TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums British Virgin Islands Sunsail/Moorings Internet Router package

Sunsail is offering an internet modem/router package for $40 per day. Does anyone have experience in using it? Is it worth it? Can you connect with a few iphones/ipads to it via wifi and find the speed reasonable? Any experience would be appreciated.

I have no experience with this from Sunsail/Moorings, but my perception is that this is quite expensive, especially as TMM provides an Internet enabled hotspot on all their vessels for FREE. Thanks - Mark

Just returned last night from a charter with Catamaran Company. Five guys. They had a router on the boat with an option for 5 users @ $125 for the week. Definitely worth it, as we burned through our AT&T data really quickly trying a few FaceTime calls back home. Bandwidth on the boat router was good enough for FaceTime, forecast updates, etc. Of course, come with patience as you're accessing the internet from a boat in the middle of the BVI waters. Still pretty amazing to me.

Thanks Tacking, that was the info I was looking for.

$40 a day is outrageous. You can buy a mifi for about $40 and then get a Lime or Digicel card for another $40

I agree the price is outrageous!

This week we have a CAT with Voyage Yacht Charters out of Sopers Hole and got 10 connections with unlimited data for the entire week for $135.

Worked well everywhere except the Gorda Sound.

The Moorings/Sunsail mifi rental is highway robbery. If you have a spare smartphone, a digicell sim and 3gigs data would be about 1/3 the cost.

If you don't have a hotspot capable smartphone handy, you can walk onto the digicell store, purchase a mifi router and all the data you need for less than the Sunsail weekly rental. And then you would have a router ready to go next time.

That's the Renport Surf Router Pak $40/day. Renport has an office at the Sunsail/Mooring base. The only good thing I can say is it has unlimited data and they set it up for you. Other than that, it's crazy expensive.

As long as you're willing to do a little research and/or legwork you can save a lot of money especially if you go to the BVI regularly.

Just remember the Digicell and Lime offices are closed on Sundays. I went with an $89 unlocked ATT Unite Pro (aka, Netgear AirCard 781S), is has a large battery and easy user interface. Since it's unlocked you can put any provider's sim in it and I needed that as we sail in other areas.

If you know you'll be in the BVI I think getting the Digicel wifi router is a good way to go but there are many ways to skin the cat. I find having internet connectivity very useful on the boat just keep an eye on data usage if you're doing any streaming or skyping/facetime.

It is Renport and they do have cheaper packages that limit data and number of users. A unlocked IPhone with a SIM card can be much less.

If you have Verizon in the US they have a new international add on package feature for 10.00 per day that taps into your home package. so you can use it just like being at home. It works very well an uses Lime 3G speeds. Be careful in the USVI as that is " consider roaming for Voice but " free " for data and messaging

Make sure your phone switches carriers by shutting off and back on if you are on the ferry headed to BVIs for example.

Another good feature of the daily plan is if you do not want to use it for a day or 2 just shut off the cellular data and you will not be charged 10.00 for that day. They will send you a text message as a reminder each day about the same time you activated the service. Mine was at 2 AM for some reason.

I just got back last night and we used it from Jost to Leverick to Anegada and back.

I also have a Digicel Mifi which worked well too but I did have some setup issues early on. ( 25.00 for 1 gig for 30 days )

Oh also you can turn your hot spot on and others can use the VZ plan as well. ( I was on iPhone 6 ) FYI....hop this helps, just call VZ and add to your plan and pay 10.00 only when you use it.