question about cell phone/data plans before we depart US

[roothy123]

thanks, Ruthy. Still figuring it all out -- hubby has Verizon and I have ATT and i want mainly to be able to text him if we do different things and are apart....

Clearly turning off data roaming is a key point.

 

Yes, that's me. Not worried if I'm one place and he's another while ashore - but sometimes one person is on the ship and one's not. If worst comes to worst, one of us will just have to go ashore, away from the ship, and turn everything on long enough to check for a text! For you, with two providers, I guess I'd check with both, then double check, then once onboard, do a test and then check your usage/bills!

 

I had heard before about calls being routed through ship's cellular and people coming home to find big bills, but that was when I simply turned off my phone when I got on the ship, so life was simpler then. Now everyone has tablets and phones and are used to having them on 24/7 and not worrying about anything. Of course, the more people have multiple stuff turned on, the more bandwith is taken up, so wireless suffers and internet slows down. Therefore, I'm trying to figure out just what I need and what I should turn off - both for cost and efficiency purposes.

 

I finally called today to get our new phones unlocked (assume you've done that, if necessary - takes a few days with T Mobile, plus we had to pay for service for 3 months before they would unlock us! At some point soon I plan to call and ask more questions, as I'm a cautious person.

Edited June 10, 2015 by roothy123

[juliesaddiction]

Texts always work no matter what. International is 5 cents to receive and 50 cents to send.........it really doesnt add up to that much over the course of a cruise.

[Vineyard View]

Hey Julie!! Hope you and your Mom are doing well! Great two days in St Petersburg!!

 

On texts, AT&T was charging me $.50 each direction, plus $1.50 each picture each way. That was after they told me they were free with the int'l package I bought.....just part of the wrong info they provided. I am hoping for the energy needed to battle them next week.

[OneBag]

This is what my husband and I do when we travel overseas (our adult son and daughter are together in London right now and they are doing this and it is working well).

 

Mobile carrier's global plan

I add that to our lines which gives us minimal data, texts and voice to use when wifi is not an option (we use Verizon). We only use that when absolutely necessary. We lock down our phones to be sure they don't start doing things and use up all of our data the instant we turn cellular data on.

 

Boingo app on both phones

Before we leave I activate Boingo's Mobile service which permits usage on 2 mobile devices are re-download the mobile app. $4.99 first month, $9.99/mo. I think after that, I have no problems turning service off upon return. This opens up more wifi options in addition to whatever free public wifi hotspots are available.

 

FB messaging app

I hate FB but I love the messaging app, and almost everyone we want to hear from or send text and photos to is on FB (the few that aren't get relegated to email). When connected to wifi, FB messaging--text as well as photos and videos--works great and does voice calls between FB contacts if the bandwidth is good enough. With the click of a button, you can "pin" your location which allows the person on the other end to see a map showing exactly where you are. Which is cool. I can vicariously travel along with my kids as they make their way from pub to pub across London. :roll eyes: My son sent me a "made it" text, dropped a pin, and I could see he was at the AirBnB. My daughter dropped a PIN plus a video of the two of them having a pint outside a pub in Kensington. All done over wifi. (I know Skype, WhatsApp and others do similar things but getting people to download them and use them is like herding cats. With FB messaging, if they use FB, even without the app on their phone, they will get the message on their FB page.) With the mobile app you can also see if your contacts are offline or on and if your message has been sent, received, or read. I don't own stock in FB. Did I mention I hate FB? But the app is good, intuitive and fun to use.

 

Between free public wifi, hotel wifi, and Boingo, we usually have very little trouble connecting in most cities in Western and Southern Europe and Scandinavia. This frees up our global data, text and voice allocation for communicating with each other when we're apart. (Our phones weren't very smart when we traveled in Eastern Europe so I don't know what the public wifi situation is there as I did not drag my laptop around town with me to find out.) Verizon supposedly has a new global wifi app you can use if you have their global plan but I haven't tried it and the reviews aren't good.

 

Obviously we don't want to spend our port time sitting at Starbucks doing things we could be doing while at sea. I am hoping the wifi situation on the Star isn't awful. Not Awful is acceptable. Good is better, but Not Awful works.

[traveltwin]

I loved your helpful post! FB messenger is I need quite good. Didn't know about Boingo but will research it. Thx so much.