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Connecting to cruise ship's wi-fi?

phpmaven said:
While that's all true, how would the watch be able to function independently of the phone if it's unable to login to the cruise ship's html authentication page? Even if it was somehow able to function for a time after you logged in with your phone, which I doubt, the connection would time out and you wouldn't be able to login again.
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It can't. If the ship has an HTML network authentication, the watch can never get on. It's MAC address would never be authenticated, so there would never be a timeout, because it would never be on.

The point of this post was to equate a likely ship network to a hotel network. They are likely to be the same. The AW would not work in a hotel, and it would not work on a ship.
 
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Technically, if the ship tech adds my Apple Watchs Mac Address I should be okay...
 
SamGabbay said:
Technically, if the ship tech adds my Apple Watchs Mac Address I should be okay...
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This might be your only option if the watch functionality is that critical. I just wouldn't count on it and be prepared to improvise with alternate plans once you get on the ship. Honestly, if your connection to your job while you are on "vacation" is this critical, a cruise was a poor choice. Historically getting even phone service on a cruise has been a very hit or miss proposition.

I would post your question for your particular ship on the Cruise Critic forums. They might have more specific information for you.
 
fieldsphotos said:
This might be your only option if the watch functionality is that critical. I just wouldn't count on it and be prepared to improvise with alternate plans once you get on the ship. Honestly, if your connection to your job while you are on "vacation" is this critical, a cruise was a poor choice. Historically getting even phone service on a cruise has been a very hit or miss proposition.

I would post your question for your particular ship on the Cruise Critic forums. They might have more specific information for you.
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I can function with going to my room every so often to check on emails. The Wi-Fi on the ship is incredibly fast with the new satellite technology. I will definitely check Cruise Critic. Thanks
 
SamGabbay said:
Technically, if the ship tech adds my Apple Watchs Mac Address I should be okay...
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This plus no WiFi isolation. You need both. WiFi isolation is a security feature for public WiFi-- It is something that everyone else on the boat would want turned on.
 
I wore my Apple watch when I cruised in July. Everything that's been said here is spot on. Your phone and watch can be joined, but the watch will not register solo. And if you happen to cross time zones, you may see peculiar things. When completely out of any WiFi, both my watch and iPhone decided to revert to home time since they weren't pinging anything. Ship WiFi is great (albeit outrageously expensive), but it's not the same as home WiFi.
 
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AlliFlowers said:
I wore my Apple watch when I cruised in July. Everything that's been said here is spot on. Your phone and watch can be joined, but the watch will not register solo. And if you happen to cross time zones, you may see peculiar things. When completely out of any WiFi, both my watch and iPhone decided to revert to home time since they weren't pinging anything. Ship WiFi is great (albeit outrageously expensive), but it's not the same as home WiFi.
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There have been a number of threads about the limitations of the Apple Watch WiFi approach. In most cases, the limitation is not a problem because the use case is unlikely. However, this adds another to my list of true Watch WiFi limitations. Here is my list so far:
  • Wanting to receive email notifications while using a watch in a gym while the phone is in a locker
  • Wanting to receive email notifications while using a watch on a cruise ship with the phone in a room
  • Wanting to receive email notifications in an office that uses something like an Active Directory authentication, and the phone is left in a desk or other place away from the watch
 
SamGabbay said:
Everyone. I have very sad news. I was in Best Buy. I connected my phone to the wifi and I was presented with the HTML login page to accept the terms. I then proceeded to put my phone on airplane mode. It did not work.
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Unsurprising; many here have pointed out that the Watch has no way of authenticating to networks that require a sign-in or acceptance of terms. WPA2 passcode authentication only for now-- it can get what it needs to accomplish that from your phone when you've logged that into the network for the first time. Perhaps the ability to accommodate HTML networks will come, as I can think of an approach what wouldn't require a browser on the Watch (but would require you to sign in on behalf of the watch on using your phone's browser).
 
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