Wi-Fi At Sea is a topic of interest for most cruise travelers. While true, this is a rather recent development and not a statement I would have made a decade ago. It was not all that long ago when “NO SERVICE” was commonly seen on dumbphones aboard cruise ships, minutes after sailing away from land. Best bet: give up and enjoy the cruise. Smart(er)phones and other advancing technology have brought increased connectivity as the situation continues to improve. Sharing our experiences, staying in touch and who has the best Wi-Fi to enable those dreams have become serious differentiating factors among cruise lines. Today we take a look at recent announcements by a number of cruise lines on this very topic.

Princess MedallionNet Promises Best Wi-Fi At Sea

 Princess Cruises MedallionNet will soon be on more than half of its fleet.

MedallionNet is currently available on Caribbean Princess, Regal Princess, Royal Princess and Ruby Princess. Princess will continue its expansion of MedallionNet adding additional ships by the end of 2019.

MedallionNet Expansion Schedule

• Coral Princess (April 5)
• Island Princess (May 15) (in time for the Alaska season)
• Crown Princess (June 30)
• Emerald Princess (August 3) (for sailings during Europe this summer)
• Golden Princess (December 20)
• Sky Princess (October 12)

“While many sail with us to disconnect from their digital life, we realize that offering land-like connectivity from anywhere on the ship is something guests value ”

– Jan Swartz, president of Princess Cruises.

Also taking advantage of technology available today, river cruise line AMAWaterways has a new mobile app

AmaWaterways announced the launch of “myAmaCruise,” a new mobile app designed to expand the ways guests can engage with and share their AmaWaterways river cruise experiences. Noteworthy features include:

• Live Itinerary Tracking, an interactive map that follows the ship’s journey throughout the cruise and showcases details of each stop
• Mobile Daily Cruiser, up-to-date information regarding onboard activities, details on the shore excursions available and port of call information
• Personal Cruise Album, a library of photos taken, with tagging on an itinerary map, which can be easily shared with family and friends during and after the cruise
• Email Postcards, a fun way to help guests connect with those at home — at the touch of a button — automatically sending e-postcards with images in each new port visited during their cruise