RCCL Wifi access charges?

[Cruisin' Ya Ya]

Hubby and I have smartphones plan through Verizon and we are going on Anthem of The Seas in December to Bahamas. I contacted Verizon about what cell plans are available on the trip. They have three international plans, but they said the plans for cruise ships do not use Verizon network, and that we would have to use the ship's wifi to use the phones while on the ship, then once off the ship we would be using the international plan in lieu of getting roaming charges.

 

has anyone else done this - getting a verizon international plan, and using the ship wifi ? I know there absolutely will be an additional cost for use of the ship's wifi - so what did you pay if you did it this way? No plan needed - just an access fee?

[Clarkk W Griswald]

Just off the Adventure of the Seas. WiFi for my Iphone was $20/day, with $40 off week package for Diamond members.

[Clarea]

I believe the Quantum class ships have the less expensive WiFi of $15 per day for one device and $22.50 per day for two devices.

[Cruisin' Ya Ya]

Thank you both for your replies. I don't feel safe using a free wifi, only use secure ones - just my choice. We are only platinum C&A members, but I will call and see what they have to offer. Still deciding - got 40+ days to decide.

[loudbmw]

I'm not sure I understand your question. Are you talking to Verizon about an international voice plan or a international data plan?

 

We have used Verizon's international data plan a number of times on RCL. It's $30 for 100mb of data (not much data but fine for checking e-mail). They prorate the plan during your monthly cycle so in order to get the full 100mb, you sign up the first day of your billing cycle and cancel it on the last day. Hopefully your cruise doesn't span two billing cycles.

 

You are not using the ships WiFi for data if on Verizon's international data plan. Sorry, I know it's confusing.

[Cruisin' Ya Ya]

Verizon has "International Trip Plans -

which you can select "data only" plan which includes 100mb of data for $25/mo; or

100 min. outgoing calls/100 texts msgs/100 mb data/unlimited incoming calls for $40/mo;

and then a pay-as-you-go plan $1.79 voice/$2.05 mb data/$.50 send & $.05 receive texts.

 

They say this does not include actual connection to a wifi since Verizon does not have a network tower on the ship. So we would have to get the wifi service from the ship. I did check and see that the ship offers $15/day for internet access package for 1 device. It does not (that I can find) say it offers voice or texting. JUST internet.

 

So I believe I need to have Verizon for my phone & texting service, and RCCL for internet, unless I want to go with a pay-as-you-go from Verizon for calls & texting.

 

All I really want is texting and calls anyway.

 

 

 

right?

Edited November 3, 2015 by Cruisin' Ya Ya

[reallyitsmema]

Verizon has "International Trip Plans -

which you can select "data only" plan which includes 100mb of data for $25/mo; or

100 min. outgoing calls/100 texts msgs/100 mb data/unlimited incoming calls for $40/mo;

and then a pay-as-you-go plan $1.79 voice/$2.05 mb data/$.50 send & $.05 receive texts.

 

They say this does not include actual connection to a wifi since Verizon does not have a network tower on the ship. So we would have to get the wifi service from the ship. I did check and see that the ship offers $15/day for internet access package for 1 device. It does not (that I can find) say it offers voice or texting. JUST internet.

 

So I believe I need to have Verizon for my phone & texting service' date=' and RCCL for internet, unless I want to go with a pay-as-you-go from Verizon for calls & texting.

 

All I really want is texting and calls anyway.

 

 

 

right?[/quote']

 

If you only want to do an occasional call and some texting, I would stick with just paying as you go with Verizon. That is what we do when we cruise and it works fine, no need for cruise wifi package since we aren't using data. My iPhone is set with data roaming off, and only voice roaming on. It all depends on what you actually want to do with your phone. Text bubbles will be green since you will be sms texting, instead of the blue imessage bubbles you are used to. If you see blue message bubbles, you are using data.

[Big_G]

May not help you specifically but may help others: I use "Google Voice" which is a free SMS/voice forwarding service by Google. It integrates with Google Hangouts (their chat app) to do phone calls and SMS over WiFi instead of cellular.

 

So if I have a fast WiFi connection, I can make "free" calls using my Google Voice number from my cell phone to US numbers, and also get "free" texts.

 

 

You beat me to it. I use Hangouts and the calls are clear as day. Being on Anthem, the OP can do anything on WIFI that they could do through cell. On Oasis, My wife was Facetiming her grandchildren and I believe they have the same systems.

Edited November 3, 2015 by Big_G

[cruisingram1]

You beat me to it. I use Hangouts and the calls are clear as day. Being on Anthem, the OP can do anything on WIFI that they could do through cell. On Oasis, My wife was Facetiming her grandchildren and I believe they have the same systems.

 

You did not specifically say what type of Smartphone you have, but I used my iPhone on Oasis last year to Facetime, both audio and video, as well as imessage and mail. All over wifi. If I did not see the little airplane indicating I was in airplane mode, I would have thought I had an LTE signal. Did not matter where on the ship. Incoming and outgoing Facetime worked perfectly.

 

I am platinum - there was a discount for the week, but can't recall how much. The wifi on the newer ships is FAST.

 

If you have an Android, check out Hangouts and Google Voice. Sounds like it does the same thing.

 

I can understand your concern about using an unsecure wifi connection on land. I never felt the need to connect on land since the connection at sea was superb.

[Big_G]

You did not specifically say what type of Smartphone you have, but I used my iPhone on Oasis last year to Facetime, both audio and video, as well as imessage and mail. All over wifi. If I did not see the little airplane indicating I was in airplane mode, I would have thought I had an LTE signal. Did not matter where on the ship. Incoming and outgoing Facetime worked perfectly.

 

I am platinum - there was a discount for the week, but can't recall how much. The wifi on the newer ships is FAST.

 

If you have an Android, check out Hangouts and Google Voice. Sounds like it does the same thing.

 

I can understand your concern about using an unsecure wifi connection on land. I never felt the need to connect on land since the connection at sea was superb.

 

You quoted me and not the OP but for what it's worth, I have a Droid Turbo and the wife has an iPhone. I don't know what the OP has.

[Cruisin' Ya Ya]

I have droid maxx, for the record.....thanks for all your inputs and suggestions. I will definitely check into those ideas.

[rudeney]

I will warn you about Verizon - their CSR's are not very smart and will mislead you and give you downright incorrect information. First of all, the cellular service on the ship qualifies under their international calling plans. It would work just like using cell service in Mexico, Bahamas, Caymans, etc. WiFi has nothing to do with cell service. VZW does not have a provision to make calls via WiFi unless you use a 3rd party app (Skype, etc.) and that would not be under your phone's number. You can send and receive texts via WiFi, though. The iPhone's iMessage app will allow texting to other iMessage users over WiFi. The Verizon Message+ app will allow texting over WiFi for non-iPhone users. For Andriod users, Message+ can be used for all text and will automatically use WiFi when available. For iPhone users, you will need to switch between Message+ and iMessage depending upon who you text.

 

Now, even if you do not sign up for an international calling plan, your phone will work. It will make calls, send and receive texts, and use data. This works both on the ship and off in port. The problem is, without a plan, you will pay by the minute/text/megabyte. Verizon offers a "pay-go" plan, which costs nothing, and is really nbot even needed as it just charges you per usage - about $1.79/minute, $0.50 per text sent, $0.05 per text received and $2,000 per gigabyte (yep, not a typo -do the math - it's $2.06 per megabyte). VZW does offer plans for $40 and $80 per month that include some number of minute/texts/megabytes. They push these plans to keep you from having any "surprises".

 

They will tell you that without adding a plan, even the pay-go plan you will be unable to use your phone overseas. So, you may think, "Hey, I'll not add a plan, then use WiFi, and not have to worry about any accidental charges!" Wrong! By default, you have pay-go. I don't believe you can even disable it. The only thing you can do is keep your phone off or on airplane mode. If you want to use WiFi, you can do that. VZW may tell you WiFi cannot be used in airplane mode, but it can. First, turn on airplane mode, then turn on only WiFi.

 

So, you may be thinking what I was - we would only use our phones to call in an emergency, in which case $1.79/min is OK, and we'll use WiFi for texting and data, so we need no plan. We put our phones in airplane mode and kept them there. We also set them to disable data usage when roaming. We paid for 2-device WiFi and were able to text each other on the ship, and even text friends at home.

 

The problem is, my granddaughter has an iPhone. Apparently, during the cruise, it rebooted. And when iPhones reboot, they sometimes fall out of airplane mode. Before noticing that, a bunch of text messages were sent and received and we came home to a $100+ bill. Luckily, we turned off data roaming, so that didn't rack up hundreds of more dollars. In complete conflict with what I was told, not having an international calling plan did no good - it still let the phone incur charges. VZW did "help me after hours on the phone and several escalation - they retroactively put her phone on the $40 plan and credited off the extra $60+ in pay-go charges.

 

So BEWARE!

[cruisegirl1]

Thank you both for your replies. I don't feel safe using a free wifi' date=' only use secure ones - just my choice. We are only platinum C&A members, but I will call and see what they have to offer. Still deciding - got 40+ days to decide.[/quote']

 

We buy a package and use the ship wifi for one devise at a time. It works for all our devises (phones or ipad) , as long as we are just on one at a time. It is secured with a log in password. Service can be slow but we have been able to log on in most every case.

 

I too am not a fan of free wifi and will often use my phone as a hot spot rather than use free wifi.

 

 

M

[BNL62]

If you only want to do an occasional call and some texting, I would stick with just paying as you go with Verizon. That is what we do when we cruise and it works fine, no need for cruise wifi package since we aren't using data. My iPhone is set with data roaming off, and only voice roaming on. It all depends on what you actually want to do with your phone. Text bubbles will be green since you will be sms texting, instead of the blue imessage bubbles you are used to. If you see blue message bubbles, you are using data.

 

I'm sorry, I'm so confused!! Reallyitsmema, are you saying that you did not have a ship wifi package and you were able to text while on the ship? I didn't think the ships had a cell tower so you had to get the ship wifi. I have a family cruise coming up and I just want to be able to text each other to help with some of the coordination away from our cabins. Some of us have AT&T but I think one has Verizon. Is it possible to communicate with texts without the ship wifi?

[Tura Lura]

Ship has a satellite. I didn't buy the wifi plan- outgoing texts cost me .50, a couple quick phone calls cost me $20. iMessage were free.

 

I have AT&T - they have a cruise ship plan if I wanted to get that but ill probably get unlimited wifi thru the ship next cruise on Anthem since its high speed.

Edited November 5, 2015 by Tura Lura

[setsail]

We have Verizon and never buy a package, just pay as you go. The highest bill we have had was 28.00, most of the time its around 15.00. At 1.79pm and 50/05 for text we can make several short calls and a bunch of text. We don't use the phones for internet. If we have to check in with the airline we use the ships pc(we get minutes)

[Clarea]

I'm sorry, I'm so confused!! Reallyitsmema, are you saying that you did not have a ship wifi package and you were able to text while on the ship? I didn't think the ships had a cell tower so you had to get the ship wifi. I have a family cruise coming up and I just want to be able to text each other to help with some of the coordination away from our cabins. Some of us have AT&T but I think one has Verizon. Is it possible to communicate with texts without the ship wifi?

The ship has a cell tower that is connected to the rest of the world via satellite. You can text without using the ship's WiFi. Without any extra plans, it will cost an AT&T user $0.50 per text sent. Received texts are free. Note that these are simple texts and do not include photos, videos, or group texts.

[Cruisin' Ya Ya]

We have Verizon and never buy a package, just pay as you go. The highest bill we have had was 28.00, most of the time its around 15.00. At 1.79pm and 50/05 for text we can make several short calls and a bunch of text. We don't use the phones for internet. If we have to check in with the airline we use the ships pc(we get minutes)

 

 

Can you send pics via text message and it only counts as a text and not data?

[setsail]

Can you send pics via text message and it only counts as a text and not data?

 

No, you want to send pics, then you use data

[reallyitsmema]

I'm sorry, I'm so confused!! Reallyitsmema, are you saying that you did not have a ship wifi package and you were able to text while on the ship? I didn't think the ships had a cell tower so you had to get the ship wifi. I have a family cruise coming up and I just want to be able to text each other to help with some of the coordination away from our cabins. Some of us have AT&T but I think one has Verizon. Is it possible to communicate with texts without the ship wifi?

 

Yes, as others have said, you can text without buying a wifi package from the cruiseline or a package from your cell phone carrier. You need to check your plan with AT&T and see what your coverage is and Verizon for your friend. You need to decide how many texts you are going to send and if it will be cheaper to have a package. We are with Verizon and just pay as we go. We keep data roaming off always, even at home, but I check while on the ship to make sure. Have your friend use the interactive trip planner on the Verizon website, they will get all the information you need.