Over 100 people have signed up for the upcoming Mac Mania voyage, according to Neil Bauman, caption/CEO of Geek Cruises, the company arranging the trip. That’s already 40 more participants than aboard the currently underway Perl Whirl, which has 60 participants.
MacMania is the upcoming seven-day ocean cruise, with ports of call in Alaska, that combines pleasure with 20 hours of conference courses. There’ll be conference tracks for both developers and end users.
Also, it’s confirmed that the cruise conference will feature ship-wide IEEE 802.11b WIFI-compliant wireless Internet access for attendees. This 11-megabit per second wireless network lets attendees download conference files, communicate with speakers and other attendees, and keep informed of any change in conference venues, Bauman said.
Plus, the 24-hour-per-day unlimited wireless Internet access will let all MacManiacs and their spouses surf the Web unrestricted, send and receive e-mail and transfer files using the ship’s Ethernet-to-fiber optic-to-satellite connection through their own laptops. The alternative is using the Digital Seas Internet Cafe terminals that offer significantly restricted and expensive per minute Internet access, Bauman said.
Conference attendees with Mac laptops and wireless adapter cards, such as AirPort, will be able to remain connected to each other across multiple decks, and with the conference speakers from many places aboard the ship, including all of the conference rooms and most public areas. The wireless local area network configuration currently consists of an array of Cisco Aironet 350 wireless access points (the root access point being connected by CAT5 Ethernet cable to a 10/100 Ethernet switch patched into the ship’s fiber optic connection located for this cruise in the Digital Seas Internet Cafe), with other access points placed in strategic locations throughout the ship. All of the points use the IEEE 802.11b WIFI protocol, configured in repeater mode.
The MacMania cruise — which is co-sponsored by Mac Publishing — will depart May 27 from Vancouver for Alaska’s Inside Passage. Room for MacMania is limited to approximately 400. Cruising prices are: inside cabins: US$1,050-$1,100 (depending on category) and outside cabins: $1,350-$1,550 (ditto). The conference price is $600 for the End Users Track and $1,250 for the OS X Developers Track. Port taxes would be additional and are $184 per person.
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