Will Cell phones work on Silhouette on sea days

[20165]

Kinda the opposite question that is usually asked about this, but i need to make and receive some calls on one of our sea days and i was wondering if it would work on silhouette and second, what the charges will be.  I know i can use wifi, but i dont trust the sound quality or receiving calls.  Whenever i try to use WIFI to receive calls, its hit and miss.

I was on a RCL ship a couple years ago and left my cell on and received a call while we were at sea so i think its possible, i just dont know if it only works on certain ships or all ships.

thanks

 

 

Edited November 1, 2022 by 20165

[terrydtx]

In August we were on the Reflection from Rome. We had the premium streaming Wi-Fi and had no problems using the Wi-Fi calling on my Samsung phone on days at sea. I was able to receive and make outgoing calls with pretty good quality.  I even got a couple of calls reminding me my cars warranty had expired, LOL. I suggest you upgrade the ship's Wi-Fi to premium streaming if you have to make or receive calls while at sea.

[cruisestitch]

Those will be expensive phone calls.  Cellular at Sea is what you will be using.

 

why not use wi-fi calling and if you are on a critical call and find the quality lacking then, and only then, use Cellular at Sea but switch out if it as soon as the call is done.

Edited November 1, 2022 by cruisestitch

[20165]

7 minutes ago, cruisestitch said:

Those will be expensive phone calls.  Cellular at Sea is what you will be using.

 

why not use wi-fi calling and if you are on a critical call and find the quality lacking then, and only then, use Cellular at Sea but switch out if it as soon as the call is done.

Ah, those are the key words i was looking for.  Cellular at Sea.  After searching my carrier for that, ATT, its $50 for 50 min talk and unlimited txt, or $100 for unlimited talk and text.  Not bad at all.

Thanks for your help.

[-Lew-]

We're currently on the Edge and have used WhatsApp for voice calls over wifi.  We have premium wifi and WhatsApp works very well.

[NutsAboutGolf]

Does "Cellular at sea" rely on reception?  If yes, the OP definitely wants wifi.  Also depending on when their sailing is, the ship may have starlink.

[prmssk]

Do your research.  Anytime I've seen someone report back about Cellular at Sea even those who pre-cruise talked to their cell company about the plan, I hear that the service was not reliable and that they came back to huge roaming charges they did not expect from their phone carrier.

[Jim_Iain]

I really haven't had to use Celluar at Sea in a long time.   If I recall the cost is approximately 7:95 per minute

 

Link on calling someone on the ship but they are paying the minutes

https://www.celebritycruises.com/faqs/ship-contact-info

 

It is best to Contact your phone service provider.   Both ATT and Verizon have Celluar at Sea plans--

Here's a link to ATT where it is about $2.00 a minute.

https://www.att.com/international/cruise-packages/

 

I have T-Mobile which has free Text and Data in a couple hundred countries and phone calls are .25 cents a minute which is affordable.   

 

If in port you would be better off stopping by a Starbucks or McDonald use their free wifi and make a phone over internet call.    I've done it numerous times and never had a problem.    When on the ship 90% of the time I've been able to even do Zoom meetings over the Premium Internet.

[Charles4515]

42 minutes ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

Does "Cellular at sea" rely on reception?  If yes, the OP definitely wants wifi.  Also depending on when their sailing is, the ship may have starlink.

 

They set up a mobile cell tower that is connected to a satellite. Possibly the same satellite that the internet that provides  the ships wifi. I have never used Cellular at Sea so I don't know how the quality compares. I have always had good calls with WiFi calling and FaceTime. 

[Charles4515]

8 minutes ago, Jim_Iain said:

I really haven't had to use Celluar at Sea in a long time.   If I recall the cost is approximately 7:95 per minute

 

They do have cruise packages now. One is $50 for 50 minutes voice and another is $100 unlimited voice. If they don't need data then this may work for OP.  Not much data included  and that is where they need to be careful and have data off as they could accidentally rack up large data charges. Phones can be using data in the backround and a bunch of people have been burned. 

[NutsAboutGolf]

4 minutes ago, Charles4515 said:

 

They set up a mobile cell tower that is connected to a satellite. Possibly the same satellite that the internet that provides  the ships wifi. I have never used Cellular at Sea so I don't know how the quality compares. I have always had good calls with WiFi calling and FaceTime. 

 

Thanks, I've had great luck with wifi calling as well.  Occasionally when walking from one of the ship to the other the wifi can drop and it may not automatically reconnect in a timely manner.  With the iphone, I go into the ships wi-fi network info, select "Auto-Join" then in the phone's wi-fi settings select "automatic" for "Auto-Join Hotspot" which seemingly always stays connected.

[NutsAboutGolf]

6 hours ago, -Lew- said:

We're currently on the Edge and have used WhatsApp for voice calls over wifi.  We have premium wifi and WhatsApp works very well.

 

Awesome that whatapp works for you.  I often work remotely on sea days, this allows me to cruise more often.  The problem for my work is we have existing group text messages and phone calls.  I should consider asking my coworkers if they can use whatapps so I can work from my cruise just to hear their comical responses.  lol

[Jim_Iain]

2 hours ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

 

Awesome that whatapp works for you.  I often work remotely on sea days, this allows me to cruise more often.  The problem for my work is we have existing group text messages and phone calls.  I should consider asking my coworkers if they can use whatapps so I can work from my cruise just to hear their comical responses.  lol

I have used whatsapp often and works really well most of the time for voice but occasionally video is a bit choppy if bandwidth is limited.

 

FaceTime has always worked pretty good for me - Apple to Apple.    I also have good experience sending and receiving calls on iPhone with WiFi Calling enabled.

[SbbquilterUT]

Be careful - Cellular at Sea has a very high price tag (? $6/min) and is not related to your phone plan.

[20165]

Just a quick followup on this, we did use the $100 ATT plan and it worked great for outbound calls, but very spotty for inbound.  Maybe 1 out of 3 made it through.  The sound quality was great though. Actually better than some of areas when im on land... We also had the wifi plan so just used that for data.  

[mahdnc]

On 11/1/2022 at 3:47 PM, Charles4515 said:

 

They set up a mobile cell tower that is connected to a satellite. Possibly the same satellite that the internet that provides  the ships wifi. I have never used Cellular at Sea so I don't know how the quality compares. I have always had good calls with WiFi calling and FaceTime. 

 

We just finished our Transatlantic cruise aboard Constellation this month. There were a couple of days at sea where we did not have an internet connection. I noticed that we also didn't have a Cellular at Sea signal either during those times. 

[Gracie115]

On the Apex right now, last day of our transitlantic and I have to say that the Internet has been really really poor. while we were still in the med it was fine but once we left the Azores getting even the simplest email through was very difficult. I’ve never had this kind of issue before on seven transatlantic’s. It has been disappointing especially since this is a new ship. 

[mahdnc]

4 minutes ago, Gracie115 said:

On the Apex right now, last day of our transitlantic and I have to say that the Internet has been really really poor. while we were still in the med it was fine but once we left the Azores getting even the simplest email through was very difficult.

 

We had the same experience in late October during our Connie TA.  The Celebrity Today newsletter warned us in advance that this would be so.

[Gracie115]

20 minutes ago, mahdnc said:

 

We had the same experience in late October during our Connie TA.  The Celebrity Today newsletter warned us in advance that this would be so.

Yes' we were notified it would be an issue for four days, but it was actually about 7. Haven’t had this happen on any of our TA’s though for more than a few hours.

[mahdnc]

Just now, Gracie115 said:

Yes' we were notified it would be an issue for four days, but it was actually about 7. Haven’t had this happen on any of our TA’s though for more than a few hours.

 

I see.  Ours was closer to 4 days of sucky internet vs 7.  There was a 30 hour stretch were we had zero internet and cell phone connection.

[JenniT]

On 11/1/2022 at 4:10 PM, prmssk said:

Do your research.  Anytime I've seen someone report back about Cellular at Sea even those who pre-cruise talked to their cell company about the plan, I hear that the service was not reliable and that they came back to huge roaming charges they did not expect from their phone carrier.

If you buy a package through your cell company prior to cruising rather than just paying by the minute, you don’t get those crazy roaming charges. But, probably the premium Wi-Fi on WhatsApp would be better overall. 

[prmssk]

21 minutes ago, JenniT said:

If you buy a package through your cell company prior to cruising rather than just paying by the minute, you don’t get those crazy roaming charges. 

I have a friend who signed up for the AT&T Cellular at Sea package prior to the cruise and still came home to huge unexpected fees.  I didn't go through her bill or anything to know exactly what went wrong but it did not work out well for them.   I have heard similar stories from others.  So I strongly suggest anyone going this route to make sure they research enough so they truly understand everything that is covered and what is not covered.

[Arizona Wildcat]

On 11/1/2022 at 1:10 PM, prmssk said:

Do your research.  Anytime I've seen someone report back about Cellular at Sea even those who pre-cruise talked to their cell company about the plan, I hear that the service was not reliable and that they came back to huge roaming charges they did not expect from their phone carrier.

The charges unless you are absolutely sure about a discount program can run to $5 a minute.  I tried twice and got hit with $$ that were unexpected. 

I was able to use the regular WIFI and WhatsApp most of the time from Iceland to Canada.  In the Caribbean reception much better.

[JenniT]

7 minutes ago, prmssk said:

I have a friend who signed up for the AT&T Cellular at Sea package prior to the cruise and still came home to huge unexpected fees.  I didn't go through her bill or anything to know exactly what went wrong but it did not work out well for them.   I have heard similar stories from others.  So I strongly suggest anyone going this route to make sure they research enough so they truly understand everything that is covered and what is not covered.

That’s awful!  Was she able to get credited some or all of that back by calling customer service? That often works when there have been unexpected charges. I did it when my phone popped out of airplane mode. (I now go in and turn off roaming prior to putting it in airplane mode to avoid this.).   I’ve known others who were successful at getting charges removed when they just plain got phone-crazy onboard and didn’t understand it had costs.
 

I’m definitely a fan of WhatsApp over Wi-Fi, either onboard or in ports. that’s all I ever do. 

 

Thanks for the heads up! 

[JenniT]

3 minutes ago, JenniT said:

That’s awful!  Was she able to get credited some or all of that back by calling customer service? That often works when there have been unexpected charges. I did it when my phone popped out of airplane mode. (I now go in and turn off roaming prior to putting it in airplane mode to avoid this.).   I’ve known others who were successful at getting charges removed when they just plain got phone-crazy onboard and didn’t understand it had costs.
 

I’m definitely a fan of WhatsApp over Wi-Fi, either onboard or in ports. that’s all I ever do. 

 

Thanks for the heads up! 

 

10 minutes ago, Arizona Wildcat said:

The charges unless you are absolutely sure about a discount program can run to $5 a minute.  I tried twice and got hit with $$ that were unexpected. 

I was able to use the regular WIFI and WhatsApp most of the time from Iceland to Canada.  In the Caribbean reception much better.

Just curious—we’re the unexpected charges from cellular at sea or from cellular in ports?