There was a time when those who went to sea felt they had entered a special universe totally apart from modern life. Surrounded by a vast unforgiving ocean, the ship was an island itself, embracing a separate society unconnected and unrelated to the world on land.
It looks like those days are gone for good.
From family gossip to world affairs, from video games to soft porn, today’s cruisers can bring their high-tech land lives along with them onto the decks and into the staterooms of some of the world’s modern cruise ships.
Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than on this ship, the Summit, a super modern vessel in the Celebrity Cruise Lines fleet.
Multi-course meals, a modern spa, dance classes and the usual enrichment lectures on everything from history of the Aztecs to napkin folding were not enough for Celebrity, which boasts almost as many computer chips as chocolate chips scattered about the ship.
For the first time in more than two decades of cruising, I have been able to take my own laptop computer into my cabin and communicate by satellite with the world at large. This is Celebrity’s own Connect@Sea program. Unlike the usual ships’ cyber cafes, this setup also allows a passenger to send and receive photographs and other attached files. It didn’t always work perfectly, but we paid $100 for this service on the two-week cruise, and still found it well worth the money.
One of the first things we did was to send some pictures of mom and dad having fun at the pool back to our land-locked offspring, and we received a couple of new photos back in return.
And, as an admitted senior-citizen geek, I also created and uploaded almost nightly a special Web site chronicling the progress of the Summit on this Panama Canal cruise.
Norwegian Cruise Lines has announced that it will inaugurate a similar system, but the service will not be available in the staterooms. Passenger cabins have had TVs for some time, of course, but on the Summit, even the TV is interactive. Besides the usual run of satellite CNN, some free taped movies and some upbeat yakety-yak from the cruise director, there is a choice of about 40 late-run movies, available for $8.95 a pop–a quarter of them designated for “Mature Audiences.” Parents can push buttons on the remote to create a special lock-out code to keep the kids from tuning in to the flesh flicks.
Each cabin TV is also connected to a master computer. By pushing buttons on the remote, the passenger is able to book shore excursions, order meals by room service and–believe it or not–play blackjack, poker or a virtual slot machine. All house minimums are a modest 25 cents a bet. As far as it is known to Huang-Fu Chun, the ship’s interactive television manager, it is the world’s first instance of TV gambling–well, aboard a cruise ship, anyway.
There is, of course, a conventional casino on another deck for those whose gambling tastes run more to the traditional.
And if you really want to know how much money you’re spending on the cruise–whether gambling, buying drinks or other special charges, making sure you don’t go over your limit, you can find that confidential information on your own personal TV screen too.
Outside the cabin, considerable high-tech interactive activities on the Summit include a traditional Internet room, with PCs available at 50 cents a minute, for those who didn’t opt for the above-named Connect@Sea program. (Like those on other ships, no attachments, CD-ROMs or floppy disks are allowed, however.)
For those into video games, there is a small room tucked away in a corner for addicts of the genre. No quarters needed–just push your electronic card/room key into the slot and build up your balance due while you shoot down some video bad guys.
I have to say, however, that in this narrow field, Princess Cruises may have the Summit beat. The large video rooms I saw aboard the Grand Princess and the Star Princess provide a much greater variety of sophisticated electronic games.
A special music room here on the Summit, called Notes, provides a dramatic interactive service for passengers who make their way to its two-deck precincts.
Borrow a pair of high-fi stereo earphones from the Guest Relations Office and plug in to one of the special computer monitors in Notes to choose from–are you ready for this?–some 30,000 musical selections.
This service used to be available in the cabins, a crew member confides, but unfortunately the ship was losing too many earphones at the end of the voyages.
Something else that doesn’t appear in the Summit cabins is a VCR–however a certain number of these are also available for checking out at the front desk.
Children, too, can reap the benefits of interactive high-tech on the Summit. There’s a special youngsters’ TV studio that’s so good the kids compete with the cruise staff for air time. It’s in a special colorful section up on Deck 11, called the Fun Factory.
And there also, among all the toys and boxes of Clue and Monopoly, is a terrific line of good ol’ Sony Play Stations, available for all cyberkids under the age of 18.
Yep, it’s almost like being at home.
But one instant of shipboard interaction recently took a passenger by surprise. One woman reported that she was alone in one of the Summit’s dramatic, glass-walled elevators. She was having some difficulty adjusting an item of clothing, when she was startled by a voice that boomed from the ceiling above:
“Are you all right?” she was asked.
The woman thanked the voice and added that she was not in distress. Recounting the incident later, she said she was certain she had appeared on a security computer screen somewhere, offering another example of an interactive connection between ship and passenger.
What’s offered by other cruise lines
Celebrity Cruises is not the only major line to offer electronic interactive features to their passengers these days, although they may have the widest variety of services.
Stateroom TVs are common in all major cruise ships nowadays, even if nearly all programs emanate from somewhere within the vessel rather than through the ether. Of those who do receive TV signals from the outside world, it is generally CNN or a similar satellite news service.
In 2003, nearly all the high-profile cruise ships will offer some kind of Internet room or cybercafe. Prices vary widely, however. And passengers soon find that a satellite connection isn’t always as reliable as the facilities they have left back home.
Before leaving home, wise cruisers should ask their Internet service provider for the best method for getting connected. As in the world’s Internet cafes, this is usually done via Web e-mail, a method of contacting the ISP’s Web site using a browser, and then entering the necessary user name and password to access e-mail.
At a price, satellite telephones (generally $9 to $12 a minute) and equally expensive fax services are also available everywhere at sea. (Incoming faxes and incoming e-mails delivered to the cabin may be free, but recheck.) Other kinds of electronic interactivity vary widely from ship to ship and from cruise line to cruise line.
Here are a few who answered a recent survey on these subjects:
Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines
With an eye cocked to the sailing businessman as well as to the leisure passenger, RCCL ships have wired up their conference rooms and other areas for audio, video and computers.
Throughout the fleet, Internet-capable computers have been installed in the library, in the business center or in other public areas. On some ships, passengers can also use these to book shore excursions.
Some of RCCL’s newer ships are being fitted with in-cabin Internet ports for guests traveling with laptops.
Carnival Cruise Lines
Carnival is proud of the new infrared listening devices it is installing on some of its vessels to help the hearing impaired. Available in the main show lounge, the special earphones are provided without charge.
Crystal Cruises
In addition to a wide variety of TV programming, Crystal guests may borrow VHS tapes or DVD disks to play in their own staterooms.
On some of Crystal’s ships, children’s game rooms have Sony Play Stations, along with some PCs equipped with games and educational software.
Seabourn Cruise Line
Seabourn, too, has free VHS tapes for passengers to use on their cabin TVs. Internet access in the computer center is a hefty 95 cents a minute. Personal laptop access, however, is forbidden “for security reasons.”
This year, Seabourn is installing a new Bose/CD stereo system in the staterooms.
Norwegian Cruise Lines
NCL takes pride in its modern remote wireless Internet access system, which will soon be installed across the fleet. Passengers can bring their laptops on board, get a network card from the purser and are then able to access the Internet from several designated locations throughout the ship.
Cost for the service is $10 a day. And if a passenger doesn’t have his own laptop, he can rent one for $35 a day.
Radisson Seven Seas
Facilities vary somewhat across the different Radisson ships, but all feature computer classes and 24-hour Internet access, at costs of $1 per kilobyte, or in some cases, 75 cents per minute.
On the company’s five ships, there are relatively few Internet capable computers.
Some cabins on the Diamond and the Navigator have data ports in the cabin, and they can be used with a modem. Many will consider the costs prohibitive, however: $15 a minute on the Diamond, or $6.50 per minute on the Navigator or the Mariner.
The World of ResidenSea
The vessel that is being billed as the world’s first oceangoing luxury residential resort logically enough seems to offer just about all the personal high tech you could get on land.
The Internet cafe is called @Sea, with access at 75 cents a minute–cheaper when purchased in large packages, such as 250 minutes for $100. Passengers are allowed to send and receive attachments, unlike many seagoing Internet rooms.
The ship also offers a Bluetooth chip that allows a wireless laptop or other computer to be connected to the Internet almost anywhere on the ship at a cost of $70 per day. If you forget your computer, the ship will rent you one–with a printer, too, if you want.
Conference rooms feature all sorts of audio/visual capabilities, including Internet access, projectors, surround sound and more. Wireless phones are also available.
Another high-tech feature for passengers is the World’s golf simulator, which realistically depicts 53 world-famous courses. Golf lessons are recorded by video cameras, which then play back so the student can check his form.
In the cabin, DVD-quality movies can be seen for $9.95 each. The TV can be used to check your shipboard account status or to play video games.
— R.W.B.
