone as a wireless modem while traveling and cell phone connections were still expensive in those days.

Surfing the web and reading and writing e-mail via a web browser on a cruise ship would be outrageously expensive, however. Web mail (HotMail, MSN Mail, Yahoo Mail, AOL mail, etc.) would be a bad idea.

- Dick Eastman

jtaubman

One way around the thumb drive problem is to use a compact flash card for your data, although it does not have U3, most cafes assume the card has photos on it, these days. For myself I use gmail when away, over the last few years I have had no problems connecting where ever I have been, I have checked my mail and my web site, in the lighthouse at Cape Point in South Africa, a beach Cafe in Phi Phi, Thailand, and a cafe in Cusco.

Although ship internet is expensive, on most cruises its unusual to be more than 48hours from a cafe.

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