Cell Service while on Anchored Ship?

[Newbcruiser1]

Hi everyone,

 

Need urgent answers as I’m leaving tomorrow morning. If I stay on the ship in Grand Cayman when it’s anchored there, will I have cell phone service (not through the ship but through my own provider’s roaming plan)?

 

I will need to check in with family as we have a new baby set to arrive around that time! Happy to use the island’s roaming but not that of the ship.

 

Also - how would I know the difference based on what is showing on my phone? (Cruising NCL if that makes a difference).

 

Thanks in advance!

 

 

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[bookbabe]

If it's a smartphone and you've got roaming turned on, the provider name will change on the display (top left corner on an iPhone) to one of the local companies, usually Flow or Digicel.

[Newbcruiser1]

Thanks! Problem is I don’t want to turn on roaming if I don’t know which company is going to show up... I don’t want to incur ship charges just from turning off airplane mode...

 

 

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[bookbabe]

The local provider should show up even with roaming off, or so DH says. (We always have roaming on so I just have to trust him on that.)

[JayceeP]

How would you incur ship charges without consenting to anything? Your cell provider will have network sharing agreements in place and will automatically link up to whatever network they have a partnership with assuming the network is in range off shore. Just call your cell provider and find out.

[Newbcruiser1]

How would you incur ship charges without consenting to anything? Your cell provider will have network sharing agreements in place and will automatically link up to whatever network they have a partnership with assuming the network is in range off shore. Just call your cell provider and find out.

 

 

 

Yes I’m aware of that! But in order to see whether it’s still on the ship’s provider (which I do NOT want to use) or the land provider (which I DO want to use), I would have to turn off airplane mode and turn on my cell service! I don’t want to incur charges via the ship’s provider in doing that...

 

It was straightforward in Jamaica today since we’re docked so I have FLOW (the land signal). Might not be so straightforward in Grand Cayman tomorrow if I’m staying onboard the anchored ship.

 

 

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[Brad1972]

When the ship is in any port the ship is supposed to turn off its cell tower service so as not to interfere with local cell towers and local citizens phones hooking up to it accidentally and getting charged through the ships tower service.

[GuavaTechAngels]

We get free international with Tmobile ONE and it worked great, albeit only 128kbps.