I just got back from an Alaskan cruise with my family. How could I complain about that? Watch me. Everyone present had something to complain about but this was my problem, the internet. When I envisioned being on the cruise I was thinking, “Well I’ll just bring by laptop and if the ship doesn’t have free wireless I’ll just buy a subscription. How bad could it be?” The short answer was *unbelievably* bad.
My quest began after I realized that the internet was indeed not free. This in and of itself is stupid. Even Motel 6 has free Wi-fi. So what you’re telling me is that this cruise ship isn’t as good as Motel Six? Fine, I’ll just get a subscription, or whatever, and it will be worth it for the week. I was under the impression from the ship directory and the ship staff that you purchased “internet cards” at the “internet cafe” and then used them to log on to the internet. So I went to said internet café and found that everything I was told was a lie. First of all, the internet café was not a café at all. Internet cafes have croissants and hippies in them. There were none and the layout of the room looked kind of strange, like a classroom. I went to the front where there was a guy at a desk. I asked him about the cards. He said there were no cards, and that there was a minute rate or I could buy minute packages. He pointed to a placard on his desk that further explained. Then he added, “I’m actually teaching a class right now.” His latter remark confused me. I turned to see where his desk was facing. Most of the computers in the room were turned to face his desk and I saw that there was a grand total of two people in the “class.” At this point I'm thinking, "This is the shittiest internet cafe I've ever seen." The guy at the desk turned his attention back to the class and began to say something about layers. Layers? That means he’s either teaching photoshop or computer aided drafting. I’ve taken about half a dozen classes for various programs concerning the two and I can tell you that the time I’ve spent in them has been the most boring time of my life. It’s certainly not something I would ever consider doing on a cruise. These people don’t need to learn how to use photoshop, they need to learn how to take a cruise. Anyway, back to the internet. Now get this, the minute rate was 75 cents per minute. My first thought was “Holy shit! That has to be illegal somehow.” What can you accomplish on the internet for something reasonable like five dollars? Not much. You can barely check your fucking e-mail. Just the price alone dictates what you will be doing on the internet. You definitely will not be having fun on the internet because if you’re having fun you’re wasting time and time = money. Well I don’t know about you but I think the whole point of the internet is fun. That’s about 97% of the reason I use it. I would have just said screw it if it weren’t for one technicality; I wanted to talk to my girlfriend. My cell phone didn't work when we weren't in port and I sure as shit wasn't going to use the ship’s phones. That left one option other than mail; a *really fast* e-mail. I sat down at one of their PCs and started an internet session. To my absolute horror, I found that the internet was about as fast as dial-up if not a little slower. Now how they managed to get a broadband connection to be the equivalent of dial-up is beyond me. They must have had a crack team of corporate rapists trying to figure out how they could possibly get more money. "Shitty internet connections!" "Excellent idea Johnson. You've got a future around here." Come on! The price is already 75 cents a minute. Call girls are cheaper than that! Can't you just amputate one of my fingers? I just want to contact my girlfriend. What the hell is wrong with that? Why do you get penalized for talking to loved ones? You don't have to be such a fucking asshole.
I ended up using $7.15 worth of platinum diamond-encrusted internet But the only thing I did was read an e-mail and send an e-mail. If you're a math freak you might have noticed that 7.15 is not a multiple of .75 and that's because they actually charge you by the second. That means it's 1.25 cents a second. Now Laeci had sent me two e-mails. One was short and one was a lot longer. Here's a real excerpt from the first e-mail I sent on the cruise; "Sorry I don't have enough money to read your first e-mail." Isn't that sad? That sentence wouldn't even make any sense out of context. Well I could always buy a package of minutes. It's only $ 55 for 100 minutes. Wow, what a bargain! That sounds more like a one year subscription than a minute package. Any given AOL trial disk gives you more time than that for free. Go to hell cruise ship!
