Using Mobile On Med Cruise To Keep In Touch Onboard too

[smagni]

We (two adults and two kids 14, 12) are going on a cruise around the med next year.

The ship is Independence Of The Seas, Royal Caribbean and very large. I have read that mobile phones can be used onboard but I dread to think what the charges will be for a ship of American ownership sailing around Europe!

The kids are sms'ers as most youngsters and I suppose that will be the best and cheapest way for them to keep in touch with friends and I will make sure they have no voicemail activated and all their friends know not to call them.

I was wondering if there is a way of using our mobile phones while onboard to keep in touch with each other? The ship is so large and the kids will be off exploring from the first minute not to be seen again until their money runs out I suppose.

Will we be better off just texting each other too? I can't see them carrying a walkie talkie.

Thanks

Steven

[Albert Ross]

I'm with O2 and my phone has worked everywhere I go - even in the middle of the Atlantic connected via the ship's satellite. I text (and update FaceBook) every day, and my bill is appros £5 higher than average. I get about 200 free texts in with my O2 package though.

[NorbertsNiece]

Vodafone have a 'Passport' which is very cost effective. They were offering FREE roaming earlier this year. My bill last year however, before they introduced this, was massive (didn't help that daughter at home had split up with boyfriend and needed her mother's shoulder to cry on!)

There is a company called Rebtel which offers a way of calling abroad but only dialing a UK number. This means that if you want to call each other, on board, instead of incuring for example, an Italy - UK - Italy bill you only call Italy - UK. You just have to set up the relevant numbers on the website.

Check your mobile company for their SMS charges. They may not be charged for receiving the SMS but they WILL be charged for sending.

[Sea-trial]

A good percentage of the time in the Med you will be able to connect to land based mobile providers.
You will pay the roaming charges set by your service provider but these have come down a bit in Europe lately.

When the ship is out of reach of a land based provider it will switch on its mobile service again this charge is provided by your service provider, may be worth a call to their customer service.

[arthur sixpence]

Just off our third Indie cruise out of Southampton.
We use our Virgin PAYG triband phones to keep the 8 of us in touch using TEXTS.
At sea calls /text are via the US and texts were 25p each to send, 0p to receive.
The internal cell mast system they use works pretty much everywhere on board including in cabins.
Once close to shore and in ports they turn the internal system off and you log into the local carrier and pay european rates 11p texts on Virgin. Virgin texted us the rates each time we changed country.
The local carrier signal can vary on board and rarely worked in the cabins, but to be honest this was not a problem as on shore days we were together or up on deck so no signal problems.
For us Oldun's we pre made a set of text templates like "Where are you ?" and "meet us at the room" etc to save it interferring in valuable cocktail drinking time

My kids are 12 & 14 and we had no problem with them texting us from the clubs saying they were not coming to see us for dinner etc

Walkie talkies = toys on such a mass of steel.
HTH's

[cb at sea]

While the ship is large, about 2/3 is taken up by cabins....so those aren't areas you'll be wandering, searching for others!
We've never had a problem "keeping in touch" on a ship....there tend to be areas where you'll be hanging out....pool, casino, sports deck, arcade....
We set up a working plan....we'll be a the pool til 2, then in the WJ, then to the casino, for example. Everyone knows where to look! If plans change, a note in the cabin works wonders!

[NorbertsNiece]

Originally Posted by cb at sea

While the ship is large, about 2/3 is taken up by cabins....so those aren't areas you'll be wandering, searching for others!
We've never had a problem "keeping in touch" on a ship....there tend to be areas where you'll be hanging out....pool, casino, sports deck, arcade....
We set up a working plan....we'll be a the pool til 2, then in the WJ, then to the casino, for example. Everyone knows where to look! If plans change, a note in the cabin works wonders!

That's why I take Post-its! Also, there are house phones all over the place which makes leaving messages on the room phone easy too