Disney Cruise Line’s transition to usage type based internet plans over per megabyte (MB) is nearly complete. In this article I will share an overview of the plans, my thoughts, and answer some of your questions about the usage type internet offerings based on two sailings aboard the Disney Wish.

Over the summer, the Disney Magic was the first to go live with the new offering, followed by the Disney Wish, Disney Fantasy, and most recently the Disney Dream. The Disney Wonder will soon be upgraded and may be upgraded depending on when you are reading this article.

Disney Cruise Internet Plans

Disney Cruise Line is now offering guests Internet options starting at $12/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. Guests are able to purchase a-la-carte or the full voyage as well as choosing the number of concurrent devices. For the most up-to-date rates, refer to the information provided when you are onboard the ship.

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
• Make audio calls

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.

Internet Free Cruise Vacation

Experience faster relaxation speeds and access pure bliss without any online distractions. With this plan, you can:

• Fall asleep reading a book on a promenade lounger without the distraction of emails and social media updates
• Leave your phone in your stateroom and party like it was 1999*

Note: *This plan does to support long-term leaving of your phone in your stateroom as there are no paper navigators – you must use the app.

Disney Cruise Internet Plan Purchase Options

When selecting a plan tier, you are presented with a per cruise voyage price, or 24-hour a-la-carte price. Additionally, you can select the number of concurrent devices you wish to connect using the selected plan. More on this later, but you can login and logout of the plan on multiple devices, the device option is currently only limited to concurrent device usage.

Once you select a plan, duration, and devices, you will be taking to a purchase screen.

Almost immediately after clicking Purchase you will be redirected to a connected page where you can see your tier, and toggle the device on and off.

Disney Cruise Internet Plan Purchase Process

You can initiate the purchase process by launching the Disney Cruise Navigator App, selecting the MORE tab, and clicking on the Connect to Internet option. Alternatively, you can visit onboardicafe.com when connected to DCL-GUEST. Please note, the link only works when connected to the ship’s WiFi network.

Below is a video showing the process of signing up and purchasing a Disney Cruise Line internet plan.

My Thoughts on the Internet Plans

The desire for, or necessity of internet connectivity on a vacation, specifically a cruise vacation, is HIGHLY SUBJECTIVE, and depends a number of external and personal factors. There are folks who take vacations and disconnect, some want to remain reachable by friends and family at home, some want to share their trip on social media. Then there are some, like it or not, which have responsibilities that necessitate going online for work or school. Thankfully, there are plans plans available to satisfy everyone from NO INTERNET to Premium Surf.

Before I share my thoughts on the new internet plans, it is imperative that I mention that during both cruises I utilized the premium surf tier – I did NOT test stay connected, or Basic offerings. Furthermore, the premium surf tier was provided to me for the duration of the Christening Cruise aboard the Disney Wish. I paid for the plan for the duration of the Maiden Voyage.

I utilized my plan significantly during my last sailing from posting to social media, publishing articles on this website, and a considerable amount of time on FaceTime video calls. I am not aware of any data caps, but the allocated bandwidth is throttled. While long form video from Hulu and Netflix is not supported, I was able to stream live TV from my Plex server.

The speeds are not anything special, but for the most part it was stable and reliable for my use case. During the Maiden Voyage, the Speedtest (even the speed test from google) was eventually blocked so I was unable to provide a test for each day of the 5-night voyage.

On the topic of multiple devices. You can use multiple devices on a single device plan. The limitation is for concurrent connected devices. For example, if you are logged in on a phone and try to use a laptop, you will be promoted that you are logged in on another device. You are given an option on the second device to logout of your other device to use the plan on the current device. There is a use case issue here for those that may need to connect to work or something specific that requires multi-factor authentication. Say you need to connect to work or school on a laptop and you have some sort of authentication mechanism on your smartphone. This technically requires both devices to be connected and the internet plans do not offer a grace period for devices. If you find yourself in a scenario like this, do your homework. See if there is an alternative method to connect to whatever you need to connect without have 2 devices online. I am not sure how it works on a Windows laptop, but from my experience you can reverse tether with apple devices. Connect an iOS device via USB to an Apple laptop, and the iOS device will use the internet connection from the laptop resulting in both devices connected.

Unlike the previous internet plans, the new service is from SES and from early feedback from guests on the Disney Magic, and my experience in The Bahamas on the Disney Wish, traffic is routed through SES in Maryland making it a bit less complicated for those who may have corporate networks blocking connections from outside of the United States.

The voyage duration plan is great for the simplicity and does come with a discount. For example the 24hr price for premium was $36, the voyage price for a 5-night was $150 brining the cost down to $30/day.

However, the voyage duration may not be the best value based on your usage case, and itinerary. It may be worth considering various selections from the a-la-carte menu – remember they are good for a 24hr period, not a calendar day. Maybe social media access is all you need on a port day, the next port day you have access to wifi or cellular data in port and decide to go without a plan, but on a sea day you need to work, so you opt for the premium tier.

For the duration of my time on both sailings, I never experienced a period of time where there was no internet service due to satellite connectivity issues. This is not the case from those I spoke with who used the plans during the summer of 2022 on the Magic in Europe. Although, Disney Cruise Line does state, “the technology involved and satellite connectivity, the onboard Internet service may be slower than you may be accustomed to, and may be interrupted or unavailable at times.” It is a new service offering onboard date ship which involves new hardware, therefore I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt here as they learn and fine tune the offering.

Overall, I like the new plans for the pure fact, I am not on a timer, or a megabyte limit. The freedom that comes with knowing I will not blow through a data plan allocation, and I do not ration usage, disable a background tasks & auto updates among other things on my devices is in itself refreshing. In my usage case, the new internet usage type plans are a significant upgrade over the megabyte allocated plans.

At this time, Disney Cruise Line still 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 could change once the Disney Wonder is upgraded.

Have you tried the new Internet packages onboard a Disney Cruise? Let us know what you think about the revised offering in the comments.