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Phoning home at sea


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Can anyone help me please? I'm going on a European cruise with Royal Caribbean soon and need to make contact with my home landline every day, even on the days when I'll be at sea. I know from experience that costs for using a mobile while at sea are extortionate, so I thought of buying some internet time (also not cheap) and connecting via Skype or similar service, using the ship's wifi. Does anyone have any experience or advice on doing this please? I know the signal can be bad, slow or non existent at times, even in the internet centre, but any tips or pointers on the best and cheapest way of doing this would be hugely appreciated. Thank you!

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  • 4 weeks later...

It's going to be expensive to call home daily.  Since you're gone, isn't there anyone at home keeping an "eye" on things?  If so, give them the emergency number for your cruise line....they ALL have them.  Leave your cabin # and ship name.  They can get in touch with YOU, if you are needed.

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On 10/24/2018 at 6:28 PM, cb at sea said:

It's going to be expensive to call home daily.  Since you're gone, isn't there anyone at home keeping an "eye" on things?  If so, give them the emergency number for your cruise line....they ALL have them.  Leave your cabin # and ship name.  They can get in touch with YOU, if you are needed.

We do that.  We know several folks who will keep an eye on the house.  They know to text us to keep us informed.  We can then call them back if necessary.  Texts are cheap.

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  • 3 months later...

I can only assume you sailed already probably, but I noticed one thing really nice about cruising Europe compared to say Caribbean. We were close enough to land even on "sea days"to get a cell phone signal with our regular carrier! This was great because we would turn our phones on to check email and text our kids and well.. make plans online (go T-Mobile!!) My husband actually had gotten a VM from work he checked and it turns out, they actually screwed up his vacation time. Sure it cost us $4 to get it fixed with phone calls, but we did it on a Sea Day passing by Sicily. 

 

We also found a lot of little island you sail by actually have a cell connection on them that you can tap into. It didn't make the internet great, but it was find for texting (even pictures) and phone calls and limited web browsing. Just be sure to check with your plan about charges. Or have a T-Mobile plan that automatically gives you free internet and really cheap calls/texts in other countries.    

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