GPS On A Cruise Ship

 

My family and I will be going on a Caribbean cruise in a couple of months. I am thinking of bringing a GPS along just to see where we are and how fast we are traveling. Will it work aboard the ship or will other electronics cause interference to it?

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True, but....

NoMoreTrafficTickets wrote:

You're a cruise! I can see if you need it when you're off the ship, but when you're on the ship. ENJOY THE BOAT activities and leave the GPS in a secure spot. laugh out loud

LOL! Agree with the spirit of this, but some of us techie types just can't help ourselves. grin

More Fun

If you really have fun, fill in the vehicle profile for the Eco Route. At its cruising speed of 22.6 knots (26 mph), the Oasis of the Seas burns 11361 gallons of fuel each hour. The fuel efficiency, then, is 0.0023 mpg, or 12.08 feet per gallon!

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Frank DriveSmart55 37.322760, -79.511267

portable gps

I have a portable Megellan Sportrack Pro that keeps track of where you went on sea or land (draws a line on map). Due to memory size of the device, I can only download 2~3 states (or sea) maps into the device.
Per the previous comment about e-trek, the portables only have 1~2 days of battery life but it comes in handy if you are on sea or hiking to back track your way back.

Sanger

GPS On A Cruise Ship

I just returned home this afternoon from the trip. The Garmin Nuvi 500 was quite handy on land before and after the cruise. I did check it a few times while at sea. It was fun to click on the Cities tab to see what cities/islands we were passing by. In retrospect, I could have gotten by with the Garminfone. It would have been smaller to pack and would have worked just as well.

I agree with nomoretraffictickets

beagle.fan wrote:
NoMoreTrafficTickets wrote:

You're a cruise! I can see if you need it when you're off the ship, but when you're on the ship. ENJOY THE BOAT activities and leave the GPS in a secure spot. laugh out loud

LOL! Agree with the spirit of this, but some of us techie types just can't help ourselves. grin

I know each his owm, but on a ship, I don't want no phones, no computers, no nothing. Just me and the sea,lol.

--
Nuvi 50LM Nuvi 2555LM

use your TV onboard :)

you can get hooked on the ship channel onboard... constantly looking at where you're at.
I agree with others - take a break and disconnect from reality. We cruise very often and this is the only way I can really get away from work.

--
Alan

It worked

I had an opportunity to test again. It really helped to have a clear view to a large swath of sky.

In other words, my GPS was able to get a lock on position quickly when I was on one of the upper decks. If I tried from my room -- with its limited view of the sky -- my GPS had trouble locking on a position.

ships

If you think about it ship is just huge steel cage. Big ships that is. So you are practically efficiently cut of from radio waves as it is Faraday cage with holes. So don't expect too much reception if you are inside cabin.

On

On our last 2 cruises we had balcony rooms with an overhang from the deck above ours. Even out on the balcony I couldn't get a sat. lock. It was only when I had a clear view of the sky (upper decks, rear of the ship etc.) that I was able to use the GPS.

I really like using the GPS on a cruise. Knowing where we are when no land is in site, and using the limited street detail when in port is great fun.

--
Nuvi 350, 760, 1695LM, 3790LMT, 2460LMT, 3597LMTHD, DriveLuxe 50LMTHD, DriveSmart 61, Garmin Drive 52, Garmin Backup Camera 40 and TomTom XXL540s.

perhaps

You'll find the edge of the world many forewarned Columbus about shock

--
Never argue with a pig. It makes you look foolish and it anoys the hell out of the pig!

i suppose

You need a GPS to find your way to your cabin on some of these.behemoth floating hotels

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Never argue with a pig. It makes you look foolish and it anoys the hell out of the pig!

i suppose

You need a GPS to find your way to your cabin on some of these.behemoth floating hotels

--
Never argue with a pig. It makes you look foolish and it anoys the hell out of the pig!

Caribbean Map

When I went to Aruba and St. Maarten, I downloaded the Caribbean map at
http://www.openmapchest.org/maps/caribbean
It is already in GPX format, you do not need to convert anything. The fine folks here at POI Factory told me that I had to make a /MAPS folder on my SD card for the GPS to recognize it and it worked very great!

However, I'm a little confused as to why you need it. When I went on a Carnival cruise, there was a dedicated channel on the TV that had full GPS data and you could see where the ship was, with all of the data you could want. To each their own, though!

Fun for a geek--

I used the GPS in my iPhone on a Mediterranean cruise. It worked on our balcony, and on the upper decks.

The fun part was running laps on the top deck -- a mix of faster than I've ever run in my life and slow laps...

Having GPS data associated with photos was fun as well -- what island is that? I'll find out when I get somewhere with real internet access...

If you have an iPhone, look at the "Fog of World" app -- it tracks where you've visited by removing a layer of fog. I can follow our track in the Mediterranean, Rome, Vatican City, Paris, Avignon -- as well as around Silicon Valley.

Yes, you're on a cruise. Have fun. For geeks, GPS can be part of that.

--
Nuvi 2460, 680, DATUM Tymserve 2100, Trimble Thunderbolt, Ham radio, Macintosh, Linux, Windows

Geocaching Fun

My family and I have taken our GPS receivers with us on several cruises, but not for use on the ship itself. There are numerous geocaches within walking distance of the ports on the various Caribbean islands.

GPM

phranc wrote:

If you really have fun, fill in the vehicle profile for the Eco Route. At its cruising speed of 22.6 knots (26 mph), the Oasis of the Seas burns 11361 gallons of fuel each hour. The fuel efficiency, then, is 0.0023 mpg, or 12.08 feet per gallon!

I like the way you think, phranc! Or instead of FPG (feet per gallon), you could say the Oasis uses 437 GPM (gallons per mile). Yikes! (Pretty staggering. Imagine carrying that much fuel to get between ports.) Makes a Rolls Royce or Bentley (14 MPG or 0.07 GPM) look eco green by comparison.

But on a per-person-per mile basis, the cruise ships's not quite so bad.

Say the average Rolls on the road has 2.5 people inside. (Just a guess.) The Oasis typically carries, say, about 8000 people (6000 passengers, 2000 crew). Then the gallons to move one person one mile = 0.03 in the Rolls and 0.05 on the Oasis. The luxury car is still more fuel efficient than the cruise ship, but not by as big a margin. Changes in passenger count would change the results. Packed to capacity, the cruise ship could be considered more efficient than the least efficient car carrying only one driver, at least on a per-person-mile basis.

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JMoo On

It Works

I've used a GPS aboard a ship numerous times. It works.

Strange to see travel across water like that.

--
When you are dead, you don’t know that you are dead. It is only difficult for the others. It is the same when you are stupid.

Garmin Sonar

Maybe the captain would let you hang a Garmin Panoptix sensor off the side and you could track what's going on under the boat at the at the same time. LOL

http://sites.garmin.com/en-US/panoptix/

I doubt it

dagarmin wrote:
phranc wrote:

the Oasis of the Seas burns 11361 gallons of fuel each hour.

Then the gallons to move one person one mile = 0.03 in the Rolls and 0.05 on the Oasis.

I suspect something is wrong in these computations. Normally in comparing fuel efficiency of forms of transport, rail is considerably better than highway motor transport, and water transport is considerably better than rail. On the negative side in the specific comparison, the cruiseship is dragging around considerably more tonnage per passenger than the Rolls-Royce, but I still doubt the conclusion.

I suspect the mistake is the use of full power fuel consumption for the cruiseship, which would be approximately the same error as using fuel consumption with the accelerator pressed to the floor on the Rolls-Royce.

--
personal GPS user since 1992

Cruise ships only have 2

Cruise ships only have 2 speeds, All Ahead Full or maneuvering. Very seldom do they operate at speeds lower than All Ahead. They have such a tight schedule to go from Point A to Point B.

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Frank DriveSmart55 37.322760, -79.511267

not quite

phranc wrote:

Cruise ships only have 2 speeds, All Ahead Full or maneuvering. Very seldom do they operate at speeds lower than All Ahead. They have such a tight schedule to go from Point A to Point B.

All ships have a cruise speed which is less than full power. Once a ship has accelerated to its cruising speed, the power is "dialed back" to a point where the speed can be maintained. The ship may be able to do X knots, but it operates best at X-Y speed for maximum range and lower fuel consumption.

--
Illiterate? Write for free help.

Full speed for an extended

Full speed for an extended time is hard on any engine. I would think you need to reduce the throttle or the engines would need a lot more maintenance.

--
d

The engines are not entirely for propulsion

Quite apart from the question of operating speed (by the way it is nonsense to say they have only two speeds--to get back to the theme of this thread, you could take a look at your GPS and see evidence of speed variation not related to wind and currents if you care to look, and I have) the configuration of the Oasis of the Seas power production and propulsion is a bit more complicated than assumed.

All primary engine output is electric power. When the maneuvering thrusters are not in use, propulsion is by the electrically driven Azipods, 3x20 MWatt maximum, which is a lot less than the full output of the six prime movers. But the prime movers supply ship's power for all services--prominently including "hotel power" for cabin heating and cooling, lighting...

--
personal GPS user since 1992

LOL

phranc wrote:

Cruise ships only have 2 speeds, All Ahead Full or maneuvering. Very seldom do they operate at speeds lower than All Ahead. They have such a tight schedule to go from Point A to Point B.

Wow. I can tell you don't cruise! I've cruised at 12 knots and at 28 knots (not often this fast) and speeds in between. It's 14 miles from the cruise port in LA to Catalina island. The ship generally departs LA at 4:00 PM and arrives at Catalina at 7:00 AM the next day. That is definitely NOT full speed ahead! They go out beyond the limit and cruise around in circles so they can have the casino and the duty free shops open.

--
GPSMAP 76CSx - nüvi 760 - nüvi 200 - GPSMAP 78S

Not Tue

phranc wrote:

Cruise ships only have 2 speeds, All Ahead Full or maneuvering. Very seldom do they operate at speeds lower than All Ahead. They have such a tight schedule to go from Point A to Point B.

Ships travel at whatever speed is necessary to maintain schedule. Top speed is about 25 mph, depending on the ship.

Reference: http://cruises.lovetoknow.com/wiki/How_Fast_Does_a_Cruise_Sh...

Handy to wander around ports of call

Some of thd ports of calls could be confusing. If your GPS maps include the ports of call, it cojld help you find your way back to the ship.

Nothing could be worse than getting lost and finding your way bsck after the ship left.

I've loaded Mapfactor on my cell, and have loaded with maps of all the islands that we will be visiting on the cruise in a couple of weeks.

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DriveSmart 65, NUVI2555LMT, (NUVI350 is Now Retired)

GPS on cruise

When the wife and I took a Rhine River cruise last September, including Switzerland, Germany, France, The Netherlands and Belgium, I took a Garmin handheld. I had downloaded Garmin compatible maps of all the areas we would visit. Worked like a charm. I installed the maps at night for the area where we would be the next day. I marked the location of the ship each day so I could get back to it with the GPS if I got lost. Didn't need it, but it was nice to know I had it if I needed it.

We tried to geocache one day. Who knew that they would lock the gates to the park! We couldn't get in.

--
Bobbo and Linda

Better before than after

robertliles wrote:

Who knew that they would lock the gates to the park! We couldn't get in.

Better they were locked before you went in, instead of locking after.

--
DriveSmart 65, NUVI2555LMT, (NUVI350 is Now Retired)

I doubt

How using pedestrian mode would work at sea? When using pedestrian mode is made for land? well get ready for the "Recalculating" message.

As

As long as you don't have a destination entered and are just using the GPS to pinpoint your location there wouldn't be any "recalculating" message no matter what mode you were in. Also only older model Nuvi's actually say "recalculating" anymore anyway. wink

We live on an island which requires a ferry ride to the mainland and I use my GPS a fair bit on the ferry. My 3597 doesn't have a pedestrian mode so if I happen to have a destination entered it would be in automotive mode. From past experience I can tell you that in that mode the device continually recalculates the route over and over until we are almost on land again. I always assumed that Pedestrian mode, if available, would help that situation, not hinder it.

--
Nuvi 350, 760, 1695LM, 3790LMT, 2460LMT, 3597LMTHD, DriveLuxe 50LMTHD, DriveSmart 61, Garmin Drive 52, Garmin Backup Camera 40 and TomTom XXL540s.

City Navigator North America NT Coverage In Mexico

https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/maps/on-the-road-maps/city-n...

I was just looking at the Garmin website because I was wondering about the coverage in Mexico. I noticed that for Mexico is states "Major urban areas with intertown roads." For those with experience using Garmin in Mexico, how good, or bad, is the coverage there?

Sounds Interesting!

Sounds Interesting Have Fun!

Probably will see..

...a lot of blue. grin

--
With God, all things are possible. ——State motto of the Great State of Ohio

The idea of having a GPS to

The idea of having a GPS to steer me around when I leave the ship sort of takes the fun out of being on vacation and exploring new places.

Whatever did we do before we had the GPS to hold our hands and guide us every step of the way? I guess we were constantly lost, or stumbled around in a daze.

Oh well, each to their own.....smile

--
I never get lost, but I do explore new territory every now and then.

For a cruise ship, could you

For a cruise ship, could you use your cell phone? i would think this is an example where the cell is better to use than a GPS unit

Cellular Costs On A Cruise

If you download maps to your phone during the cruise using the ship's cell site system, you will have HUGE data charges. Costs will vary based on the roaming rates from your service provider, but expect to pay around $25 per 100 MB for data, $5.00 per minute for voice, and 50 cents per text.

Most cruise lines contract with AT&T Wireless Marine Services which offers both CDMA and GSM service on ships via satellite. http://www.wmsatsea.com/

Also be aware that the ship's cell system shuts down when in port, so you are then using the local cellular provider, which can also be very expensive in many cases.

To avoid high phone charges on a cruise ship completely turn off your phone, put it on airplane mode, or just leave it at home.

True... but...

grzesja wrote:

If you think about it ship is just huge steel cage. Big ships that is. So you are practically efficiently cut of from radio waves as it is Faraday cage with holes. So don't expect too much reception if you are inside cabin.

True, but an airplane is also a Faraday cage. It has been a while since I last flew, but I had no difficulty getting a position lock from a window seat.

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