Mobile Network/Service from land at sea

Hey,

we are wondering for weeks, so here is our question:

Does anybody know if there is mobile service from land availabale during our cruise near the Hawaiian Islands? So instead of using the ship network, is it possible to connect with the "regular" network? Anybody tried before?

Thanks for your help!

BR

Tom

Most cruise line's policy is once you leave the dock, the ship's tower is your only choice- it will be the strongest system. Traveling between islands in Hawaii is done at night, so in order to (hopefully, if at all possible) use a shore based site, you will be staying up late into the night.

Most of the time you will be too far from land, given the standard limited range.

Hey,

 

we are wondering for weeks, so here is our question:

 

Does anybody know if there is mobile service from land availabale during our cruise near the Hawaiian Islands? So instead of using the ship network, is it possible to connect with the "regular" network? Anybody tried before?

 

Thanks for your help!

 

BR

Tom

Since the ship's cell tower is within a few hundred feet of you, and the nearest land tower is a few miles, your signal will default to the ship's tower.

Thanks for your answers.

I think if you put your device on manual selection, it won't connect to the ships network automatically. So if there is a land tower available it could work...

Last year, a few miles away from Puerto Rico, I got the signal from a landmark tower. But I do not know how far this signal reaches. Maybe we are lucky between the Hawaiin islands.

Anybody more experience?

Thanks for your answers.

 

I think if you put your device on manual selection, it won't connect to the ships network automatically. So if there is a land tower available it could work...

 

Last year, a few miles away from Puerto Rico, I got the signal from a landmark tower. But I do not know how far this signal reaches. Maybe we are lucky between the Hawaiin islands.

 

Anybody more experience?

From 4 years working on the NCL ships there, I don't recall that anyone got cell coverage outside of the ports (except the ship, which as you say, you can reject connection).

I had read that the Pride is different since it doesn't go into international waters. Perhaps it doesn't have a tower at all? The notes I took from other threads, say they had regular cell service in each port, but their phones didn't work at night while sailing, so they would just turn them off so as to not run down their battery searching for service.

Now, this is just what I read, I won't know firsthand til June.

I had read that the Pride is different since it doesn't go into international waters. Perhaps it doesn't have a tower at all? The notes I took from other threads, say they had regular cell service in each port, but their phones didn't work at night while sailing, so they would just turn them off so as to not run down their battery searching for service.

 

Now, this is just what I read, I won't know firsthand til June.

I can't vouch for the America, I was on the Aloha, which came and went back to international service, so we did have Cellular at Sea. I also don't believe that a ship's cell will connect directly with a shore cell (someone can correct me if I'm wrong), but will go through the satellite service to a shore station.

If you connect with Cellular at sea, you will always have the ships network over satellite.

In 2013 on AotS I was able to catch regular landmark service (AT&T) miles before Puerto Rico, still cruising to port. So I hope it will be the same in Hawaii. If we are near enough, this should be possible. Maybe anyone knows.

We are cruising with RotS now.

The Pride has cellular at sea, but 80 to 90% of the time we were able to connect to our land-based services (Sprint & ATT) during our cruise, even while sailing. Since you're primarily at sea overnight, while you're sleeping, you really only notice signal loss a few times.

And wouldn't that be an expensive lesson to learn if your phone connects to the ship's tower.

Maybe better: wait until you're in port to check for messages. And suggest to family, friends, work contacts to send you an email in addition as a web-based email account would probably be less costly to check while at sea.