TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums British Virgin Islands Sunsail onboard wifi - worth it?

We are chartering a cat from Sunsail next month and are wondering if the optional WiFi device is worth the $40 / day rental. Does anyone have any recent experience with one of these?

Is it good enough for, say, Facetime and the required bandwidth for real-time video?

Trying to determine what to tell my crew about access to kids left back home.

Thanks in advance!
Bryan

Don’t even think about it. There are many other cheaper options. Many carriers will provide WiFi cell service internationally for 10 dollars a day. Most phones will now operate as a hotspot. ATT gets coverage over a good part of the BVI in network from the USVI and offers the 10 dollar a day option for the rest.
G

Sometimes the carrier cannot provide decent coverage anyway.

It’s only a week or two..... Splurge and make your vacation hassle free!

Thanks for the opinions, but I was really looking for someone who had used one. Anybody?

In April we chartered from TMM, they include WiFi on all of their charter boats. It worked great the whole time we were out, no problems at all.

We have never used WiFi before this trip, and I wouldn't again unless it was free. I like being disconnected!

Great, thank you Orange_Burst! Good to know that it works as expected.

Bryan

Typically what they are supplying you is a router that is connected to a cellular wireless signal. I have used them in the past for email, weather, etc. It wasn't fast but it worked. The more people connected at one time, the slower it will be. For Facetime and video streaming, the first question is can you do this over your existing cellular data network? If not, it isn't going to be any better there as my guess is that the cellular bandwidth available has likely not recovered to pre-storm levels. I'd suggest you check with your charter company unless someone else can comment on the current state of the BVI cellular data network.

Our experience is that on board WIFI works most, but not all places. The Bight has been problematic for us.

No connection is worth $40 per day. Lots of other options!

I agree with Frankie2. Besides, I love using my phone for a camera only while there. No emails and no ringing is my ideal vacation. The better half would not agree. But Verizon seems to work most everywhere for $10 a day.

You can't compare the $40 price per day for a router based connection to Verizon's $10 per day plan because the WiFi on the boat can serve as a connection point for multiple phones and devices. To figure out if it is a good deal, you need to factor in how many people will need to make connections during a typical day.

Most newer phones will serve as a router for WiFi. My IPhone will allow 5 other devices to use the WiFi. It does eat the battery when using it as a hotspot so it needs to be kept plugged in.
George

My 4 yr old Samsung S5 can serve as a mobile hot spot for up to 10 other devices. I've been using the Verizon $10/day for the past few trips with my phone as a hot spot. My international roaming costs have gone down significantly with this Verizon plan. It does seem the download speeds get throttled down at times in the BVI. I can't always stream online music, for example.

How is Verizon signal throughout the BVIs?

We had very good coverage throughout the BVI. We're basically roaming using LIME or Digicell towers. It seems like when we got to North Sound we had to reboot the phones as the primary carrier switched to Digicell (or visa versa). Coverage on Anegada was excellent, and in fact as of March most or all of the landlines were still down there.

T Mobile is a great deal if you travel internationally. Very cheap phone calls and text. May be only 2G broadband but it still works won’t Dara charges. You can also hotspot it depending on signal strength and broadband. They even allow you to turn on and off the subscription based on when you were traveling. A friend of mine who travels every other month Internatonal has an AT&T phone but also a T-Mobile for when he is traveling international.

If you sign up for the ATT international plan you pay $10/day for any day you use it internationally. If you don't use it you don't pay. We had excellent signal a few weeks ago. I can't speak to Verizon at the present time but according to Baard it worked fine as well. Both ATT and Verizon allow you to make a hotspot. Both carriers are going to use the native infrastructure meaning LIME or Digicell. Which I believe means you will have the same bandwidth as you would get with the Sunsail $40/day plan. So I"m not sure why you would bother with the Sunsail plan - I don't believe it gives you anything other than a bigger bill.

The above is all correct. For part of the trip you will get ATT from St John so you will pay the 10 dollars for maybe 4 days out of the week.

Baardj, I learned this on my last trip from Verizon. Instead of rebooting to find a different carrier, just turn off "Automatic" in the Cellular settings. It will grab the strongest signal at that time. Just a little quicker than rebooting. I found Verizon's signal to be good throughout most of the BVI's. And yes, streaming music does not always work. But my iPhone X worked perfectly as a hotspot.

Thanks! I'll try that during our upcoming June trip.