keeping in touch while on cruise

[spunk33]

My parents are taking care of our 18 month old while we're on Constellation in December. We want to keep in touch with them by giving them a call once or twice. Is there a certain international phone card anyone recommends? What's the best way to do this? Thanks.

[superjerryw]

Calling from the ship will cost $8 per minute. Most calling cards do not work in the ports since the phones are not set up to accept them. There are many horror stories on this site from people that used a public phone and charged the call to their credit card only to find out that they were charged $50 for a 5 minute call. The best thing to do is to find a calling station in the port. Ask the crew where they go to make calls in each port as they will know the cheapest place.

[smdubowsky]

which itinerary are you taking? If you bring your cell phone there may be service on some islands including Puerto Rico and St. Thomas. You can use the ship to shore phone, use email, or if you want to go all out, you can rent a satellite phone.

 

I've also heard that some ships now have cell connections but don't expect that to come at cheap rates.

 

As already stated, be careful using the landlines on the islands. You may end up paying ridiculous rates.

[cavkc]

Our cell phones worked at all our Caribbean ports.

 

Although we did call home a couple of times to check the kids were ok. My parents can't use text, so we make the arrangement that they could call my brother-in-law and he would text us if we needed to contact home 'urgently'.

 

This also worked when he texted us in Mexico (we live in the UK) to let us know our Infinity cruise was cancelled 48 hours before sailing !!

[notion]

Is internet an option? I found that the cheapest way to stay in touch with loved ones.

[MSUSigmaK]

We are taking a satellite phone with us. Our TA directed us to Worldcell, 1-888-205-8190 ext 733. We are renting the phone for 12 days. The rental charge is $217.50, insurance $48, shipping was free. Incoming calls are free, outgoing calls $1.99 per minute. I know it's sad to not completely get away from phones but knowing that others can get in touch with you may make the trip more relaxing.

 

Hope this helps. We are leaving 10/21 and if this thread is still current I'll post our thoughts on the system.

[Lsimon]

Celebrity now has a service through Cingular where they somehow route GSM cell phone service through their satalite system whenever they are out of range of land based cell service. The brochure in our room in the Summit 9/05 Mexico cruise indicated that rates vary depending on your cell phones roaming arrangement with Cingular. So I have no idea what the charges were.

 

We did receive a couple calls from the kids, and some other "missed calls" when we were out of the room. Usually we got back OK, signal was so so and most times we had trouble checking voice mail as the signal didn't allow clear enough transmission of the touch tones needed to control voice mail. In Mexico areas at shore or close to it the service reverted to a Mexican cell carrier. I could not figure out how to dial out but did receive a couple calls. I tried direct dialing, USA international codes, etc. Best I got was a recording in spanish which I didn't understand.

 

I don't know if this is fleet wide or not.