Your wish for better internet connectivity onboard a Disney Cruise may be coming true. Reports indicate a new internet service provider and internet access plans are now available on the Disney Magic.
Guests aboard the Disney Magic in Europe are currently offered a new set of Internet options starting at $10/day (a 24 hour period). The new Internet offering are based on type of usage versus a measured data plan such as a 1GB plan. The package tiers are Stay Connected, Basic Surf, and Premium Surf.
Special thanks to DLP Town Square for sharing the details and screenshots shown below. Go check their Twitter feed as they are already tweeting from the Disney Magic’s Mediterranean cruise that departed Barcelona today.
Stay Connected
Stay connected on social media with our most affordable internet plan. With this plan, you can:
- Post text and pictures on popular websites and applications
- like Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Twitter, Instagram,
- Snapchat, Pinterest, Linkedln and Tumblr
The Stay Connected plan does not support surfing the web, accessing email or video streaming
Basic Surf
Enjoy all the benefits of the Stay Connected plan – plus, full web access. With this plan, you can:
- Surf the web, read the news, check the weather and visit your other favorite websites
- Send and receive emails
- Post text and pictures on popular websites and applications like Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, Linkedln and Tumblr
The Basic Surf plan does not support long-form video streaming platforms such as Netfilx and Hulu.
Premium Surf
Experience faster connection speeds and access to music platforms such as Pandora, Spotify and Apple Music – plus, all the benefits of the Basic Surf plan. With this plan, you can:
- Enjoy faster connection speeds
- Make video phone calls on platforms FaceTime, Zoom and more
- Listen to your favorite music streaming platforms like Pandora, Spotify and Apple Music
- View short-form on platforms like YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok
- Surf the web, read the news, check the weather and visit your other favorite websites
- Send and receive emails
- Post text and pictures on popular websites and applications like Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, Linkedln and Tumblr
The Premium Surf plan does not support long-form video streaming platforms such as Netfilx and Hulu.
When selecting an option you are presented with a per cruise or per 24 hour option along with the number of devices you wish to connect using the selected plan.
As of today, this is rolling out on the Disney Magic, but guests on the Disney Dream are still offered the previous MB data plans.
Based on the external IP address of a guest I spoke with onboard the Disney Magic, when logged into the Disney Cruise Line internet package, they are connecting through SES in Maryland in the United States. SES is a provider of satellite internet to various sectors including the cruise industry.
As the sun sets, passengers post snaps of the day’s excursion, others stream live news before dinner. Below deck, a crew member video calls his daughter a bedtime story, starting his shift happy that he’s said goodnight. Not one of their screens, and the thousands of others on board, suffer from delay, drop out or poor quality. It is the difference between a five star and a four-star review.
O3b mPOWER, the industry’s most advanced satellite constellation, enables this new era of guest connectivity with unrivalled performance, flexibility, resilience and scalability.
At this time, Disney Cruise Line has not made any public announcements, or updated their website to reflect any of these changes – currently they are still referencing Connect@Sea on this page. However, this very will could be a slow roll out across the fleet and culminate with the launch of the Disney Wish this summer.
Have you tried the new Internet packages onboard a Disney Cruise? Let us know what you think about the revised offering in the comments.
I hope it rolled out this summer on the Fantasy and Wish
The Wish will launch with these types of plans.
Still seems expensive for what you get. I enjoy no service, you actually get to meet and talk to people. I guess soon enough I will long for the day that people didn’t have their face stuffed in their cell phone all the time.
I’m curious. Can I choose different options each day or do I have to use the same plan for the entire length of the cruise?
It appears you would sign up for the length of cruise with a specific plan which I believe is upgradable, but I don’t believe you can go up/down plans during the voyage. In this case, I’d recommend going with the a la carte option and picking a plan that fits your needs the best each day. This is still new so details are just surfacing.
You can pay for 24 hours or for the duration of the cruise.
Better Internet service wound be great but these new plans are another money grab from Disney. The old plans our family could share a package with but these new plans, one is paying per device. Yeah it is similar to other cruise lines, why does DCL want to be like the others?
This must have just started yesterday. We were on the Magic from may 21st – 28th and only had the standard packages. I would have loved to have had this!
Scott… would you mind if I put the link to this article in my FB group for our November Magic sailing? It looks like this might be the wave of the future. Thanks.
I wonder which plan would be needed to use imessaging.
If you have a 1-device plan, can you connect multiple devices 1 at a time like you could with the old plans an like you can with RCL’s plans?
This is my understanding that the device limit is simultaneous devices. Simply logout of one device and log in on another. I will have a full rundown shortly once I am able to test the new offering on the Disney Wish.
Were you able to test it out? Did you post an article? If so, I missed it.
I have tested it out over 2 sailings, but I have not written up my thoughts on it yet. I made a note on my list of outstanding topics.
Any more news about this, Scott? Specifically can you log out of one device and into another?
Working on an article now.
I’ll be on the Fantasy in January if you need me to test anything.
Curious which bundle would be needed in order to use the Disney Collect, Marvel Collect, and Star Wars Card Trader apps by Topps?
Has the new Wi-Fi rolled out beyond the Magic and the Wish yet, or is it currently limited to those two ships?
Wondering the same. I’ll be on the Fantasy in 4 days and will update if there’s no new info by then.
Just got off the Fantasy. We were the last cruise with the per MB packages. They will have the new per day packages moving forward.
The info supplied by DCL uses “voyage” not “cruise”. Are they using the words interchangeably?