Advice needed on Phoning home Please

[CuriousCruiser66]

Hi,

 

I would appreciate any advice on the best way to contact our children at home during our cruise on Ruby Princess to the Southern Caribbean 08/02/2010........I have checked out our mobile roaming charges and it will cost us £1.40 per minute if we telephone them using our mobiles eeeekkk !!

 

Do any of you know the cheapest way of phoning home whilst on a cruise to the caribbean ? and I was wondering how much it costs to telephone from the ship.

 

Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated :)

 

Thanks

[paul929207]

Email is the cheapest way to keep in touch. Calls from the ship are $5 per minute.

[RaMar]

Hi,

 

I would appreciate any advice on the best way to contact our children at home during our cruise on Ruby Princess to the Southern Caribbean 08/02/2010........I have checked out our mobile roaming charges and it will cost us £1.40 per minute if we telephone them using our mobiles eeeekkk !!

 

Do any of you know the cheapest way of phoning home whilst on a cruise to the caribbean ? and I was wondering how much it costs to telephone from the ship.

 

Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated :)

 

Thanks

 

What I usually do is that when I visit the port, I purchase a $10 card and contact my family. It can be expensive if you use any cellphone on the cruise.

[Toto2Kansas]

Hi,

 

I would appreciate any advice on the best way to contact our children at home during our cruise on Ruby Princess to the Southern Caribbean 08/02/2010........I have checked out our mobile roaming charges and it will cost us £1.40 per minute if we telephone them using our mobiles eeeekkk !!

 

Do any of you know the cheapest way of phoning home whilst on a cruise to the caribbean ? and I was wondering how much it costs to telephone from the ship.

 

Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated :)

 

Thanks

 

Actually, your 1.40 per minute charge is a lot less than calling ship to shore. enjoy!

[caber]

Unless it`s an emergency I just use text messages.

 

I am with t-mobile and it is only 20p to send a picture message with a text attached or 40 for just a text (I don`t know why but it is.) My family get loads of pictures.:D

 

Also, it`s free to receive a text but costs to receive a call.

[gloriajean]

Anyone have any experience with Verizon Wireless? I will be leaving my 3 children at home for 9 days and would love to be able to call or text once a day to check on them. Before anyone jumps to conclusions, they are not being left alone. They will be with their Grandmother!

[cruzendude]

Ask E.T.!! :eek: :p

[roe2ship]

Anyone have any experience with Verizon Wireless? I will be leaving my 3 children at home for 9 days and would love to be able to call or text once a day to check on them. Before anyone jumps to conclusions, they are not being left alone. They will be with their Grandmother!

We have done this with Verizon on a Royal Caribbean ship. If you call Verizon, they will provide the cost of text sent, received and calls for each port. I was pleasantly surprised with the prices, not bad at all.

[Colo Cruiser]

Try Skype if you bring a laptop.

[CuriousCruiser66]

Thanks to all for your replies............ all very much appreciated.

 

Looks like my Kiddiwinks will be getting lots of picture messages from me and DH while we are away as this is definitely the most economical way of keeping in touch not to mention they will be able to keep up with where we are and what we are doing as the days go past. :D

[Princess Chatterer]

Princes or their Internet Provider blocks all Skype telephone calls from your laptop so that option is out. At least they were blocking Internet calls on the Diamond Princess a few weeks ago and this was confirmed by the Internet Cafe attendant.

[Colo Cruiser]

There were some on the Golden using it but I figured they would block it sooner or later.

[goldenrod]

We used our Magic Jack which plugs into your laptop ubs port the calls were free except for the Internet charge and we were calling from the Irish sea on the Diamond back to Arizona our daughter was even able to call us if we were on line we just plugged the phone in the room into the Magic Jack reception was fine:D

[caribill]

Some of the Princess ships now have their own cell phone service while at sea. If you use your Verizon, etc. service while at sea, it will go through the Princess service which will have charges in addition to what your phone supplier charges.

 

If in port, the ship's service is turned off and you can connect with the local towers.

[pauljsgreen]

incoming calls from the uk to your cellphone are marginally cheaper than making outgoing calls as i understand it.

 

you may want to send a txt and request they call you. it'll be a fair old saving if you're talking for more than a couple of minutes.

 

HTH

paul

[TeeTee2]

I just ordered global phone from verizon for our Med. cruise. Calls to or from Italy, France, and Spain are .99 a minute, Greece $1.49 a minute, Turkey and Monaco $2.29 per minute. Text messages are .05 to recieve and .50 to send. Calls while on board are $2.49 a minute.

[Posaune]

I noted you quoted your home service price in British Pounds, so I assume you have a GSM phone. If it is a tri or quad band phone you can investigate some of the services that provide an international sim card to put in your phone (telestial.com is one) Check out their rates. I use a British sim in my phone while in Europe and get really low rates back to the US.

[BalconyGal]

We used our Magic Jack which plugs into your laptop ubs port the calls were free except for the Internet charge and we were calling from the Irish sea on the Diamond back to Arizona our daughter was even able to call us if we were on line we just plugged the phone in the room into the Magic Jack reception was fine:D

 

So are you saying that I would be able to call brooklyn from the mmiddle of the atlantic ocean by using magic jack? That's amazing. I am going to check it out.

 

Anyone else use this in the caribbean?

[runnerandme]

In Santo Domingo airport i called home collect three times. ( delayed, then cancelled flights) I used the phones that you can put a credit card in. I had no idea that those calls were over $45.00 EACH. FOR LESS THAN TWO MINUTES EACH CALL. I about fainted when that $138. was on my bill. :eek::eek:. They have these phones all over in the Carribean ports. My phone card would not work, so in a hurry I just called collect. THese same phones have ads that say cheap rates..