How’s the Internet, Really? (Part 2)

I wrote about how the Internet aboard ship is “…Really?” back in April. Time for an update.

Another couple onboard has long had a Youtube channel, Geeks on Tour (“For travelers, cruisers, or anyone who wants to make better use of your phone. Our how-to videos can help you keep up.”)

When they started the channel way back in 2009 (more than 1,000 videos ago!), “on tour” meant full-time RVing. Then Jim (the male half of the duo), who is a long-time This is True reader, saw Kit and I were going to live on a cruise ship full time, and gasped “Woah!” (may not be an actual quote). He consulted Chris (his wife, the real brains behind the Geeks — no offense to Jim), did their due diligence, and decided to join us.

It took them a bit to sell their RV and other stuff, and once their house was under contract they joined us, doing the closing paperwork on the house from the ship. You can do that these days, yaknow!

Amusing side note: one of their RV buddies, Judy, saw them talking about the ship on the Geek Channel, and she decided to join the ship too.

Youtubers

Chris got the idea of sitting down with Kit and me to talk about a topic they thought their audience would be interested in: how good is the Internet here, really? Definitely a great topic! Their slant: can “digital nomads” who need decent Internet to do their jobs do OK full time on the ship?

So we sat down in front of their cabin in the Deck 8 “Observatory” lounge and had a chat, and here it is, courtesy of The Geeks.

A few notes: there’s some fun content before Kit and I appear, including the Geeks diving in Yap, Micronesia …with sharks. But if you want to jump ahead to where we appear, that’s at the 17-minute mark.

Part way through, they interrupt our conversation to explain a few things, and then go back to our conversation.

I give a shout-out to my fave online chef Sam the Cooking Guy at 40:45. (Warning: Sam cusses a lot, so don’t watch him if that offends you.)

It turned out Starlink did provide coverage in Palau — even though their web site makes it clear that it’s not going to be available there until 2026:

Research

One of the reasons I made the chart is to answer the question, “When should I buy an Airalo card?” Which is to say, when would we be in a country without Starlink and where my backup solution, my US Mobile-powered phone (discussed in this post), wouldn’t provide coverage? Plus, of course, “…and Airalo will?”

Since the Airalo, a data-only eSIM card, has a one-year lifespan whether you use it or not, I figured it was dumb to buy it before we really needed it. I expanded the chart to show all three US Mobile carriers not just as a proxy for the Big Three U.S. cell carriers, but also because so many other Residents signed up with US Mobile based on my recommendation, but with varying backbone carriers providing their service.

The chart shows we will have some challenges ahead, but when we are at sea between “no Internet” places, we’ll have coverage once we’re 12 miles away. When I put the chart on the internal chats, several other Digital Nomads among the residents wrote to say thanks. There’s that “community” thing again!

Bottom Line: Both we and The Geeks can work around the occasional outages, but we fully understand that not everyone can.

Bonus Video

Chris did an interview with me before they bought, on a “Try Before You Buy” trip to the ship in December/January. It’s 18 minutes:

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Randy Cassingham

Randy is the co-founder of Residential Cruising, and is best known as the founder of the oldest entertainment feature on the Internet, This is True. He and his wife, Kit, live full-time on the Residential Cruising ship Villa Vie Odyssey, where they are “Digital Nomads” — continuing their work while living aboard the ship.

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