I must admit that I've researched this on-and-off for years. Surprisingly, it's reasonably expensive (ie. not inexpensive). That said, the reviews I've read have been nearly universally positive: as the article notes, the crews love interesting company (they spend months on the boat painting from stem-to-stern and you're naturally inclined to discuss the outside world and not-painting-bulkheads).
Boredom: if you step onto a container ship as a guest without at least a month of "work" to do, you're to blame. I admit, I'm uncertain of bandwidth and such; but there is some. Download sources before boarding! And I ain't much of a writer, but I might take a whack at writing the Great American [short story] during the journey so that I wasn't bored. Point is: riding a largely automated ship for 2-14 days without a plan is nearly the definition of boredom; plan against boredom!
Having taught myself Ruby on Rails while cruising in Alaska 8 years ago, learning without the internet can be pretty blissful. Just make sure you download the sources first! [Yes, Ruby doesn't need that. I'm looking to learn Rust...]
It's especially easy to be a programmer without internet these days because you can download the entirety of StackOverflow and Wikipedia to your hard drive! I wrote up a brief post when I went on a repositioning cruise with unfathomably pricy internet: http://www.archagon.net/a-few-pointless-thoughts/2014/6/17/b...
Realistically, would a satellite internet connection be prohibitively expensive for non-data-heavy browsing for a couple of weeks (meaning no Youtube, just programmer-work related Google/Wikipedia/StackOverflow, etc)?
Of course this is if you would buy the data for yourself. Though quiet a few ships have sat internet installed. The data rates are usually pretty low so it's good enough for email but not for surfing bloated websites like Stackoverflow or Google.
And then there's the alternative of 3G/4G GSM when you're near the shore.
Nearly all cruise ships currently charge for Internet access by the minute, not the bit, and throughput can vary widely. Typical prices start around $1/minute and with bulk minute purchases, may get down to $0.30/min.
This is starting to change, with some now offering unlimited connectivity for ~$15-30/day.
Boredom: if you step onto a container ship as a guest without at least a month of "work" to do, you're to blame. I admit, I'm uncertain of bandwidth and such; but there is some. Download sources before boarding! And I ain't much of a writer, but I might take a whack at writing the Great American [short story] during the journey so that I wasn't bored. Point is: riding a largely automated ship for 2-14 days without a plan is nearly the definition of boredom; plan against boredom!
Having taught myself Ruby on Rails while cruising in Alaska 8 years ago, learning without the internet can be pretty blissful. Just make sure you download the sources first! [Yes, Ruby doesn't need that. I'm looking to learn Rust...]
EDIT: I have no affiliate relationship, but this (http://www.freightercruises.com/) seems pretty solid (e.g. http://www.freightercruises.com/seaworthy_news_1310.php).