Rare Ozark_Kid Posted January 28, 2022 #1 Share Posted January 28, 2022 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? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crzndeb Posted January 28, 2022 #2 Share Posted January 28, 2022 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. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biker19 Posted January 28, 2022 #3 Share Posted January 28, 2022 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. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smplybcause Posted January 28, 2022 #4 Share Posted January 28, 2022 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. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare twangster Posted January 28, 2022 #5 Share Posted January 28, 2022 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. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erinsmom03 Posted January 28, 2022 #6 Share Posted January 28, 2022 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. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Ozark_Kid Posted January 29, 2022 Author #7 Share Posted January 29, 2022 Thanks for the replies. Was trying to understand the possibility of posting pics and videos and thought by phone will not be likely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now