While working on the ship I had nothign but a prepaid Tracfone phone, and it charged me regularly. I heard from the other crew that NET10 works fine as well.

quote:

Originally posted by PA Steve Rocky Mount:
Thanks for all the helpful info. I'm on Verizon so I'm gonna call them. My biggest problem ISN'T calls I wanna make..it's incoming. So this will help. Once again, these forums are incredably helpful!

I used a TracFone on a cruise a while back and it never deducted any points from my total.

You are on vacation - turn your cell phone off.

quote:

Originally posted by joergr:
You are on vacation - turn your cell phone off.

But you have to call a few people to rub in the fact that you are "there" and they are back home working

quote:

Originally posted by Larry in Miami:

quote:

Originally posted by joergr:
You are on vacation - turn your cell phone off.

But you have to call a few people to rub in the fact that you are "there" and they are back home working

agreed

I just received my Verizon bill in which I made a 1 1/2 minute call on the Grand Princess this past Jan. which cost $5.00 to listen to a voice mail I could have just as well not heard until I got home. It would have had to be really important for me to have placed a call from the ship at those rates- I did not see that many people using cell phones.

I am from Western Canada, and the last time I sailed on the spirit I made arrangement with my cell provider (Telus) for 100 roming mins (I do this whenever I go to the states) You call them up and let them know where you are going and and for how long and they will change over you account when you leave and change it back when you get back. They allow you a certain amount of mins per day so as long as you don't go over you mins per day then you are not charged anymore. An the nice thing is the prorate it for the amount of days not the entire month so if you are gone for two weeks you only get billed for two weeks. I think it works out to .50 per min or somthing like that. So you can use your phone while in port.

Sounds like a good deal, I wish some of the US companied would do that.

You can buy a block of minutes from Verzion, and I believe most major companies. The problems is why buy 100 minutes? I only check messages once or twice, I will pay the rate of 60 cents a minute. I do not think any carrier will sell the roam type minutes that are good on a ship. Those will cost closer to $1.50 - $2.00 a minute, I only check calls when in port.
We did see lost of people using cell phones on ship in the Inside Passage. Unless you are in port those minutes are billed at a very high rate.

Are the Verison minutes good for international use? Most of the time those deals are for domestic use or they use more than one of the minutes credit for each minute actually used. They want their money one way or the other.

Onboard rate is the same as international. Depending on the carrier it is $2 to $2.50 per minuet. If you are in a non US port you will pay a high rate as well.

When in Grand Cayman I pay about $2.50 on my cell. If there is internet access I can use Skype for about 2 cents per minute, a slight difference.

When we looked into it we could pay a block of minutes for Mexico, or Canada. We could not buy a block of minutes for the ship.

AT&T has some plan for $5 a month that will slightly discount the international roaming. I don't think it is good for the ship either.

Well if you really need to make a call the cell phone is a lot cheaper than the ship's phone.

quote:

I used a TracFone on a cruise a while back and it never deducted any points from my total.

Larry, which ports did it work? I use one too, and it said "no service" all the time when the ship was out at sea. It didn't work at Belize or on Roatan. It has worked on Key West before, I don't recall trying it on Cozumel though.

Thanks,

Dwayne

quote:

Originally posted by IslandCruz:

quote:

I used a TracFone on a cruise a while back and it never deducted any points from my total.

Larry, which ports did it work? I use one too, and it said "no service" all the time when the ship was out at sea. It didn't work at Belize or on Roatan. It has worked on Key West before, I don't recall trying it on Cozumel though.

Thanks,

Dwayne

Hey Dwyane,

I have not found a port aside from Key West where it would work. It worked on the ship at sea that one cruise where they did not deduct any points, the next cruise I tried it on it did not work. I have that as a backup phone and only cary it on trips for emergency use. That does not seem like much of a plan for cruises though since it does not work in any of the foreign ports.

My AT&T iPhone seems to work most everywhere.