Satellite phone rental question

[natish3000]

Has anyone used a Glbalstar Sat phone on ships or Grand Cayman?

I found a place where I can rent one for $39.99 per week and get 100 minutes for $95.00 + $25.00 shipping.

This would give us 20 minutes of calls each day for 5 days for $159.99.

 

To use long distance varies but comes out to be more and to use ship phone the same amount of time would be $795.00.

 

Am I missing something here or is this a good deal?

 

Thanks

[RRMan]

I was on a TA last year and considered renting a satellite phone. I think it will always be less expensive than the ship's phone if you're going to use it that much. I figured I wouldn't really use up the minutes and preferred to just use email instead. But that's going to be different for everyone. You might have the need for a lot of calls.

 

I think the only reason I would want to carry a phone is if I needed to be reachable in case of an emergency when off the ship while in port. But on a TA, more than half the cruise was at sea so I figured if I was really needed, family could just call the ship to get in touch. BTW, I did get a cabin internet hook-up and used VOI to talk to family, for free so to speak. We'd arrange a general timeframe for a chat from the day before. That worked really well for me.

 

Enjoy your trip!

[rokcop]

We rented a Sat phone in January '05 for roughly the same price as you are quoting. They even included a return shipping label to send the phone back after our cruise. We got great reception and used the phone to contact family and friends whenever we wanted instead of having to call at specific times while in port. The phones themselves are big and heavy like the first cell phones, but if you need to stay in contact and don't want to use just email, there is no better way to stay connected. This year we skipped the Sat phone as my wife's Sprint phone worked in San Juan and St Thomas and we called home by credit card from port in Aruba, Curacao, & St Maarten between emails.

[natish3000]

As always thanks for the quick and informative replies.

We need the minutes because we are leaving two kids at home with Grandpa and want to check in with them.

Well, that and we want to call our friends and tell them how we're on our balcony heading for Jamaica while they're on their way to work.

I'm not real sure why they are still our friends.:-)

[Cruising Fam]

On Radiance August 2005 in Alaska, I simply purchased the internet connection ($100) and with my laptop used Skype (a voice over internet program) to make calls to landlines. Using my headset, the clarity was more than acceptable. You purchase Skype credits in $10 blocks I think, and you could talk all day and not use that up based on their rates. We will use the same setup this summer on Serenade in Alaska.

[RRMan]

One other thing to consider. We just returned from a week in Mexico. I called my cell phone company (Sprint) to determine if we could use our phones while there. They had to make a few computer changes on their side but for $4/month (which you cancel as soon as you no longer need the service), we were able to use roaming service for $0.50/minute. Folks back home just dialed our regular cell phone numbers to reach us and we just dialed 00 and their number to reach them. Plus, my wife and I could reach each other if we needed to while apart within Mexico. Sprint has roaming arrangements in many countries around the world (although not in Belize where I'm headed next month!).

 

Of course, this won't matter if you want to talk from the ship when at sea. But it is less expensive per minute than satellite phone rental.

 

--Eddie

[kayguz]

We rented one for our western Carib. last February. It didn't work unless we were on deck- and then better in certain places. It was nice to have since we could call home and it was cheaper than the ship phones and more convenient than finding phones in port. As far as people reaching you on it- I wouldn't count on that.

 

Kay

[natish3000]

Thanks again for the replies.

The whole internet thing would work I'm sure but I don't want to lug a laptop around.

I KNOw you have to have line of sight to the sky so it will only work outside which will make it tough for anyone to reach us .

One of the above posters said that it worked on their balcony though and we are in Jr Suite on Enchantment with a balcony.

We're hoping that it will work there.