Millennium Review -Cruise 08/12/00 -Internet Cafe

Just returned from Amsterdam yesterday and the 08/12/00 sailing aboard the Millennium. The cruise was great and we will be uploading several pictures and comments on specific parts and activities of the ship.

The Internet Café:

The computers are great looking (see photo), teak trimmed, IBM systems with 128mb ram, running WinNT 4.0 and service pack 5. The system is locked and only a few screen options are accessible.

The ship charges $.95 per minute for using email or the Internet . ALWAYS try the free Celebrity Internet site FIRST. If the satellite connection and Internet are down, the Celebrity site will not load. If you try to email, you will be charged $.95 to $1.90 even if the satellite system is down and you do not connect!!! Celebrity uses a Secure Sockets Layered (SSL) connection which takes up to a minute to connect. Most of our short emails cost $4.00 to $6.00.

Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint are installed and the usage is free.

In regard to the Baltic Sea Cruise, the location and position of the ship may interfere with operations of the Internet and e-mail. Internet may not be available:

1) Helsinki (as soon as ship docks)
2) St. Petersburg (both days until the ship leaves port)
3) When the ship is arriving or leaving a port.
4) If the ship turns, the satellite needs time to find the ship again.
5) After 4 PM (but not ship time) traffic on the Internet becomes busy and major web sites such as AOL and Yahoo my not be easily accessible.

The following e-mail accounts have national Internet Addresses that are supported by the Celebrity System: AOL, NetCom, Yahoo, Concentric, Hot Mail, GET.net, Usa.net, Illuminati.

We accessed our email with an Internet connection and MailStart.com. We receive a lot of email from different news and information groups which resulted in a long download list ($$$) of unread mail. We swapped to a seldom used email account to speed up the screen loading time.

Make sure to take a 1.44 Mb disk for saving notes created in word. Files used for attachments may be prepared externally or by using the Microsoft applications provided. Attachments may also be stored for temporary use directly on the hard drive of the workstation.

We found the Internet Café to be a very expensive option.

Thank you so much for the really good tips and excellent photos....If yo have any tips/photos on the acquaspa, shopping area & the olympic keep them coming.

[Paul Motter]

How come CruiseMates isn't in the picture ;-)