AT&T Data Plans,Phone Calls, Text International HAL

[Grateful Reader]

I am going on the 24 day Baltic, Fjords, and Highland cruise.

 

I am so confused with AT&T international plans and cruising. I am seeing different answers in different places.

 

I am not too concerned about email and data but I would like to text to the US and between family members on the cruise.

 

I would like place a call in an emergency but don't plan on making calls.

 

Anyone have any info so I don't come home to an astronomical cell phone bill?

 

THANKS so much. This forum has a been a lifesaver in planning this cruise.

[Randyk47]

I am going on the 24 day Baltic, Fjords, and Highland cruise.

 

I am so confused with AT&T international plans and cruising. I am seeing different answers in different places.

 

I am not too concerned about email and data but I would like to text to the US and between family members on the cruise.

 

I would like place a call in an emergency but don't plan on making calls.

 

Anyone have any info so I don't come home to an astronomical cell phone bill?

 

THANKS so much. This forum has a been a lifesaver in planning this cruise.

 

To the best of my knowledge HAL and AT&T have no agreement or relationship. To use your phone when on land, and to avoid a huge bill, you'll need to sign up with AT&T for an International plan. You can sign up basically for only the period of your cruise so it's not like you're signing up for a permanent International plan. You can use your phone on the ship but it will be through HAL's provider and not AT&T so different rates will apply. We always have signed up for a short term International plan, basically 30 days worth, and only used our phones when docked.

[Tampa Girl]

To the best of my knowledge HAL and AT&T have no agreement or relationship. To use your phone when on land, and to avoid a huge bill, you'll need to sign up with AT&T for an International plan. You can sign up basically for only the period of your cruise so it's not like you're signing up for a permanent International plan. You can use your phone on the ship but it will be through HAL's provider and not AT&T so different rates will apply. We always have signed up for a short term International plan, basically 30 days worth, and only used our phones when docked.

 

That is my understanding as well. We have always been advised to deactivate roaming and data while aboard ship. I think the OP will have an astronomical bill if he/she tries to test her family while on the ship.

[POA1]

When you look at the website, look for INTERNATIONAL ROAMING, not international calling. The latter is for calling from the USA to outside of the US. If you have had your phone long enough to request an unlock, you might be better off popping a T-Mobile SIM card in for the trip. Your calls on land will be 20 cents per minute, and your texts will be included. You'll also get data as part of the plan. Depending on the country, it will either be 2G or 3G. Just don't use the T-Mobile SIM on the ship. AT&T has better shipboard rates.

[Donny-Joe]

The specific international roaming package you want is called "Passport". It costs $30 for 30 days, and when you have it active you get discounted rates for calls, texts and data in a wide variety of countries. It only applies while you're in port; not while you're on the ship.

 

The basic plan reduces call costs to $1.00/min, which is still highway robbery, but lower than the rates with no plan ($1.50 for Europe, $2.50 for the rest of the world). You do get unlimited texting, and it includes 120MB of cellular data, plus a relatively reasonable overage rate of $0.25/MB.

 

Here's the page that covers all roaming issues:

 

https://www.att.com/shop/wireless/international/roaming.html

 

There is no way to get discounted rates with AT&T onboard the ship. Phone service (either calling or answering) is $2.50/minute. Sending a single text message is $0.50, unless it has a picture or video with it, in which case it's $1.30 plus potentially the data cost of uploading the picture or video. Data is charged at roughly $10/MB, which is insane. Do not, under any circumstances, use cellular data while you're on a cruise ship. One automatic update of an app could cost you $500 easily. And in my experience, if your data is shut off you can't send multimedia (pictures and videos) via text. The text portion of the message will come through, but not the pictures or videos.

 

My recommendation is to turn off cellular data in your phone settings and then only turn it on while you're in port and need to look something up, then turn it off again before you board the ship. If you tell us the phone model someone here can probably tell you how to adjust the settings.

 

If you only plan to send texts, then you may be OK without the Passport plan. Receiving texts while roaming costs the same as it would at home, even without a roaming plan. Sending them costs $0.50 (or $1.30 with a picture). So you would need to send 60 texts to equal the $30 the Passport plan would cost you. If you don't think you'll send that many, you can probably get by without it. If you want to send picture texts, though, you really need Passport, because you'll need to turn on cellular data to get those to work.

 

As others have mentioned, T-Mobile has much, much lower international roaming rates, and you don't have to buy any special package to get them. I assume at some point AT&T will have to match or come closer to T-Mobile in order to be competitive, but for now it's astonishing how big the difference is. We ultimately switched to T-Mobile just because of the hassles of having to buy the Passport plan every time we left the country.

[KirkNC]

It's been a while but I thought AT&T had an international text that was pretty reasonable. I think it gave you 50 or 100 texts.

[Donny-Joe]

It's been a while but I thought AT&T had an international text that was pretty reasonable. I think it gave you 50 or 100 texts.

 

They did have that at one point, but they've consolidated all their roaming options into the Passport plans. All of them include unlimited texting.

[spindrift]

All I can say is regardless of what you do, when you are not using the phone, make sure you turn off DATA ROAMING. I went from Cape Town to Singapore last year, and I received a notice via e-mail about half way into the trip that I had exceeded my limit. (Didn't know I had a limit.) I had only kept my phone charging, I thought, but it was on roaming. My bill was over $400. The IT man onboard was wonderful. He had me bring my phone to him, and he put it in airplane mode plus some other explanations.

 

Good lesson for this old senior, I'll tell ya.

[TiogaCruiser]

When you look at the website, look for INTERNATIONAL ROAMING, not international calling. The latter is for calling from the USA to outside of the US. If you have had your phone long enough to request an unlock, you might be better off popping a T-Mobile SIM card in for the trip. Your calls on land will be 20 cents per minute, and your texts will be included. You'll also get data as part of the plan. Depending on the country, it will either be 2G or 3G. Just don't use the T-Mobile SIM on the ship. AT&T has better shipboard rates.

 

POA- could you explain please?

How long and what does one do for an unlock?

[KirkNC]

Unlocking a phone means you have completed your contract.

[POA1]

POA- could you explain please?

How long and what does one do for an unlock?

Contact the carrier and ask if you're eligible. They typically unlock over the air if you are eligible.

 

https://www.att.com/deviceunlock/

 

If you unlock your phone, you can put in another carrier's SIM card.

[mariner]

I lock it in the safe and turn it on when I go ashore

[jig]

I have T-Mobile and I get free text and data in most countries. Also calls are 20c a minute. Change.

[roberts2005]

Just be careful if your phone and iPad are linked. You can windup with your iPad photos going to your phone

[WVU_Neal]

Another way to use your phone overseas to make a few calls back to the US is to use Skype or Google Voice. You do need an Internet connection, but this could be WiFi that you could find in port.

 

To avoid any random roaming charges, put your iPhone in Airplane mode and then enable Wifi when needed.

[Denverbri69]

First I unlock my phone at http://www.cellunlocker.net.

 

For my European trip coming up I will pre-buy a card from http://http://maxroam.com/Home.aspx?cur=USD#.VqTfC05lDMJ. They will ship it to your home and you can set it up on your phone prior to leaving for your trip. It is good throughout the Euro Zone. For txting with family I just use Viber or Google Hangouts; they are free and just minimally use up your data plan.

[FloridaTourist]

The specific international roaming package you want is called "Passport". It costs $30 for 30 days, and when you have it active you get discounted rates for calls, texts and data in a wide variety of countries. It only applies while you're in port; not while you're on the ship.

 

 

 

The basic plan reduces call costs to $1.00/min, which is still highway robbery, but lower than the rates with no plan ($1.50 for Europe, $2.50 for the rest of the world). You do get unlimited texting, and it includes 120MB of cellular data, plus a relatively reasonable overage rate of $0.25/MB.

 

 

 

Here's the page that covers all roaming issues:

 

 

 

https://www.att.com/shop/wireless/international/roaming.html

 

 

 

There is no way to get discounted rates with AT&T onboard the ship. Phone service (either calling or answering) is $2.50/minute. Sending a single text message is $0.50, unless it has a picture or video with it, in which case it's $1.30 plus potentially the data cost of uploading the picture or video. Data is charged at roughly $10/MB, which is insane. Do not, under any circumstances, use cellular data while you're on a cruise ship. One automatic update of an app could cost you $500 easily. And in my experience, if your data is shut off you can't send multimedia (pictures and videos) via text. The text portion of the message will come through, but not the pictures or videos.

 

 

 

My recommendation is to turn off cellular data in your phone settings and then only turn it on while you're in port and need to look something up, then turn it off again before you board the ship. If you tell us the phone model someone here can probably tell you how to adjust the settings.

 

 

 

If you only plan to send texts, then you may be OK without the Passport plan. Receiving texts while roaming costs the same as it would at home, even without a roaming plan. Sending them costs $0.50 (or $1.30 with a picture). So you would need to send 60 texts to equal the $30 the Passport plan would cost you. If you don't think you'll send that many, you can probably get by without it. If you want to send picture texts, though, you really need Passport, because you'll need to turn on cellular data to get those to work.

 

 

 

As others have mentioned, T-Mobile has much, much lower international roaming rates, and you don't have to buy any special package to get them. I assume at some point AT&T will have to match or come closer to T-Mobile in order to be competitive, but for now it's astonishing how big the difference is. We ultimately switched to T-Mobile just because of the hassles of having to buy the Passport plan every time we left the country.

 

 

This is great info. I am cruising on the Oosterdam April 18 from Rome. To get service on the ship couldn't I buy an Internet plan from the ship and use Buber to contact family and send pictures etc?

[mhb1757]

If you have an iPhone or iPad and want to text people that also use Apple devices you can use iMessage for free anyplace you have wifi. Just put your phone in airplane mode and connect to any available wifi network when ever you are off the ship. You can send texts and pictures to any Apple device for free. Since we are a family of iPhone users I just use that when out of the country.

[Donny-Joe]

This is great info. I am cruising on the Oosterdam April 18 from Rome. To get service on the ship couldn't I buy an Internet plan from the ship and use Buber to contact family and send pictures etc?

 

I'm not sure about Buber - did you mean Viber? Either way, yes, that should work, though there's a chance the ship might try to restrict VOIP either because it uses too much bandwidth or because it cuts into cellular at sea revenues, and if their messaging uses the same ports, they might get cut off as well.

 

But in practice, I found that my T-Mobile WiFi calling worked for text messaging, and as long as my phone was connected to WiFi I got text messages just fine. So I would think that Skype, Viber, WhatsApp etc. should work OK for messaging.

 

This advice only applies to text messaging and perhaps picture messaging. Actual phone calling over VOIP is probably not going to work super well at sea even if it's not blocked, just because it's satellite internet and the lag and packet drops are going to be a problem.

Edited January 26, 2016 by Donny-Joe

[FloridaTourist]

I'm not sure about Buber - did you mean Viber? Either way, yes, that should work, though there's a chance the ship might try to restrict VOIP either because it uses too much bandwidth or because it cuts into cellular at sea revenues, and if their messaging uses the same ports, they might get cut off as well.

 

But in practice, I found that my T-Mobile WiFi calling worked for text messaging, and as long as my phone was connected to WiFi I got text messages just fine. So I would think that Skype, Viber, WhatsApp etc. should work OK for messaging.

 

This advice only applies to text messaging and perhaps picture messaging. Actual phone calling over VOIP is probably not going to work super well at sea even if it's not blocked, just because it's satellite internet and the lag and packet drops are going to be a problem.

 

 

Sorry. Meant viber. So I sail the Oosterdam on April 18 right after dry dock. Think we will the new updated internet plan?

[Donny-Joe]

Sorry. Meant viber. So I sail the Oosterdam on April 18 right after dry dock. Think we will the new updated internet plan?

 

Hard to say. They've been experimenting with different plans on different ships. We had unlimited internet available on the Nieuw Amsterdam, but I gather it's not yet available on other ships, even ones that have installed new internet equipment.