Ship to shore phone

[Lonedaddy]

How does the ship to shore phone work.  I see we are allowed some free call time.  Is it from the room or do you have to go to the reception desk?

Edited September 4, 2022 by Lonedaddy

[jeb_bud]

From the room. 

[Scout16]

You should warn whoever you are calling since the caller id comes up with a totally unidentifiable phone number.  When I tried it to call my children they let it roll over rather than answering until I worked out a time to call by email.

[Portolan]

We have quite a few hours of the ship-to-shore phone service (Platinum) and find it to be more solid than VOIP service from AT&T through the ship's WIFI.  The WIFI-calling works for in-bound calls and then we return the call, if necessary, using the STS.  It was nice to have the hours of STS last week when, the day before we docked in Amsterdam to fly home, Lufthansa canceled our AMS-FRA flight which was to connect with United home to Washington.  Spent more than an hour on the phone to get through to, and explore options with, LH...they were useless and would only offer flying us home that day in coach and no solution for the next day in business.  Then called United and received much better service: got their flight the next day AMS-ORD followed by ORD-IAD, in business and first class respectively.  Had to spend a night at the Schiphol Airport Hilton which I'll be going after LH to cover since the EU passenger rights laws are very good.  Anyway, I used about a third of our STS phone time rewickering the trip home.

[-Lew-]

16 hours ago, Portolan said:

more solid than VOIP service from AT&T through the ship's WIFI.

 

Is Wi-Fi calling onboard at least useable?  I read so much about the poor quality of Regent's internet service.

 

We used to use Comcast's app to make free calls back to the US from Europe using cell data or Wi-Fi until it was discontinued.  We've also used WhatsApp and Signal onboard other cruise lines with excellent results. Hope those two apps will at least function onboard Regent. 

[papaflamingo]

34 minutes ago, -Lew- said:

 

Is Wi-Fi calling onboard at least useable?  I read so much about the poor quality of Regent's internet service.. 

I don't generally make phone calls on a cruise, but the few times I have, the WiFi calling has worked just fine. Depends where your ship is.  When we were in the Arctic Circle in June the wifi would drop off or get very weak, but other than those occasions the Wifi calling worked.

[-Lew-]

43 minutes ago, papaflamingo said:

I don't generally make phone calls on a cruise, but the few times I have, the WiFi calling has worked just fine. Depends where your ship is.  When we were in the Arctic Circle in June the wifi would drop off or get very weak, but other than those occasions the Wifi calling worked.

 

Thank you...  I don't recall ever making more than one call on a cruise...usually we make none.  However, it's good to know it can be done if necessary.

[Portolan]

Our WIFI calling through AT&T has worked pretty well when on-board.  If you don't get a good connection, disconnect and call again to (probably) change the routing which may/should/could improve the connection.  Voice only, of course.  Video calling like Face Time would likely disappoint.