Surf and Stream on an Alaska Cruise.

[Ozark_Kid]

While on an Alaska cruise do you need Surf and Stream or can you use cellular internet?  Can you get good reception when away from ports?

[crzndeb]

I was on the Ovation in Oct., and there was no service once we left port. I remember when I went back in 2012 and had Sprint. I didn’t even have service in a couple of ports. Have TMobile now and had no problem in ports this time around.

[Biker19]

1 hour ago, Ozark_Kid said:

 Can you get good reception when away from ports?

You’ll likely only have land based cell when within about 5 miles of a port. You may have reception on the way in/out of Seattle for a while. 

[smplybcause]

The ships do switch over to their own cell tower after they leave ports. It just takes longer for that to happen on Alaska cruises. After sailaway I gave up and turned my phone off about 3-4 hours after we left (though I was on NCL so a bit further into the sound than RCL's pier). For other ports I'd turn my cell service on/off based on what I could see on land. ie If we were close enough I could make out what cars were on the road or the houses weren't just small rectangles then I'd turn it on. Basically we were close enough to civilization that I figured that 1) there were cell towers in the area and 2) we were close enough to shore to pick them up/the ship's cellular was off. 

[twangster]

Alaska is sparsely populated so while you may be close to land when in the inside passage there are no cell towers outside of town and villages. 

 

One exception is on the way to Skagway you pass Haines and will have cell signal for ~ 20 minutes.  

 

Surf and Stream will be spotty in Alaska.  It'll be more like Slower and Slow.  Text messaging works fine usually.  Streaming will be a challenge consistently.  It's not at all like Caribbean Voom.

[erinsmom03]

We were on Ovation in 2019. We didn't have the internet package and turned on airplane mode while on the ship. The cell service worked fairly well in Alaska (we have Verizon). Odd thing was, without cellular or wifi, I was able to use Snapchat to see my location and send snaps... crazy but fun to stay in touch with friends and keep track of where we were located.

[Ozark_Kid]

Thanks for the replies.  Was trying to understand the possibility of posting pics and videos and thought by phone will not be likely.