Ship to Shore

With today's technology, is it really possible to WFS (work from sea)?

- JANE WOOLDRIDGE

MY LAST ATTEMPT to work from a cruise a few years ago turned into a hot mess. The ship's regular Internet access barely supported email—you could forget trying to send an attachment. The day I was due to give a webinar presentation, I learned the expensive “upgraded” Internet—available by the hour—had to be enabled by a communications specialist who had gone ashore. The boosted service materialized minutes before my meeting and cut off automatically before my presentation concluded.

Since then, the cruise industry has polished its game. With remote work now commonplace and work-leisure holidays proliferating, most major cruise lines have installed Starlink, enabling continuous Internet service with few hiccups.

But does it really work for those critical video conferences and image uploads from truly remote locations? I gave it serious workouts on two recent far-flung sailings.

TEST 1

Seabourn's 14-day sailing from the Solomon Islands along the remote shores of New Guinea and on to Darwin, Australia

Traveling to this region by air and land takes days and days. So does sailing on the 264-passenger