Best Way To Phone Home (From Multiple Ports)

[wsantelope]

This will be my first time leaving the country and leaving my 6 year old home with family friends. We will be gone 10 days.

I need everyone's best advice on the least complicated, least expensive way to phone home nightly from sea (I guess that's a call from the ship's phone?) or from multiple ports (Panama, Costa Rica, Cartagena, Santa Marta (Colombia), Aruba)?

I haven't checked into international calling plans with my cell carrier (Sprint)....

Don't know a thing about calling cards...

I have a laptop I can take with me and do Skype....don't know if that's an affordable option either or if that will work onboard. Usually my son is with when I cruise and I don't phone home! :p

THANKS in advance!;)

[RoofingPrincess]

A call to or from the ship's phone costs something like $7.95 per minute. On my last cruise, we were coming into Galveston just ahead of Hurricane Ike and my son was trying to contact me to let me know that I might want to check with my airline to try to come home earlier than originally planned. Since I had left our cellphone home with him, he had to find out how to do a shore-to-ship call. Since it was debarkation morning, I was out of the cabin (and at breakfast), and the phones on Carnival's Ecstasy did not have phone mail, so I never got the message till it was too late. So we got a bill for something like $29 for nothing.

Most cell carriers have a rate for "Cellular at Sea" that's more like $2.49/minute, so check with your carrier to see what their rate is and what you have to do to participate. Check what their international rates are as well - maybe you can call from the port instead of the ship.

Internet rates onboard are something like $0.55/minute, but my son (my resident computer expert) says that there is no way you'd get enough bandwidth on board to do a Skype call.

[Alexis]

Roofing Princess is correct about the ships phones. Too expensive!!

 

I have posted this many times on here.

Call your own Cell Phone service and ask their fee.

I did the Deep Southern route, Western route and the Eastern route.

I have Verizon and it cost me $2.49 per minute outside of the US and San Juan. Free on my minutes until I left there. If not, I could still have used it in ports for the same price, and I often did. ;)

A flat $2.49 per minute for each call. On board or ashore in ports all over the Caribbean.

The ship would have cost $7.95 per minute to use their phones/service.

Verizon put me on International roaming and it would roam and pick up anywhere we went except Margarita Island, Venezuela. No phone or computer service there for the whole day.

It is definitely worth it to use your own by first checking with your own company.

Before you leave home and the US, call your company and have them put you on International Roaming right over the phone. It automatically switches over when you need it on the ship or off the ship. My connections for my whole 13 day Southern Caribbean trip, 7 day Eastern trip and 7 day Western trip, were always as clear as if the person were standing next to me. I never had a problem anywhere in the Caribbean.

I NEVER paid any more than the $2.49 on the ship, or ashore, when making a call on my Verizon cell phone.

[Rancher Dave]

I'd find in each port an Internet Cafe, first see if they have a VOIP set up on a low per minute fee for calling back to the USA...we have done that several times. Inexpensive and you will not have to boot up etc... Of course many also have a place to plug your 'puter in and you can skype that way.

 

My VOIP calls to/from Australia and the Caribbean to the USA have been crystal clear so voice quallity should not be an issue.

 

Enjoy your cruise.

[J & G]

I'd find in each port an Internet Cafe, first see if they have a VOIP set up on a low per minute fee for calling back to the USA...we have done that several times. Inexpensive and you will not have to boot up etc... Of course many also have a place to plug your 'puter in and you can skype that way.

 

My VOIP calls to/from Australia and the Caribbean to the USA have been crystal clear so voice quallity should not be an issue.

 

Enjoy your cruise.

 

Dave is right on about this....download Skype to your laptop (make sure your laptop has a microphone that you can speak into). Then find an internet hot spot in each port and call home...it's really easy! We called home everyday from St. Lucia......10 cents per minute...had to check on the kitties! :D

[TwoWeebles]

It is much cheaper to call from your cell phone than from the ship's phone. Call your cellular carrier and get them to put "International Roaming" on your phone. It should not cost anything unless you make a call. Also ask them about making calls from the ship using your cell phone. There are a couple of different rates depending on if you are in a port or at sea, but they are still way cheaper than using the ship's phone.

[rjm1cc]

Might want to consider just phoning from two of the ports. Something to look forward too and also a chance to learn how to get a long without each other. There is nothing you are going to be able to do so just make sure you set your phone up with Sprint for the ship you are on and let an adult call if there is an emergency that needs your input.

Remember if there is nothing you can do not reason to call you.

[Gonzo70]

This will be my first time leaving the country and leaving my 6 year old home with family friends. We will be gone 10 days.

I need everyone's best advice on the least complicated, least expensive way to phone home nightly from sea (I guess that's a call from the ship's phone?) or from multiple ports (Panama, Costa Rica, Cartagena, Santa Marta (Colombia), Aruba)?

I haven't checked into international calling plans with my cell carrier (Sprint)....

Don't know a thing about calling cards...

I have a laptop I can take with me and do Skype....don't know if that's an affordable option either or if that will work onboard. Usually my son is with when I cruise and I don't phone home! :p

THANKS in advance!;)

 

What we do is buy calling cards in ports when we need to make calls. Often you can get cards for like $5 and use a local payphone. For example the flea market in CristobalPier (Panama) has a business office at the very end of the section with all the vendors. They sell cards for $5 that are good for 30 minutes of talk time to the U.S. There is a similar place just a couple minutes walk from where the ship docks in Costa Rica (a fairly nice indoor area just past the flea market). You should be able to find places to buy calling cards in the other ports you are travelling to as well fairly easily. As others have mentioned, avoid using the ship phone unless it is a dire emergency. You will not be able to use Skype via your laptop computer. While on the ship either sending e-mails at the ship's internet cafe or quick calls from your personal cell phone are the best bet.

[wsantelope]

Thanks all for the suggestions....I think my cell carrier might be best and then VOIP at an internet cafe. The more I think about it the more I DON'T want to lug my laptop to shore every day. That sounds totally un-vacationlike! :eek: