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Computers
How practical is it to take a laptop on a cruise?
I know that it can be expensive to use the ships internet access. But my thinking is that if I took a laptop, I would have somewhere to "unload" my digital camera so I could take tons of pictures. I could also compose email offline and send at an internet cafe in port somewhere. How expensive are connections to laptops at cafe's? On board the ships? I know it varies, but an "I have paid between X and X for an hour" would help a lot :-) Anyone have much experience with laptops on cruises? How practical is it? I am asking because I don't own a laptop, and am considering buying one specifically for travel. Plus I have always wanted one, and if it looks like something that would be a good idea on a cruise, I will get Jarrod to "surprise" me with one for my birthday lol. -- LES! To send me an email, please remove Your Hat YourHatDaddie @ bonbon.net |
#2
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Computers
I recently saw an ad for IBM ThinkPad laptops in a computer magazine.
The Price was in the $650 range - for a slightly older model, still new units though - not refurbished units. And they were Pentiums. For the type of work you're looking to do that should be fine. Look around. --Tom Ali's Daddie wrote: How practical is it to take a laptop on a cruise? I know that it can be expensive to use the ships internet access. But my thinking is that if I took a laptop, I would have somewhere to "unload" my digital camera so I could take tons of pictures. I could also compose email offline and send at an internet cafe in port somewhere. How expensive are connections to laptops at cafe's? On board the ships? I know it varies, but an "I have paid between X and X for an hour" would help a lot :-) Anyone have much experience with laptops on cruises? How practical is it? I am asking because I don't own a laptop, and am considering buying one specifically for travel. Plus I have always wanted one, and if it looks like something that would be a good idea on a cruise, I will get Jarrod to "surprise" me with one for my birthday lol. -- LES! To send me an email, please remove Your Hat YourHatDaddie @ bonbon.net |
#3
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Computers
In article , Ali's Daddie
wrote: Anyone have much experience with laptops on cruises? How practical is it? I always take my small laptop on cruises. I use it to offload photos from my digital camera. On some ships they have internet access from your own laptop, either wired or unwired. I have used the wireless access in pre-cruise hotels and at the Ft. Lauderdale airport while waiting for flights. I also sometimes watch DVD's at the airport and on the plane. I have never used it at an Internet Cafe at ports because the cafes are pretty inexpensive. I just use my ISP's web site e-mail interface on the Internet Cafe's computers. -- Charles |
#4
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Computers
Les, I always bring my laptop, even when the ship does not offer in-cabin
access. (When it does, a la the newer Royal and Celebrity ships, we've always found the roughly $100/week charge to be worth it; we can easily rack up that much in the on-board Internet Cafes, and it saves us from having to find a place to check and send e-mail in port.) It certainly is a somewhat tougher decision when the ship does NOT have in-cabin access, but when you get right down to it, it's only one more thing to schlep, and we've found the convenience of offloading digital photos and using it for dvd's or to keep a travel journal still make it worthwhile. Plus, as Charles said, we're usually pre- or post-cruise at a hotel or somewhere else we can use it. ~ Peri Ali's Daddie wrote: How practical is it to take a laptop on a cruise? -- LES! |
#5
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Computers
Buy yourself a 256meg card for your camera. Unless you plan to take more
than a thousand pictures, at the highest resolution, it will hold them all till you get home. "Ali's Daddie" wrote in message ... How practical is it to take a laptop on a cruise? I know that it can be expensive to use the ships internet access. But my thinking is that if I took a laptop, I would have somewhere to "unload" my digital camera so I could take tons of pictures. I could also compose email offline and send at an internet cafe in port somewhere. How expensive are connections to laptops at cafe's? On board the ships? I know it varies, but an "I have paid between X and X for an hour" would help a lot :-) Anyone have much experience with laptops on cruises? How practical is it? I am asking because I don't own a laptop, and am considering buying one specifically for travel. Plus I have always wanted one, and if it looks like something that would be a good idea on a cruise, I will get Jarrod to "surprise" me with one for my birthday lol. -- LES! To send me an email, please remove Your Hat YourHatDaddie @ bonbon.net |
#6
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Computers
In article ,
"Ali's Daddie" wrote: But my thinking is that if I took a laptop, I would have somewhere to "unload" my digital camera so I could take tons of pictures. We take our laptop. Each evening while getting ready for dinner I transfer the pictures from the camera to the laptop. We spend a few minutes looking over the pictures, then erase the card so it's ready for the next day. We leave the laptop on the table in front of the mirror, the room steward leaves it there. |
#7
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Computers
Les, I took my laptop just for the same reasons, to download photos
and check emails. I had also planned to check on my stocks, good thing I had set sell and buy stops before I left as it was unusable for that purpose due to the slow connection. The system on the Carnival Legend was marginally usable. They charge I believe seventy five cents a minute and had a package of 75 minutes for $55.00. I mistakenly brought my wireless card so I could just hook into the ships network without using their computers. The guy in the cafe "set it up" for me to access the ship's system. I don't know what he did, but when I returned home the computer wouldn't work. Fortunately I used the Windows XP recovery system, set it back to a date before I left and it worked. So I wouldn't try to use your laptop connected to the ship's network. Besides, it only worked in the Internet cafe, you couldn't take it to a bar or your room. The ship's connection is sloooowwww, reminiscent of the old days with my old Franklin PC and 9600 baud modem. There were times when I couldn't log in and we never could figure out what was going on. I used all my minutes just doing emails. That was partially my fault, as I mistakenly offered to let my stepson check his emails. He insists on using Hotmail, where you have to be online to compose, edit and read emails. When he got on he found out that his mailbox was full and he couldn't get his emails, so he spent a good portion of the minutes deleting spam. They do have teminals available if you don't have a laptop. Therefore I would recommend that you plan on using an offline program on your laptop to compose and read emails, then get on and send/receive and get off as soon as possible. Just be sure to bring some floppys along to transfer to the ship's teminal. Even though you can get an extended memory card for your camera so you don't really need to offload the pictures, it is extremely cool to take pics on the cruise and email them to friends back home from the ship! I don't know about getting a connenction at a port but I wouldn't rely on it, maybe some others on here have some experience at that. Hope this helps, Jim On Sat, 13 Dec 2003 10:43:44 -0700, "Ali's Daddie" wrote: How practical is it to take a laptop on a cruise? I know that it can be expensive to use the ships internet access. But my thinking is that if I took a laptop, I would have somewhere to "unload" my digital camera so I could take tons of pictures. I could also compose email offline and send at an internet cafe in port somewhere. How expensive are connections to laptops at cafe's? On board the ships? I know it varies, but an "I have paid between X and X for an hour" would help a lot :-) Anyone have much experience with laptops on cruises? How practical is it? I am asking because I don't own a laptop, and am considering buying one specifically for travel. Plus I have always wanted one, and if it looks like something that would be a good idea on a cruise, I will get Jarrod to "surprise" me with one for my birthday lol. |
#9
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Computers
"Paul Sch" wrote in message news In article , "Ali's Daddie" wrote: But my thinking is that if I took a laptop, I would have somewhere to "unload" my digital camera so I could take tons of pictures. We take our laptop. Each evening while getting ready for dinner I transfer the pictures from the camera to the laptop. We spend a few minutes looking over the pictures, then erase the card so it's ready for the next day. We leave the laptop on the table in front of the mirror, the room steward leaves it there. Becky takes her laptop on every cruise. She also takes her little HP photo printer. It is the size of a small loaf of bread. It is great to surprise friends with a 4x6 photo of a "kodak moment" Joe----Booked Mariner today! |
#10
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Computers
"Ali's Daddie" wrote in
: How practical is it to take a laptop on a cruise? This may sound funny, but the last thing I want to see on vacation is a computer or laptop. I work on Networks and Computers at work. I've got over 750mb of digital storage for the camera, no need to upload. I now actively avoid the computer/internet Cafe area on board. On our last cruise I stopped by just to "look" and ended up spending about 40mins helping people get on-line and check there email?? If you are not actively avoiding technology on your trip, then a laptop would be great. My only concern would be making sure it would fit in the room safe. I wouldn't want to leave it out in the cabin. |
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