Using Phone in Ports/Onboard

[xbriannao]

First I wanted to say--THANK YOU! I've been posting a lot of questions on here recently and you guys are always there willing to help, so thank you.

 

Second-we are cruising out of Miami. Our ports are Key West, FL and Cozumel. I am wondering if I will be able to use my phone during the sail to Key West, since we will stay by the US. Or because we're in the ocean do I still get charged outrageous fees?

 

Also, I know this is silly, but I want someone to confirm it for me. Key West, FL is in the US, which means I can use my phone there if I need to and not be charged extra. Is this correct? I'm 100% not going to use it when we leave Key West on our sail to Mexico and I won't use it in Mexico either. I just want to make sure I'm not missing anything.

 

Thanks again!(:

[originalgeek]

It might not seem like it depending what time of year you are there but yes, Key West is in Florida, USA. ;) You can use your phone there just fine but I doubt the ship will be close enough to land to contact cell towers while you sail from Miami to Key West.

 

There are no cell towers at sea so your cell phone will only connect to Carnival's Cellular at Sea - basically the onboard cell tower - and they charge a lot. The wifi packages might be of more value to you as even the cheapest will let you check in on FB and twitter and use FB messenger among a few other things. No phone calls with it (Carnival specifically says they do not support wifi calling so far) but messaging and WhatsApp texting is available and you can even share pictures to FB to make your back home friends jealous.

 

Once you get to Cozumel there will be cell towers so you might be able to call cheaply depending on who your carrier is. I have T-Mobile and my unlimited plan counts the Caribbean and Mexico the same as the US so I can call and text at no additional charge but not every company does that. Many do have discounted prices for out of country roaming in those areas though so check with yours to see what you can get. I regularly got decent 3g coverage at various ports around the Caribbean on our cruise last July but don't remember trying in Nassau last December.

 

Have fun!

 

edit because I want to make it clear, T-Mobile doesn't charge us anything to use cell towers while in ports. But at sea, the Carnival cell tower company is who charges the super high rates. Can't get around that so we turn off cellular while at sea and use wifi only.

Edited May 25, 2017 by originalgeek

[easyboy]

Check your plan with your provider. Our T-mobile plan does not charge us any.

 

 

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[SheehanDJ]

Mexico is free with AT&T but you have to sign up for it.

[SadieN]

Mexico is free with AT&T but you have to sign up for it.

 

 

Free with some plans. Or $10/24 hours when used with other plans. We just changed plans so it now includes Mexico and Canada. Look on the website for info.

 

 

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[cruisemom67]

Check with your carrier. Mine is Sprint. I called their international customer service number and they told me exactly what I would be charged on each island. We are flying to San Juan, and surprisingly, almost all the islands on the Southern Caribbean route are included in my plan. I just have to tell them to add it to my plan-for free. I am not sure why you just can't have it free if you don't call them, but they specifically told me to call first and get it for all the phones on my plan. The calls onboard ship will be billed at a very high rate, so we will just use the Carnival App and do the texting thing to those on board. I don't really like the idea of using my phone much while on vacation. It is nice to get away from it all!

[maryred]

...

 

There are no cell towers at sea so your cell phone will only connect to Carnival's Cellular at Sea - basically the onboard cell tower - and they charge a lot. The wifi packages might be of more value to you as even the cheapest will let you check in on FB and twitter and use FB messenger among a few other things. No phone calls with it (Carnival specifically says they do not support wifi calling so far) but messaging and WhatsApp texting is available and you can even share pictures to FB to make your back home friends jealous.

 

Just want to clear up a point of inaccuracy. Carnival does not own CellularatSea, and there is no on board cell tower. WMS (Wireless Maritime Services) a satellite phone service in conjunction with their parent company ATT, provides the ability to call and/or receive data on mobile phones when out at sea even if the ship is still within sight of land. So WMS will bill your mobile carrier for their satellite roaming service, you mobile company (even if it's ATT) will then bill you within 2 billing cycles for using WMS services.

[SadieN]

Calling onboard from your cell phone is $2.49/minute. Calling from your cabin is $1.99/minute.

 

 

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[thetwoofus1]

I am with Verizon and trying to read all of the conditions of International Coverage lasted about 3 minutes. We used "WhatsApp". It is an internet based service. We put our phones in Airplane Mode and turned the Wi-Fi back on. We purchased an internet package for one device, about $11.00 on RCI. Everyone we wanted to talk with downloaded the app and we put together a group so all could get all posts. We could text, send pictures and video to the group and we could call individuals. Worked Great!!

[bury me at sea]

With Sprint you can use your phone while in Key West with no surcharges. I didn't try using it until we were on land. Turned it off again before we got back on the ship.

 

We loved Key West and are planning to go again.

 

Enjoy your cruise.

[Havingfun2010]

Ship offers cellular service, but it's expensive. They also offer WiFi, which most of the time is better because most people today can make phone calls using WiFi.

 

Key West is a city in the state of Florida

 

Ships sail outside USA territorial waters, therefor, your phone will not pick up a signal from the USA.

 

Mexico - Check with your phone provider. ATT for example offers a daily rate of $10.00 which includes data, cellular and texting based on your current rate plan.

[Brad1972]

With Verizon if you sign up for the travel pass and it's free and can be done with just a text msg, it's only $2 a day or 24 hours to talk, text and data in Mexico and it goes off your domestic plan so if you have unlimited everything then you have unlimited everything in Mexico also. BUT just so you know for others, Belize and Roatan are NOT part of Mexico. Those places its $10 a day or 24 hours to use your cell there and again it goes off your domestic plan usage. Grand Cayman is also $10 a day/24 hours. And activating travel pass is just a simple text to a certain Verizon code to activate it or sign up for it and it's free. Then just use your cell in port and you'll see the $2 or $10 travel pass surcharge on your bill next month.

 

Last year Verizon used to have a international plan that was for cruisers and worked on the cruise ships cell tower and in most ports too. $40 per line per month that was going to use it you where covered for up to 100 minutes, 100 texts and 100 mb of data. Incoming texts were free and unlimited. When we took our cruise last year in April on Splendor we used this and it worked great because our young kids stayed home being watched by grandma and needed to be in contact in case of emergency. but we also were told by the Verizon rep that added our international plan before we left that Verizon is testing wifi calling and texting and if you are connected to a wifi service on the ship and activated wifi calling on your phone you could make phone calls and texts through wifi and it wouldn't count towards the 100 minute/text limit on the international plan. We tried this and it does work, at least it did on Splendor. We never saw the itemized calls or texts that we tested on the ship in our bill. Carnival may have blocked this feature since then but others have said it still works and some have said it does not. Verizon also does not have any cruise ship international calling plan anymore with cellular at see because last summer AT&T/Cellular at sea decided up the lease price by a lot for other carriers to use the tower at a discounted price for their international calling plans and Verizon did not renew their lease with Cellular at sea because they were asking way too much for lease renewal. You can make a call with a Verizon cell on the ships Cellular at Sea tower for $2.99 a minute but why pay an extra dollar when you can use your staterooms phone for $1.99 a minute or like others have said use one of the ships wifi packages and communicate through Facebook messenger or what's app. Voice calling through Facebook messenger does work on even the social media package but it's sketchy to good sometimes and sound is delayed by a couple few seconds. It's tough sometimes to talk to others back home with that voice delay cause your always talking over each other or interrupting each other. But texting and sending pictures through Facebook messenger even on the social plan works pretty good if you have a fairly good wifi signal from the ship.

 

It seems every year or 2 cell providers and Cellular at Sea change things up, change calling plans and international rates or plans or just give up and add neighboring countries onto the domestic plan for free to try and simplify things or attract customers with better calling plans that include more coverage with added international coverage into the existing domestic plan. So in another year or 2 it will be all different again. Who knows

[originalgeek]

Just want to clear up a point of inaccuracy. Carnival does not own CellularatSea, and there is no on board cell tower. WMS (Wireless Maritime Services) a satellite phone service in conjunction with their parent company ATT, provides the ability to call and/or receive data on mobile phones when out at sea even if the ship is still within sight of land. So WMS will bill your mobile carrier for their satellite roaming service, you mobile company (even if it's ATT) will then bill you within 2 billing cycles for using WMS services.

 

Awesome info, thanks for the correction! Do you know if it's true (lol, I read it on the internet!) that Carnival has the ability to "block" or somehow interfere with land based cell towers when the ships are close to land but they want you to use their service instead of your own? Is that what they "turn off" when you get to a port so people can use whatever land-based cell service is available?

[maryred]

Awesome info, thanks for the correction! Do you know if it's true (lol, I read it on the internet!) that Carnival has the ability to "block" or somehow interfere with land based cell towers when the ships are close to land but they want you to use their service instead of your own? Is that what they "turn off" when you get to a port so people can use whatever land-based cell service is available?

 

It's not that the satellite system blocks regular cell tower use when in port, it's just if it is on that signal could be more powerful than the land towers and your phone just goes to the stronger signal. To the best of my knowledge the harbor pilot is supposed to make sure that the portion of the WMS system that is for passengers is offline when in port.

[summersigh]

No matter what you read here - things change with cell service companies - Check with your company personally. Have your itinerary handy.

Again - double check but USVI and Puerto Rico are US territories and historically in order for the cell companies to have contracts in the continental US they must provide the same service in these 2 areas.

[rhammond]

With Verizon if you sign up for the travel pass and it's free and can be done with just a text msg, it's only $2 a day or 24 hours to talk, text and data in Mexico and it goes off your domestic plan so if you have unlimited everything then you have unlimited everything in Mexico also. BUT just so you know for others, Belize and Roatan are NOT part of Mexico. Those places its $10 a day or 24 hours to use your cell there and again it goes off your domestic plan usage. Grand Cayman is also $10 a day/24 hours. And activating travel pass is just a simple text to a certain Verizon code to activate it or sign up for it and it's free. Then just use your cell in port and you'll see the $2 or $10 travel pass surcharge on your bill next month.

 

Last year Verizon used to have a international plan that was for cruisers and worked on the cruise ships cell tower and in most ports too. $40 per line per month that was going to use it you where covered for up to 100 minutes, 100 texts and 100 mb of data. Incoming texts were free and unlimited. When we took our cruise last year in April on Splendor we used this and it worked great because our young kids stayed home being watched by grandma and needed to be in contact in case of emergency. but we also were told by the Verizon rep that added our international plan before we left that Verizon is testing wifi calling and texting and if you are connected to a wifi service on the ship and activated wifi calling on your phone you could make phone calls and texts through wifi and it wouldn't count towards the 100 minute/text limit on the international plan. We tried this and it does work, at least it did on Splendor. We never saw the itemized calls or texts that we tested on the ship in our bill. Carnival may have blocked this feature since then but others have said it still works and some have said it does not. Verizon also does not have any cruise ship international calling plan anymore with cellular at see because last summer AT&T/Cellular at sea decided up the lease price by a lot for other carriers to use the tower at a discounted price for their international calling plans and Verizon did not renew their lease with Cellular at sea because they were asking way too much for lease renewal. You can make a call with a Verizon cell on the ships Cellular at Sea tower for $2.99 a minute but why pay an extra dollar when you can use your staterooms phone for $1.99 a minute or like others have said use one of the ships wifi packages and communicate through Facebook messenger or what's app. Voice calling through Facebook messenger does work on even the social media package but it's sketchy to good sometimes and sound is delayed by a couple few seconds. It's tough sometimes to talk to others back home with that voice delay cause your always talking over each other or interrupting each other. But texting and sending pictures through Facebook messenger even on the social plan works pretty good if you have a fairly good wifi signal from the ship.

 

It seems every year or 2 cell providers and Cellular at Sea change things up, change calling plans and international rates or plans or just give up and add neighboring countries onto the domestic plan for free to try and simplify things or attract customers with better calling plans that include more coverage with added international coverage into the existing domestic plan. So in another year or 2 it will be all different again. Who knows

 

FYI, Verizon is now $5/day for Mexico and Canada.

[CheapieD]

Even though carnival says wifi calling isn't available it did work sporadically on the splendor with mid tier internet package. Seems to be dependent on time of day just like in the states (supper time into evening the slowest)

 

I had no trouble with data in other counties either since my phone had international data for the same price as domestic $10

A GB. Worked in all the ports on a southern Caribbean route.

 

 

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[Jamericannn]

You can certainly get free wifi I at some of the ports. I don't usually use Carnival excursions so when I go to ports to wait for my bus service I usually ask for their wifi password. This usually works well for whatsapp videocalling to family back home. My phone is on airplane mode the moment the ship starts moving

 

 

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