Phone calls

[Jeal]

We are going to need to call home several times during our cruise. We were thinking of calling each time we got into port. Any suggestions about the best way to do this? Should we get a special calling card or will our ATT calling card from Sams work?

[JDee]

The Sam's AT&T cards will generally only work in the US Virgin Islands & San Juan. Even if you get the AT&T code for other countries, those cards will still not work in many of the Carib Islands.

Almost all of the other Carib Islands public phones will not accept pre-paid phone cards from any phone company, other than their own island phone companies. Most all the islands have some type phone service on or near the piers where you can purchase the island phone cards. Many of those same islands will have a notice in the general area of the public phones advising which cards will work.

Don't even think of using a regular credit card such as AMEX, Visa, etc., as those connection rates and per minute charges are almost equal to what it would cost to call from the ship.

Happy cruising.....

[tomc]

If you are gong to call from a port, you would be well-advised to get off the ship as fast as you can because you will be competing with half the staff. I mean it. This is not a complaint about the staff, as they are calling home; just a bit of advice about finding an unused phone.

[sail7seas]

TomC has offered good advice but that really only pertains to a U.S. port. The vast majority (and there are a GREAT many) crew telephone calls home are made from FLL (Tampa, Canaveral), San Juan and St.Thomas. They get the best prices and most minutes off their phone cards. It is way too expensive for them to call from most of the other islands. (I have assumed you are talking about a Caribbean cruise given the time of year.)

[Lokalona]

Your cell phone will work in US territory, St. Thomas, San Jaun, St. John. There is a phone card deal on HAL that saves you 25% (or I think could be 50% can't quite remember) off the $16.00 per minute charge ship to shore.

World Cell rents Global cell phones but it is pricey, about $200.00 per week, it only works when the sky is clear and it is $1.99/per minute outgoing, free incoming and the people back home have to use an international dialing code, it can be confusing. E-mail aboard the ship in the internet cafe is a good way of keeping in touch.

[sea-n-me]

The last few times we were on HAL, they offered a phone card for $25.00. It was good for 10 minutes calling directly from the ship. It's pricey, but it enabled us to make quick calls home without running around looking for telephones once we got into port. It was worth it to me to be able to sit in the comfort of my cabin and call home several times to check in.

[Jeal]

Thank you for all the info about what to do about phoning home during our cruise. I think we will bring our ATT calling card and, then if it doesn't work, we will see what is available in port.

[twoatsea]

I must be lost here - senior moment or something, but on this board i've noticed several posts about how expensive the cabin phone is - many dollars per minute. on the zaandam (11/6 cruise to caribbean), a card next to our cabin phone said $.99 cents per minute. called front office & confirmed. used the phone & that is all we were billed. that's not our usual 5 - 10 cents, but at least a way to "reasonably" make a quick call to check on voice mail messages, etc.

our sam's phone card & cell phone (cingular) did not work at cozumel. also in cozumel, the only public phones we found (we walked to town from the ship) required us to give our credit card number - which we would not do.

our cell phone (cingular) worked on grand cayman. we called cingular before we left on our cruise & questioned whether our cell phone would work in the caribbean. we were told yes - obviously at different rates (which are higher than the 99 cents cabin phone). however, we failed to realize that cozumel was not included in that question & answer - goes to show - you must ask the right question!

[JDee]

twoatsea I must be lost here - senior moment or something, but on this board i've noticed several posts about how expensive the cabin phone is - many dollars per minute. on the zaandam (11/6 cruise to caribbean), a card next to our cabin phone said $.99 cents per minute. called front office & confirmed. used the phone & that is all we were billed. that's not our usual 5 - 10 cents, but at least a way to "reasonably" make a quick call to check on voice mail messages, etc.
------------------------------------

You are not lost....HAL must have made a substantial price reduction for the phone service. To quote from Zaandam daily of 3/12/04:

"Phone home special rate--For last minute travel arrangements or even to just call the family to say "hi", you can now call from your stateroom for our special last day rate of $2.95 per minute."

Don't recall what the normal rate was, but my best guess was somewhere in the $5.00 per minute rate.....

Happy cruising.....

[Lokalona]

I was told $16.00 per minute by a TA man was she ever wrong! However I do recall it being $5.00 per minute a few years back on Voyager.

We rented the Global because of our niece in ICU, with Hubby being the liason for his brother and all the medical stuff going on. They didin't understand much and ICU is so scary with your 16 year old in a coma...It was worth the $$ for them to be able to reach us 24/7...