Using Verizon phones onboard

[ksjayhawks]

Does anyone know if you can use Verizon phones onboard? Is there a charge? If so, how much per minute?

[MickeyB426]

Does anyone know if you can use Verizon phones onboard? Is there a charge? If so, how much per minute?

 

They very likely do not work at sea.

 

You need to contact Verizon to set up your phone for International Long Distance Dialing. Refer to the link below:

 

http://b2b.vzw.com/international/Long_Distance/index.html

 

It's not cheap.

[dougp26364]

Verizon smart phones do work at sea but, there is a $2.49 per minute charge when you're on the ships tower. If your phone is a smart phone and you can connect to the internet and send or receive data, unless you call Verizon and make arrangements to be on their International data plan with unlimited usage, you could be in for a shock when your bill arrives the month after your cruise. Many smart phones download data automatically from some apps.

 

Verizon has an international data plane that runs around $69/month. It can be added to your account without signing a new contract and you can remove it from your plan when you get home. The price will be prorated for the amount of time you have it added to your plan. One week will add about $17 to your monthly bill. You'll still pay the $2.49 per minute fee to make/receive calls but, all data, including internet usage or checking your E-mails is included in the fixed fee and is for unlimited usage. Receiving a text will cost 5 cents but, if you send a text message, it will cost you 55 cents. When you're away from the ship you'll be on whatever tower is the local tower and you may pay their roaming charges instead of the ships charge of $2.49/minute. Generally speaking, the ships charge is the highest one you'll encounter.

 

We've done this twice and have never seen the dreaded unexpected outragious bill. The trick is you must call your provider and plan rather than get on the ship and not worry about it. Verizon has a very good package that has worked well for us without costing us a ton of money. We've always been able to stay in contact while onboard and, so far, we've never been billed more then $50 above our normal monthly fee's.

 

The phone we're using when on RCI ships is a Blackberry Storm.

[ksjayhawks]

Thanks for the info.

[heffa72]

Just called Verizon today to see what my plan covered. All mentioned above by previous posted is on target.

 

One small change is the outbound texts are $0.50 vs $0.55.

 

Also , you can actually ask customer service to start and stop your international plan (called Global Value) on set dates, rather than having to remember to call them to activate and then again to deactivate. Also they recommend you (the day or so before you leave) update your phone with any new serivce area updates by dialing *228 and following the prompts.

 

As for phone calls, they told me to make sure I'm far enough away from the ship when at port to avoid linking up with the ships tower and getting stuck on their tower rates vs local island rates (Cozumel is $0.99/min vs ship which is $2.49/min).

 

It sounds to me that if I just do the Global Value plan, I can send emails home (and receive) without paying RCL for their internet (rip off) and having to sit in the computer cluster to do this. I'm so happy about this as I'll have 2 little ones at home with my inlaws and I'll want to keep up on how they're doing.

 

Now I just have to figure out how far away from the ship I need to be to be safely away from their tower. Anyone have any ideas?

[dougp26364]

Just called Verizon today to see what my plan covered. All mentioned above by previous posted is on target.

 

One small change is the outbound texts are $0.50 vs $0.55.

 

Also , you can actually ask customer service to start and stop your international plan (called Global Value) on set dates, rather than having to remember to call them to activate and then again to deactivate. Also they recommend you (the day or so before you leave) update your phone with any new serivce area updates by dialing *228 and following the prompts.

 

As for phone calls, they told me to make sure I'm far enough away from the ship when at port to avoid linking up with the ships tower and getting stuck on their tower rates vs local island rates (Cozumel is $0.99/min vs ship which is $2.49/min).

 

It sounds to me that if I just do the Global Value plan, I can send emails home (and receive) without paying RCL for their internet (rip off) and having to sit in the computer cluster to do this. I'm so happy about this as I'll have 2 little ones at home with my inlaws and I'll want to keep up on how they're doing.

 

Now I just have to figure out how far away from the ship I need to be to be safely away from their tower. Anyone have any ideas?

 

Generally speaking Verizon will send you a text (at no charge) that tells you you've changed towers. However, on our Oasis cruise, we didn't get any text messages the entire week about who's towers we were on. It caused me to go online with the RCI computers and verify that our account had been modified to the global plan, which it had. I'm not sure why we didn't receive text's when we changed towers/roaming rates this time around like we recieved in October of last year.

 

Part of the reason we go with this plan is that we can have family send us E-mails of things we should know but are not urgent, text us with something maybe a little more ergent or call if it's truely an emergancy.

 

I did not realize they would allow us to set up a specific start/stop date but, in thinking about it it's not something I would recommend. At issue would be getting stuck someplace longer than expected and then having to remember to change the stop date. The main reason we have a phone that works oversea's was the sailing where we were stuck on Brilliance due to a fisherman's strike. We were under a lot of stress and remembering to extend the service might have slipped our minds. For us, it's easier to make the change while we're sitting in the airport waiting for our flight home.