Wi-fi for Teen on Norway cruise.

[shiner6]

Would someone please help this granny decipher what is best for keeping in touch with a Teen on board while sailing?  I have read that the wi-fi on the ship is not optimal in Europe. Is this true?  She wants to be able to keep in touch with her friends, and I want to be able to communicate with her onboard.  I also need information on what is the best option while in ports in Norway and in London. We have AT&T i-phones.  It is all so very confusing to me. We had wi-fi on our trip to Alaska on HAL last year, but she ended up with a $800 phone bill because the wi-fi was awful.  I am not wanting to get fooled again!  (I made her pay for it out of her own funds).  Anyone with experience with this, please advise.  Thank you for your help.

[mz-s]

She will probably want the Value plan if not the Premium plan. If all you're interested in is talking to her on the ship then you each could buy the $5 chat option and chat in the Hub app with each other, and you would not need a WiFi plan of your own.

 

Just make sure she keeps her phone in airplane mode, and there won't be any cell charges.

 

The wifi is not going to be great. She's not going to be able to go to sleep watching a netflix movie or whatever. There will probably be lots of times when things just won't work despite how much you paid for the wifi plan. It is what it is on Carnival.

[Saint Greg]

1 hour ago, shiner6 said:

Would someone please help this granny decipher what is best for keeping in touch with a Teen on board while sailing?  I have read that the wi-fi on the ship is not optimal in Europe. Is this true?  She wants to be able to keep in touch with her friends, and I want to be able to communicate with her onboard.  I also need information on what is the best option while in ports in Norway and in London. We have AT&T i-phones.  It is all so very confusing to me. We had wi-fi on our trip to Alaska on HAL last year, but she ended up with a $800 phone bill because the wi-fi was awful.  I am not wanting to get fooled again!  (I made her pay for it out of her own funds).  Anyone with experience with this, please advise.  Thank you for your help.

 

I would make sure you turn roaming off on the phone to avoid that big bill.

[carrieluvsgreg]

We used the wifi when we did the Mediterranean in '18 and it was fine for social media. I don't think anyone should expect streaming... As far as the roaming she needs to have her phone in airplane mode- I would recommend all of the time.  You can contact your carrier about options in various countries abroad.  My husband had his on when we were in port, but it was a business line.  We have Tmobile and have coverage in Mexico and some other countries, but not Europe.  In the past we have called and added various locations for set days to avoid roaming. 

[lennythenose]

For use in Europe last year I used the AT&T International Day Pass. It worked great in Lisbon. https://www.att.com/international/day-pass/

[pe4all]

33 minutes ago, lennythenose said:

For use in Europe last year I used the AT&T International Day Pass. It worked great in Lisbon. https://www.att.com/international/day-pass/

If your granddaughter has ATT I second this.  $10 for 24 hour period.  If she can survive not using her phone at sea, this would probably be the best option.  For communicating between you and her onboard I suggest the chat feature on the carnival hub app.  For $5 pp for the whole cruise it worked pretty well for us.  Otherwise, you can go old school and use post-its or whiteboard on the cabin door or inside cabin!

[shiner6]

Oh my gosh!  Thank you everyone for making this easy to choose a solution!  We will do the international plan and use the $5 ship messenger service.  Again, thanks for helping out this Granny!

[mz-s]

Worth mentioning the carrier international plans generally only work when in port, not on the ship. In case that was not clear.

[VIFP1987]

AT&T offers 2 cruise packages. 
 

1) unlimited talk and text for $100

2) unlimited text and 50 minutes of calling for $50. 
 

You will need to go on their website to see if your cruise ship is on their Carnival list. These packages are for calling/texting while on the cruise ship itself. You’ll still need the international day pass for the ports. 
 

Another option to stay in touch on the ship .. each of you could purchase the social Wi-Fi plan and be able to iMessage each other (and anyone else that has an iPhone) with your iPhones. We found this is more reliable than their chat feature. 

[mz-s]

4 minutes ago, VIFP1987 said:

AT&T offers 2 cruise packages. 
 

1) unlimited talk and text for $100

2) unlimited text and 50 minutes of calling for $50. 
 

You will need to go on their website to see if your cruise ship is on their Carnival list. These packages are for calling/texting while on the cruise ship itself. You’ll still need the international day pass for the ports. 
 

Another option to stay in touch on the ship .. each of you could purchase the social Wi-Fi plan and be able to iMessage each other (and anyone else that has an iPhone) with your iPhones. We found this is more reliable than their chat feature. 

 

It's been my experience that eventually iMessage will stop working (2 or 3 days in maybe?) because it wants to verify my phone number and my phone has to stay on airplane mode.

[shiner6]

10 hours ago, mz-s said:

 

It's been my experience that eventually iMessage will stop working (2 or 3 days in maybe?) because it wants to verify my phone number and my phone has to stay on airplane mode.

Well, this seems punitive, doesn't it?

[mz-s]

12 hours ago, shiner6 said:

Well, this seems punitive, doesn't it?

 

Well it sounds like it might be, but that's an Apple thing. I think it's a security thing to make sure somebody hasn't stolen your phone number perhaps. The same thing would happen to you right now if you put your iPhone on airplane mode for a few days, it's not something that Carnival is doing.

[shiner6]

6 minutes ago, mz-s said:

 

Well it sounds like it might be, but that's an Apple thing. I think it's a security thing to make sure somebody hasn't stolen your phone number perhaps. The same thing would happen to you right now if you put your iPhone on airplane mode for a few days, it's not something that Carnival is doing.

Thank you for educating me on this tech topic! 

[cyntil8ing]

We were on the Pride in Europe last summer. We are a family of four with two teens. We spent four days in London pre-cruise. We pre-purchased premium internet for all four of us (yes, expensive!).

 

On the ship, we went into airplane mode and connected to the ship wi-fi. Even without an internet package, if you want to use the app onboard to book dining, etc, you will need to do this.

 

The premium internet was perfect, always available and at speeds that we never had any issues, including Netflix and Spotify. We had the value plan for a Caribbean cruise last year and it was pretty unusable, except for email, so we upgraded.

 

Pre-cruise in London and in ports, we used the AT&T international day plan. It was $10 for the first phone, and $5 for the rest. We didn't all use it every day. I'd always ask myself if it was worth $5 just to post that photo to Facebook. Most of the time, I would wait until we got back on the ship. 🙂 

 

Also, don't forget to make sure wi-fi calling is enabled for the phone beforehand. That will enable calls and messages to get through onboard, including those pesky account validation texts.