Calling Home

[lppwrth]

What is the best way of keeping in touch with the UK. I only have a basic mobile phone...not even a touchscreen, so facetime etc. is not an option for me.

I seem to remember the first time we went buying cards to use in the local phone boxes? Can't even remember if we got these on the ship or in the ports.

 

I am on an O2 contract and usually it is cheaper for me to receive calls rather than make them...but I just wondered if there are any tips that anyone can offer for making cheap calls.

 

In Thailand February 2012, we were given a free sim at the airport and for less than £20 top up, we were able to keep in contact with home for the whole two weeks. Brilliant.

 

We will be on the Dream from 27th January.

 

Lorraine

[WeeCountyMan]

What countries will you be wanting to call from ?

 

Sounds like you must have a quadband phone ?

 

When the ship sails close to land you will pickup a local network which syncs with your home provider and roaming rates will apply - you'd need to check details with O2.

 

Once out of range with land based networks your handset will sync with the ship's system - and that will be expensive.

 

We've always used texts when a connection is available through a land based network.

[lppwrth]

This is our itinerary

 

Thomson Dream - Latin Gems / Caribbean Treasures

 

Itinerary overview Day 1: Bridgetown 20:00 Day 2: Ship At Sea

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Day 3: Oranjestad 09:00 - 23:00 Day 4: Willemstad 09:00 - 16:00 Day 5: Margarita Island 13:00 - 18:00 Day 6: St George'S 09:00 - 18:00 Day 7: Castries 08:00 - 18:00 Day 8: Bridgetown 06:00 - 20:00 Day 9: Ship At Sea

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Day 10: Basseterre 08:00 - 18:00 Day 11: Philipsburg 08:00 - 18:00 Day 12: Road Town 08:00 - 18:00 Day 13: St John'S 08:00 - 18:00 Day 14: Roseau 08:00 - 17:00 Day 15: Bridgetown

 

So any of these places

 

Lorraine

[whistlerbc]

I'm with vodafone and just used my mobile to stay in touch last time. I didn't find the rates too bad as the lime network in lots of caribbean islands ie barbados, st lucia, grenada and others is part of the vodafone empire. Mainly text, did send a few picture messages, checked emails and the dreaded facebook but also called both from land and using the ship satellite on one occassion for 10 mins. My bill was only £36 which I thought was OK. Key thing to prevent unexpected and huge bills is to switch off the data for those using a smartphone.

 

Just double checked vodafone and cruise ships are still charged at the same rate as any other call from the caribbean with them.

 

£1.65 per min to call, £1.30 per min to recieve a call, 35p plus standard text which for me is free, 37p per picture message and data is £3 per MB up to 5MB then £15 for every 5MB after.

 

Calls work out 30p per min more expensive than USA/Canada which is where I most often call home from to UK but texts etc are the same. I just don't think its worth the hassle to find a phone when a quick 2 min call is around £3 and better still thats loads of texts.

 

Call charges for O2 can be found here http://international.o2.co.uk/internationaltariffs/travelling_abroad