Is There an Affordable Way To Get Wi-Fi on a Cruise Ship? – Technologist

You request time off work, book a cruise, board your ship and head toward the open sea with your loved one.

Sipping a cool drink and checking your itinerary for all the amazing ports on the schedule, you decide to hop online and check your email.

Then it hits you. As you connect to the cruise ship’s Wi-Fi, the price tag flashes on your screen. You rub your eyes. Surely it’s not accurate … is it?

Yes, cruise ship Wi-Fi can be painfully expensive. But money expert Clark Howard is a cruise veteran and always figures out ways to save money. Does he have any strategic advice?

How Do I Buy Affordable Wi-Fi on a Cruise?

My cruise ship wants $175 per week for Wi-Fi if I pay prior to the cruise. Is there any way to find cheaper internet at sea?

That’s what a Clark Howard listener recently asked.

Asked Michele in Ohio: “Is there an inexpensive way to get Wi-Fi on cruise ships? The cruise line is asking $25 per day if you pay prior to the cruise and my phone carrier wants $30 per day. This does not include the international charges when we are on excursions.”

Clark’s son Grant loves cruises. So Clark now has been on more than two dozen of them. If Wi-Fi isn’t included in your cabin package, he says, expect to pay $25 a day or $175 a week. That’s standard in the industry, Clark says, and there is no real workaround.

“The Wi-Fi experience is usually underwhelming and crazy expensive,” Clark says. “The service is usually pokey slow except on the ships that now have Starlink, which is Elon Musk’s thing from SpaceX that is fantastic, robust and fast.”

Most people would consider using their cell phone hot spot in a situation where Wi-Fi wasn’t available or was prohibitively expensive. That’s not such a great idea on a cruise ship, Clark says.

“I would not trust using your cell phone under any circumstances no matter what they tell you about being able to use an international plan on a cruise ship. Keep your cell phone on airplane mode,” Clark says.

How To Get Free Internet on a Cruise

This is not exactly a workaround because it does nothing for you during the portion of your trip where the cruise ship is out to sea.

But Clark says that if you can stand to wait, you almost certainly can access free Wi-Fi in ports.

“If you can live without Wi-Fi on the ship, if you have a lot of stops, when you get to port there’s free Wi-Fi everywhere,” Clark says. “All the bars have them. And lots of restaurants have free Wi-Fi. If you’re on a ship that’s day after day after day at sea, then obviously that’s a problem.

“But is there a way to get around paying a fortune [for cruise ship Wi-Fi]? Not that I’ve heard of.”

Final Thoughts

If you must pay for Wi-Fi on a cruise ship, be prepared to shell out $25 a day. But you can also avoid that charge and wait to use the internet at the ports along the way, usually for free.