There are no phone towers in the middle of the ocean, and there’s no fiber optic cable carrying the internet to the ship. You’re kind of cut off from the outside world. It’s part of the adventure!
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| Starlink antenna |
In the olden days (20 years ago), there really was NO INTERNET at sea. Now it’s much better, and when we sailed in 2023 internet at sea was dramatically faster and better and more reliable than it was in 2020. I bet it will be better yet in 2026.
Nowadays the ship is equipped with Starlink, which connects to a constellation of internet satellites in low-Earth orbit a few hundred miles up. For most of the voyage, we will in fact have access to the internet from the ship. The trouble is that you’re sharing that one Starlink antenna with 600 other people, so the bandwidth gets really saturated and it’s SLLOOWWW!
There’s a great IT staff on the ship, and they maintain a very useful but complex system for both internet access (very slow) and INTRAnet access to academic resources for SAS (very fast). Anybody can use the on-board intranet any time and it works very well, but it’s not connected to the outside world, just to stuff on the ship.
There are two different WiFi networks: WorldOdyssey for fast local access to on-ship services (INTRAnet) and SemesterAtSea for access to the global INTERnet. Normally, you just leave your phone logged into WorldOdyssey WiFi. This gives you a fast and reliable (and free) connection to your email and WhatsApp and course material and other shipboard services. When you need to access the outside world, you just switch to the other WiFi (SemesterAtSea). It’s laggy and oversubscribed and your daily usage is quite limited. If you just stay logged into the internet you will quickly deplete your daily allowance.
There IS a fantastic SeaMail system that doesn’t eat your daily internet allowance. Basically, the ship gathers all email for an hour or so and then blasts it all up to the satellite and downloads new messages all at once. Then they show up in your inbox through the on-ship intranet. You’ll get a new email address @semesteratsea.org and you can forward your “real” address to send stuff to the ship.
On our previous voyages it was possible to pay extra for more daily internet usage, and even to get unlimited internet usage for a very high price. But there’s no getting around the physics of sharing an antenna with hundreds of teenagers. In many cases, paying $1200 for unlimited internet just means you’re entitled to more hours of watching nothing happen on your web browser than you get for free.
If you really need a lot of bandwidth (like for a zoom call), you’re going to be really unhappy. The only reliable time I’ve found for this is the wee hours when students are sleeping.
Also, there are a bunch of public computers in the library on Deck 6 that have unlimited internet access. These are great for quickly catching up on the world or for planning travel details before arriving in a new country. But during busy times they are awfully crowded, and you’ll wait in line.
You will be trained by IT staff on internet details when you board the ship. When you have problems (which you definitely will), go see Oswin in the back of the Library on Deck 6. He’s absolutely wonderful!
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| Download your big files before you leave home |
There is a phone in each cabin. It’s useful for calling other cabins. You can also use the in-cabin phone to make and receive calls to the outside world using a separate satellite service. This is ridiculously expensive ($4/minute), and we almost never use it. SAS sells a calling card that allows you to use the in-cabin phone for a bulk rate.
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| WhatsApp is your friend |
You can text via WhatsApp with anybody in the world from the ship, and even make voice calls that way for free. Be sure to download WhatsApp on your phone before you leave the US. It works everywhere and you will use it all the time both on the ship and on land.
On our first voyage, I spent a lot of time buying and installing SIM cards in my phone in each country we visited, so that I could make calls, send texts, and use the internet from my phone. Nowadays, physical SIM cards are pretty much obsolete, and we use eSIMs instead.
You can set up eSIMs ahead of time through international telecom services like airalo or holafly. You buy a prepaid number of GB of data and/or minutes of talk time to use in various regions or countries. It’s kind of complicated to set up the first time but it works amazingly well. It’s MUCH MUCH cheaper than just using Verizon or AT&T overseas. Research this before you leave home and be ready before you board the flight from Denver.
When the ship is in port, you can usually just use the local cell phone network in the port city through your phone. It’s kind of hit or miss depending on whether your cabin is facing the city or the sea. Then you can use the phone’s WiFi hotspot to connect a laptop or tablet.
In every country we’ve visited, the eSIM method has worked fine away from the port cities. I can use Siri, Maps, Google, email, and apps just like I’m at home and it doesn’t rack up hundreds of dollars of roaming charges as it does on Verizon.
