Internet Cafe or Phone Card at Port?

[travgurl]

Which one would you recommend is the best to use for communication if needed? When shopping in the ports in the Western Carribean--what do they accept cash, traveler checks or credit card?

[okbowler]

They accept all of those you list. We pay cash for small purchases, credit card for large. Some things will need to be paid in cash, taxis, local tours,small merchants etc. most large businesses accept major credit cards. Internet cafes in the carib. are very reasonable,from say $6.00 per hr. to $3.50 per hr. Some sell time in 1/4 hr. segments. We have not used intl. phone cards as the rules change from country to country. Hope this helps. :) BIll

[agru]

If you decide to go the phone card route, buy the phone card in the country of origin, it's always cheaper.

 

In Panama, a $5 card we purchased lasted us over 90 minutes (this was the cheapest card available). International cards I looked at stateside would have cost us about 50 cents per minute! :eek:

 

Not sure about Internet cafes by cruise ports. I guess it would depend on comparative pricing. Hopefully others will have had experience in this area.

[AmberMarie]

Where are the internet cafes in Cozumel and Grand Cayman?

[BLACFLY]

We went to Paradise beach while in cozumel and they had a laptop at the bar that had free internet. One could sit there at the bar and check cruisecritic for free along with emails and stuff! It had a note saying to limit usage to 20 minutes, but most of the time there was nobody at the laptop, i think everyone was too busy enjoying the awesome beach!!

[mrdood]

Depends if you want to e-mail or phone... phoning is probably cheaper than a minimum block of minutes.

[AmberMarie]

That's cool... we are going to be at Nachi Cocom, and I don't think they have wifi

[okbowler]

When you get off the tender at Grand Cayman there is a info booth, ask there. As I recall there are several. Haven,t been to Coz for about 3 years, at my age memory is good for about 2 years.:D Bill

[kiffrig]

HI gang-

I just got off the Carnival Liberty on Sunday. I bought 100 minutes of internet time for $55. Internet on the ship is not cheap, but we wanted to communicate daily with our family back at home. I took Wennfred's idea and typed my whole message in a WORD document BEFORE opening my internet session. Once I was ready to send my message, I opened the internet session, logged into email, and then did a cut and paste from my WORD doc over into my email. Once I verified the whole message had transferred, I hit send and it was on its way! I was able to last the entire 8 day cruise with only 100 minutes, which was good.

 

Keep in mind, sending pictures, etc, will definitely slow down the process (which I found out on my first day when it took almost 21 minutes to try to send 4 pictures and then the process failed and I had to start over again).

 

We also bought a phone card in Antigua to call home. I can't remember exactly, but I think it was $8 for a 12 minute phone card. We bought it and used it right then. This was the only time we actually phoned home all week. However, we did notice that every port we stopped in had phone cards and phones available right by the port.

 

Last but not least, we did notice a lot of internet cafes by the ports, as well. Most of them were advertising really cheap internet. I, personally, didn't want to spend my time in port at an internet cafe but it appears to be a lot cheaper to do it that way than to purchase time from the ship's internet cafe. Thankfully, on the Liberty, I was able to get wifi in my room, so I could email whenever it fit into my schedule (and even sent a few emails while I was sitting on the balcony!) and not have to worry about trudging down to the internet cafe on board.

 

I hope this is helpful info! Thanks!