T-Mobile on HAL ships

[Fred321]

2 hours ago, The-Inside-Cabin said:

Some people have had issues after 3 months, others haven't.  If I have an issue, I will be ready with my GLOCALME Hotspot for the last month.   T-Mobile was cheaper than ATT - include Apple +  Netflix and Inflight wifi - plus I will save $150 a month for at least the first 3 months...  https://www.glocalme.com/

 

ATT has cruise ship plans, which are nice if you want to make a lot of calls.   My phones are unlocked - so if they hassle me to much I can switch back to ATT in a couple of hours - with an Esim - its pretty easy. 

 

The key to avoiding roaming charges on a cruise ship - is to have DATA ROAMING OFF - then airplane mode doesn't matter.   This way you can still receive SMS texts etc..

 

I also learned that if you swipe down when your phone starts ringing, you can see if the incoming call is via WiFi - Free or via Cell - not free  - if you see T-Mobile WiFi - you should be good to go.  If you see Celluar at Sea - Danger !

 

 

Going to check with T Mobile customer service one more time before we leave and see if they are consistent with advice.We don't use the devices anywhere near as much as you do so not going to let cell phone issues get in the way of enjoying the trip. Maybe we can compare notes over a beverage once we get onboard.

[The-Inside-Cabin]

4 minutes ago, Fred321 said:

Going to check with T Mobile customer service one more time before we leave and see if they are consistent with advice.We don't use the devices anywhere near as much as you do so not going to let cell phone issues get in the way of enjoying the trip. Maybe we can compare notes over a beverage once we get onboard.

Before I switched I called Tmobile 6 different times and got 3 different answers - I went in person to a store and got another answer.   Apparently their definition of "excessive international use" is not well documented and much depends on the actuall person who deals with you once your account gets flagged.  They may press the  OK button - or they may press the Big Problem button .  I doubt there is a way to tell in advance.   But I have a back up plan - Glocalme for the worst case.

 

[LMaxwell]

I have T Mobile Magenta Max - No Internet plan. On a caribbean cruise on NS - it should connect to T-Mobile and allow me unlimited texts?  Am I reading this right? 

 

 

[The-Inside-Cabin]

4 minutes ago, LMaxwell said:

I have T Mobile Magenta Max - No Internet plan. On a caribbean cruise on NS - it should connect to T-Mobile and allow me unlimited texts?  Am I reading this right? 

 

 

Not on the ship - while you are connected to Celluar at Sea - 50 cents each and thats 50 cents for each addressse - send one text to 10 people?   $5.00 please

 

Unlimited only land - well you can due unlimited on the ship as long as you bring your checkbook  

 

Edited December 9, 2022 by The-Inside-Cabin

[REOVA]

8 minutes ago, The-Inside-Cabin said:

I was charged $1.30 by ATT for an SMS last month when I was on Wonder of the Seas.   Data Roaming was off - but I was connected to WiFi  -  

 

Hmmm- I thought that pictures had to use some data - but I was connected to wifi.    Here was my bill.   50 cents for text  1.30 for one with a picture.....Not sure how this actually works....but data roaming was OFF - I was connected to WIFI and Celluar at Sea - Unless - part of the surcharge for a photo text is to pay for your snippet of data or something..  I was using an Iphone

 

hmmmmm

 

 

Interesting. Was $1.30 stated as a cruise charge beforehand or just what you found out they billed you. I'm wondering at what point photo size and data changes the cost as the Cell At Sea cannot be cheap using bandwidth.

 

We switched to TMobile because we heard it was more HAL and International friendly and wanted it for the 4 month 2020 GWV (Has Verizon for 2018 GWC). Never got around to testing Cell at Sea but wifi calling and booking flights home from Perth worked for us. 🤪

[LMaxwell]

4 minutes ago, The-Inside-Cabin said:

Not on the ship - while you are connected to Celluar at Sea - 50 cents each and thats 50 cents for each addressse - send one text to 10 people?   $5.00 please

 

Unlimited only land - well you can due unlimited on the ship as long as you bring your checkbook  

 

"

• One tip to avoid higher charges: We recommend that you turn off roaming while the ship is docked in a U.S. port. Otherwise, your phone may pick up the ship's network and you'll be charged cruise ship roaming charges for any usage. Once you're out to sea, you can then turn roaming back on and pay the respective usage for data, text, and voice."

That was on the website, that is why it had confused me if I shoul try it on the ship 

 

Thank you for the answer - we are going to Aruba and Curacao which seems to be a part of T Mobiles network included w Magenta for texting and 5gb data, pretty cool at that.  

[The-Inside-Cabin]

1 minute ago, REOVA said:

Interesting. Was $1.30 stated as a cruise charge beforehand or just what you found out they billed you. I'm wondering at what point photo size and data changes the cost as the Cell At Sea cannot be cheap using bandwidth.

 

We switched to TMobile because we heard it was more HAL and International friendly and wanted it for the 4 month 2020 GWV (Has Verizon for 2018 GWC). Never got around to testing Cell at Sea but wifi calling and booking flights home from Perth worked for us. 🤪

No - it was after the fact - and I knew it was going to be $1.30 so no surprise there.   What surprised me was I sent one text to 15 different phone numbers so that "one" text was billed as 15 texts or about $20......yikes

 

T-mobile has better internation plans than ATT for sure.   My quesions now is in hte very narrow issue of sending photo messages with data roaming off.   It worked - but my research so far says it shouldn't have worked.   Maybe ATT uses the wifi to send the photo and charges me an extra 80 cents for the combo SMS/MMS message

 

 

[REOVA]

2 minutes ago, The-Inside-Cabin said:

No - it was after the fact - and I knew it was going to be $1.30 so no surprise there.   What surprised me was I sent one text to 15 different phone numbers so that "one" text was billed as 15 texts or about $20......yikes

 

 

 

Ouch. Definitely better to use FB Messenger Group via the wifi then. 

[richwmn]

6 minutes ago, LMaxwell said:

"

• One tip to avoid higher charges: We recommend that you turn off roaming while the ship is docked in a U.S. port. Otherwise, your phone may pick up the ship's network and you'll be charged cruise ship roaming charges for any usage. Once you're out to sea, you can then turn roaming back on and pay the respective usage for data, text, and voice."

That was on the website, that is why it had confused me if I shoul try it on the ship 

 

Thank you for the answer - we are going to Aruba and Curacao which seems to be a part of T Mobiles network included w Magenta for texting and 5gb data, pretty cool at that.  

The ship's cellular network is turned off whenever the ship is close enough to pick up a shore based cell signal, so you really should not have to turn off data roaming while in any port.

[The-Inside-Cabin]

9 minutes ago, LMaxwell said:

"

• One tip to avoid higher charges: We recommend that you turn off roaming while the ship is docked in a U.S. port. Otherwise, your phone may pick up the ship's network and you'll be charged cruise ship roaming charges for any usage. Once you're out to sea, you can then turn roaming back on and pay the respective usage for data, text, and voice."

That was on the website, that is why it had confused me if I shoul try it on the ship 

 

Thank you for the answer - we are going to Aruba and Curacao which seems to be a part of T Mobiles network included w Magenta for texting and 5gb data, pretty cool at that.  

 

This is incorrect on their website - if you turn on data roaming while on a cruise - you will pay BIG BUCKS - I am calling tmobile

 

[The-Inside-Cabin]

This is from the Tmobile website - I think they have is backwards

 

 

[travelers07]

Ok, since you are all getting into the weeds with cellular…

 

When I am at sea but near shore, I sometimes turn cellular on and turn off automatic to see what providers are available. If I choose one with a known name- not the ones with numbers as those are the ship ones- I can leave cellular on and use it. Now the warning is- don’t try this unless you are confident you know what you are doing and are willing to pay the consequences if you are wrong! 
 

We were in an Apple Store in Adelaide using their free WiFi to update apps- highly recommend this! Anyway, the young man thought this was a great idea and claimed that cellular can travel quite far over water. But be careful!

[travelers07]

1 minute ago, The-Inside-Cabin said:

This is from the Tmobile website - I think they have is backwards

 

 

Wow- good of you to try to fix this! Or maybe they want us to get a very large bill? 

[LMaxwell]

12 minutes ago, travelers07 said:

Wow- good of you to try to fix this! Or maybe they want us to get a very large bill? 

Heh - at least I was correct in being confused 

[ECCruise]

13 hours ago, The-Inside-Cabin said:

With ATT I would get a text like this each day when I connected to Celluar at Sea.  Does T Mobile send out something similar?

 

Yes.  The message is similar and says "your plan does NOT include Cellular at Sea so be very careful since charges can add up quickly."

 

And yes, at $2.00 a meg that is $2000.00 a gig or $20,000.00 for the typical 10 gigs we use in a month's time it would add up quickly.

 

Our T-Mobile phone goes to airplane mode the minute land is no longer clearly on the horizon.

[The-Inside-Cabin]

7 hours ago, travelers07 said:

I have thought about this just in case I do a longer cruise. I did the VOV in July/August and was out of US about 7 weeks. Should have been just fine but I got a warning when I got back. Can’t find the text now but it was something about too much international usage and they could cut off my plan if it continues. 
 

Since my daughter lives in Germany I sure don’t want to lose my plan! In researching this, I found that people who seem to know said it is based on cellular service and not WiFi. Suggestion was to use more cellular in US since that is what T-Mobile looks at to compare. So now when I am home I sometimes turn off WiFi and use cellular. I really don’t know if this will help but cellular is free and it can’t hurt. 

I like your suggestion about 2 phones. I travel solo now since my DH passed away last year, but I do still have 2 phones with service. I keep one turned off but is available if needed. Is that too paranoid? 😊

 

Keep us informed with any other ideas please! 

 

I don't think you would lose your plan - worst case is they would restrict international roaming.   They don't want expats buying a USA plan and never coming to the US.   I have heard of people getting warned - never heard of anyone actually getting cut off

 

[The-Inside-Cabin]

4 minutes ago, ECCruise said:

Yes.  The message is similar and says "your plan does NOT include Cellular at Sea so be very careful since charges can add up quickly."

 

And yes, at $2.00 a meg that is $2000.00 a gig or $20,000.00 for the typical 10 gigs we use in a month's time it would add up quickly.

 

Our T-Mobile phone goes to airplane mode the minute land is no longer clearly on the horizon.

If you turn data roaming off - you will still get texts if that is important and still  avoid roaming charges - incoming texts are free - you can set up your phone to auto foward all calls to tmobile voice mail so your phone won't ring.   But then you would miss incoming wifi calls - if that matters - 

 

[travelers07]

Thanks- I just don’t want to change my plan. It has worked so well over the years and has even more countries included now.

[The-Inside-Cabin]

1 hour ago, travelers07 said:

Wow- good of you to try to fix this! Or maybe they want us to get a very large bill? 

I spent an hour chatting with Tmobile - I finally got to the third level manager who quickly understood the issue - She claimed they would fix the wording.   We'll see.   Bottom line - make sure data roaming is off at sea

[The-Inside-Cabin]

1 hour ago, travelers07 said:

Ok, since you are all getting into the weeds with cellular…

 

When I am at sea but near shore, I sometimes turn cellular on and turn off automatic to see what providers are available. If I choose one with a known name- not the ones with numbers as those are the ship ones- I can leave cellular on and use it. Now the warning is- don’t try this unless you are confident you know what you are doing and are willing to pay the consequences if you are wrong! 
 

We were in an Apple Store in Adelaide using their free WiFi to update apps- highly recommend this! Anyway, the young man thought this was a great idea and claimed that cellular can travel quite far over water. But be careful!

After reading - I realize you said the same thing, but I will leave this up for emphasis.   I turn off Auto Network selection ashore for the same reason -don't want to forget when I get back to the ship.

 

 

What I do it the same situation - is turn OFF AUTOMATIC NETWORK SELECTION - That way once you lose the land signal - the connection goes dead rather than your phone "helpfully" auto selecting Cellular at Sea.  $$$$

 

There have been a couple of times I forgot - ran up a couple hundred bucks before ATT cut me off. I quickly called ATT - free call from the ship - plead stupidity and they waived the charges.   Not sure about Tmobile, but always worth a try.    But call right away - not 3 days later.

Edited December 10, 2022 by The-Inside-Cabin

[Naismith]

4 hours ago, travelers07 said:

Ok, since you are all getting into the weeds with cellular…

 

When I am at sea but near shore, I sometimes turn cellular on and turn off automatic to see what providers are available. If I choose one with a known name- not the ones with numbers as those are the ship ones- I can leave cellular on and use it. Now the warning is- don’t try this unless you are confident you know what you are doing and are willing to pay the consequences if you are wrong! 

Yup, Have got the "Welcome to Haiti message" and used it for about 15 minutes--enough to catch up on DuoLingo and download mail.

[Naismith]

Some good news is that there is a fantastic signal at Half Moon Cay nowadays (Welcome to the Bahamas!), so we were able to make calls, post to Facebook, etc.  The bad news is that since there was not a great signal on our last visit (pre-Covid), I did not bring a backup battery and had seriously depleted the phone battery by the time we returned to the ship;)

[WriterOnDeck]

19 hours ago, The-Inside-Cabin said:

Before I switched I called Tmobile 6 different times and got 3 different answers - I went in person to a store and got another answer.   

 

This rings a bell.... Perhaps they outsource their customer service to HAL, or vice versa? 🙂

[Hlitner]

On 12/9/2022 at 7:07 PM, travelers07 said:

Thanks- I just don’t want to change my plan. It has worked so well over the years and has even more countries included now.

One nice thing about T-Mobile is that they grandfather in the price of your plan and have continuously upgraded benefits.  Our long-time senior plan (over 50 yrs of age) costs us exactly $60 a month (no additional fees or taxes) and includes unlimited test, data and phone in North America.  Just about anywhere else in the world (over 200 countries) we still get unlimited data and text and only pay 25 cents a min for phone calls.  No extra fees unless one wants to pay for higher speed outside of North America ($5 a day or $50 a month).   And that is for two phones/lines.  Hard to beat.

 

Hank

[HALcruiser2001]

RE: airplane mode.

 

I just turn off roaming if I don't have international plan.   Works fine... for me.