They call it the fastest internet at sea — Royal Caribbean’s Starlink-powered Voom service — and I guess that’s true. After all, I don’t think Google is interested in running Fiber to the middle of the water off the Bahamas. Either way, I was excited to try it on a recent cruise, whether I was a captive audience or not. I’d heard nothing but bad things about the Wi-Fi on cruise ships, but most of those complaints were from the pre-Starlink days.
Now, I figured, the situation must be at least slightly better. Surely, the satellite-powered Starlink would boost reliability and speed while I fought for connectivity among 6,000 other people onboard. Maybe it did, but it also showed me quite a few of the remaining flaws with satellite internet. Here’s how my Wi-Fi at sea left me sour.