Day 11/11: Wednesday, January 15, 2020: At Sea

Yesterday I went to a presentation by Destination Consultant Jon Fleming. He was discussing shore activities at Natal, Brazil. It was an interesting discussion and convinced me to go back and talk with Stephen about signing up for a sand dune buggy excursion. I did and we did.

The talk by Fleming was interesting in that Natal doesn't really have much to offer except sand, sun and crime. It boasts Brazil's highest murder rate and one of the highest in the world (eclipsed only by some places in Mexico). Several times during Jon's talk he suggested not traveling alone and to avoid some specific areas.

I attempted to upload four pics (the ones above) this morning showing our map position and the daily paper. I waited 30 minutes and the upload had made zero progress, so I gave up. I went to a couple of lectures and then to lunch.

While standing in line at the pool for my custom made grilled cheese sandwich, Norman, the Hotel Manager who did not have time to call me yesterday, accosted me and said that he had been contacted by Maxine, my travel agent, regarding the Internet service. Norman agreed the service was totally unacceptable and promised it would improve, in fact, he said he hoped I had already seen an improvement. I told him I had not yet and that I had given up this morning. I also mentioned to Norman that his flunky, Marcus, told me yesterday that the broad bandwidth will be increased significantly tomorrow. Norman seemed surprised at this news, so I am no doubtful again. Anyway, Norman said it would improve. Later, at my table, the Butler Director stopped by and asked if the IT director could stop by my cabin this evening. Of course!

During lunch, I texted Maxine, telling her of my encounter with Norman. She said that she had lunch yesterday with the Silversea Director of Sales for all of North and South America. She discussed the internet issue of this cruise and was promised it would be looked into.

Once back in my cabin, I tried again the same four pics I had tried this morning. Amazingly, it ONLY took 10 minutes to upload all four. While extremely slow, and still unacceptable, it is better than just four hours ago. I am curious if they are making some exception for just me to shut me up. Stephen has several contacts that have also had the same issues, so we will find out.

Day 10/10; Tuesday, January 14, 2020: At Sea

Today is a sea day. Yesterday we were told they had made improvements to the WiFi/Internet system. This morning, while I can make connection to the Internet (could not even do that yesterday), the connection is so slow as to be almost equivalent to no connection.

At 9:00 am, I went up to the Internet Lounge to ask what was going on. The IT guy, who is there every day at 9:00 am, Christian, did his best to avoid me, addressing everyone else's questions in the Lounge. I overheard one person say they were trying to upload multiple 100 MB video clips, but were having some issues. I'm having trouble uploading a 2 MB photo!!!  After awhile, he could no longer avoid me . I simply asked if this was as good as it's going to get? He just shrugged (which I find very irritating) and said what they should do is to increase the bandwidth. Duh! Having "state of the art" WiFi is meaningless if you don't have the bandwidth to handle the traffic to the Internet. So, I responded to his statement with the obvious question: "Are they going to do that?". He just shrugged again. OK, I told him I needed to talk with someone who knew what was going to be done. He suggested talking to Norman, the Hotel Manager.

I went down to Reception and asked to see Norman. They directed me to his office on the other side of the reception area. The office was dark and empty, although I should have looked under the desk. I asked Reception to please have Norman call me when he returned.

I returned to my cabin and tried to get some bills paid. I needed to set up an auto payment for my refinanced mortgage. This involved working with both the mortgage company's and my bank's web sites. What would have taken maybe five minutes at home, took 30 minutes here...later in the day I would wish this level of "high", performance had lasted longer.

About an hour later, I got a call. It was not Norman, as he was too busy to talk with me, but it was Marcus one of Norman's subordinates. We chatted for quite awhile. He was very nice and understanding. He agreed the internet connection was completely unacceptable. He said they should have increased the bandwidth long ago, but it is expensive to do so. But, enough guests had given them sufficient input to justify an increase. He said the plan was to double the existing bandwidth when we dock in Fortaleza on Thursday. I asked Marcus if that was going to be enough and, while I could not see him, I sensed he shrugged and said he didn't know. He also made the comment that part of the problem is that NOW, all guests have unlimited WiFi service. I later surmised that in the past, most of the guests had to pay more for unlimited WiFi. Since many would not be willing to pay, there would be less traffic. Now, there is no limit for anyone. Hence the bandwidth which used to work, no longer does.

Stephen has told me that he has heard other stories on what was going to be done from other guests, based on what they had been told by crew members.

Later, having given up on the Internet, I went to find some seclusion in the bar. It was relatively empty so I read for awhile and watched the waves roll by.

I asked Summit for some canapés this afternoon. They were tasty.

This was a formal attire night. Stephen and I took a vote and it was unanimous that we would order room service.