Verizon On Board and on the Islands

Hoping someone can confirm what to expect when it comes to Verizon cell service and an iPhone 5s. Running the Verizon trip planner this is what I believe is true, if you recently took a trip and can confirm any or all of this it would be most helpful.

On board, pay as you go only, not part of any plan.

$1.79 /min Voice

0.50 SMS Sent

0.05 SMS received

0.25 MMS Sent or Received

$2.05/MB Data

Antigua, Grand Turk, St Kitts

$10 Travel Pass for 24 hour period and you are using your own domestic voice, data and text plan. We are unlimited everything with 12GB of data so basically for $10 additional/24 hours we should be able to talk/text/data anywhere but on the cruise ship while at sea.

St Thomas the trip planner says -

"You can use your domestic talk, text and data in the selected destination(s) St. Thomas at no additional charge." So it looks like no travel pass would be needed on St. Thomas.

Hopefully this is all true. I plan to leave my phone off while at sea but should be able to use it once we are docked someplace. I'm assuming my iPhone 5s will indicate somehow which carrier / county I'm connected to and not connected to the ship for big $$$?

Thanks for your help.

Be very careful. I had a friend come home to an $800+ bill- due to roaming and calling charges.

I have Verizon and taken two overseas cruises. I purchased the international voice, text and data plan for one month (I think it is $40 and then $25 for every 100 MB of data, or at least it was on my last trip). I keep the phone data, wifi off while on board and only turn it on when we get to dock and I am outside on promenade deck. Airplane mode is great for this, if you have an iPhone

I had great service throughout the Baltic and South America. I have also been on many land trips overseas and also never had a problem. I

When you get home you just go back online to your account and remove the service. You will be pro-rated.

Note that most every where else will jump down to 3G from LTE slowing you down.

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I have Verizon and taken two overseas cruises. I purchased the international voice, text and data plan for one month (I think it is $40 and then $25 for every 100 MB of data, or at least it was on my last trip). I keep the phone data, wifi off while on board and only turn it on when we get to dock and I am outside on promenade deck. Airplane mode is great for this, if you have an iPhone

 

I had great service throughout the Baltic and South America. I have also been on many land trips overseas and also never had a problem. I

 

When you get home you just go back online to your account and remove the service. You will be pro-rated.

 

Note that most every where else will jump down to 3G from LTE slowing you down.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

These days you might want to turn WiFi back on while leaving data off. Just turn on Airplane Mode and then re-enable WiFi. It costs nothing and allows use of the Princess@Sea app. Having an iPhone or an Android phone makes no difference.

I travel by myself and haven't been on a cruise since they implemented that

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We have the international plan at no charge. When we travel it is $10.00 for 24 hour travel pass in many places and they notify you that your pass is active. It's $2.00 for 24 hours in Canada and Mexico unless you have the new XL data plan and then it's free. We love it!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Kathy

We have the international plan at no charge. When we travel it is $10.00 for 24 hour travel pass in many places and they notify you that your pass is active. It's $2.00 for 24 hours in Canada and Mexico unless you have the new XL data plan and then it's free. We love it!

Hmmmm...Seems like I remember you had to call them and turn it off when you got back, or they would continue to charge you. Has that been your experience or not ?

We had absolutely no Verizon service while in St. Thomas last December. We were told they have no cell towers in St. Thomas. The previous time I was there I had Sprint and had no problem getting service and making phone calls. Lesson learned.

We don't turn it off because you are only charged when you use it. You can cancel it of you want to.

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We don't turn it off because you are only charged when you use it. You can cancel it of you want to.

Thanks

We had absolutely no Verizon service while in St. Thomas last December. We were told they have no cell towers in St. Thomas. The previous time I was there I had Sprint and had no problem getting service and making phone calls. Lesson learned.

While I don't doubt your remarks that you had no service for some reason, we have used our Verizon service numerous times in St. Thomas - data and texting just as if we were on the US mainland - with no issues whatsoever. I believe there is a charge for calls, but have not made any so can't comment on that. There must have been some unusual issue with service at that time.

We have the international plan at no charge. When we travel it is $10.00 for 24 hour travel pass in many places and they notify you that your pass is active. It's $2.00 for 24 hours in Canada and Mexico unless you have the new XL data plan and then it's free. We love it!

The "Travel Pass" and "International Plans" are somewhat different things from my understanding. You can do a one month international plan, an on-going international plan that you would likely cancel when you return (unless you travel all the time) and the travel pass that, as noted, for a flat fee $2 Mexico and Canada and $10 per 24 hours in 120 other countries gives you access to your domestic plan data/text/voice with no roaming charges. The Travel Pass you can cancel but again, as noted, there really isn't a need to.

We have used the Travel Pass in Mexico before and it was great. For $2/24 hours you can call all you want, text or whatever. Because of all the horror stories of $800+ bills I was looking for confirmation that this is in fact the way it works in the other countries we will be visiting.

Sounds like it does work this way, one question left is knowing which carrier you are accessing at the time to make sure you are not on the boat tower @ $1.79/min vs the $10/24hr Travel Pass. Also sounds like Verizon will work in St. Thomas but will it be just like domestic access without any additional fees for voice as well?

I will post again after our trip in January with good news I hope or my own horror story owing hundreds to Verizon.

I have Verizon and taken two overseas cruises. I purchased the international voice, text and data plan for one month (I think it is $40 and then $25 for every 100 MB of data, or at least it was on my last trip). I keep the phone data, wifi off while on board and only turn it on when we get to dock and I am outside on promenade deck. Airplane mode is great for this, if you have an iPhone

 

I had great service throughout the Baltic and South America. I have also been on many land trips overseas and also never had a problem. I

 

When you get home you just go back online to your account and remove the service. You will be pro-rated.

 

Note that most every where else will jump down to 3G from LTE slowing you down.

 

 

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Your should take a look at Total Wireless (Walmart) to replace Verizon at a much cheaper price. They use all the same cell towers here in the US and offer "Global Calling" at very cheap prices if needed.

I'm on AT&T but our friends are on Verizon. They used the $10 a day plan while they were on the cruise with us in Europe and on our trip to Turks and Caicos. They only paid for the days they used. When we left port we would turn our phones onto airplane mode so we didn't worry about unnecessary charges. (Our plan was $40 a month/ 250 gb of data and unlimited texting) DD actually left her mobile on and was streaming something and fell asleep!! Luckily we were in a hotel in Athens after the cruise. We did get a $30 extra fee for that nap! UGH!!!

I attached the results from the Verizon trip planner for the Carribean Princess, Antiqua, St. Kiits, St. Thomas and Grand Turk. This stuff changes all the time but this is what it is as of 9/22/16.

It shows when on board/at sea pay as you go rates. St Thomas is considered domestic rates, no extra fees and the remaining islands are the $10/24hr travel pass.

Here is a link to the Verizon Travel Pass planner -

https://www.verizonwireless.com/support/trip-planner-tool/#/tripPlanner

Hmmm. I'm unable to attach a PDF to this message.

Back from our incredible CB cruise and I'm happy to report the Verizon TravelPass works as advertised. It's $10 for a 24 hour period in a country covered by the Travelpass. It doesn't cost anything if you don't use it.

I was charged $10 for our visit in Antigua and $10 in St. Kitts to use my domestic voice and data plan. We also visited St. Thomas and there was no additional charge to use voice/data. Our last stop, Grand Turk, was cancelled due to high winds so I can't say for sure but I'm assuming that too would have been $10 for a 24hour period.

While at sea I turned on Airplane mode and then re-enabled Wifi. When we docked I turned off airplane mode and verified my phone said "Verizon" as the carrier. You then get a text stating the Travel pass has started.

Just remember to re-enable Airplane mode before you leave port or you will connect to the ships cellular system once they turn it back on again.

My iPhone 5 worked as well or better than in the US. I had LTE coverage in the 3 ports we visited and at various places off he ship. It did drop to 3G in areas but the coverage never dropped altogether. Of course it could depending on where you go.

Glad to know your Verizon TravelPass worked according to your expectations.

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I used Travel Pass in Europe in June and July and in Mexico in December. I didn't turn on my phone while I was in the Caribbean, so I can't speak to that. Travel Pass remains on my phone and doesn't need to be cancelled. It only works when you turn your phone on in another country. It worked great for me. I loved it.

Contact Verizon and see if you phone qualifies for their new WiFi calling. If so, you can make calls over WiFi for no extra charge no matter where you are. Might well be worth looking into. I'm certainly planning to check it out for our 28 day Hawaii and South Pacific cruise in October.

I would like to clarify:

There is not way to text on board, except through the ship's wifi, which is expensive. So, I need to turn my iPhone 6 to airplane mode to avoid any charges while on the ship. Did someone also say to leave wifi on? Why is that? Just clarifying here.

We have Verizon, so we can use the Travel Pass while in port (Roatan, Belize and Cozumel). From what I read on the Verison site, we text TRAVEL to 4004 to activate the Travel Pass. When we get to port, take the phone off of airplane mode and make sure the carrier is listed as Verizon.

Are these the correct procedures? I do not want to come back with an $800.00 bill. :o Thanks!

Airplane mode and then turn wifi back on will allow you to use the ships wifi to access the "Princess@Sea" app. Electronic patter, ship charge account etc. If you don't want any of that just leave wifi off too.

I would go to the Verizon website and add the travelpass to your lines. That way you can visually confirm that it's really on the line so no surprises. Once you get in port take your phone off airplane mode and it will connect to the cell network and you will get a text saying the travelpass has been activated.

As Thrak said, another option may be wifi calling. Either through Verizon or we also have Magicjack which worked well too. If your cell plan is unlimited it's probably easier to travelpass for $2 and just use your phone as you normally would.

Just remember that if you turn your phone on and it accesses service, it most likely will update, and updates eat up data usage like crazy.

Just remember that if you turn your phone on and it accesses service, it most likely will update, and updates eat up data usage like crazy.

I always turn off auto updates when I cruise.

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I signed up for Verizon travel pass before our Oct 16 TA from Rome. When we arrived in Rome my phone defaulted to a carrier not compatible with Verizon. A call to 800 customer service was answered by a very helpful agent who helped me find a useable carrier. We only had a $20 charge for our time in Europe prior to cruising. We didn't use it on the ship sticking to the Internet provided by Princess.

Also in January we had no Verizon service in St Thomas.

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Contact Verizon and see if you phone qualifies for their new WiFi calling. If so, you can make calls over WiFi for no extra charge no matter where you are. Might well be worth looking into. I'm certainly planning to check it out for our 28 day Hawaii and South Pacific cruise in October.

Just get the Vonage app. Free. Just connect to wifi and call through the app for free to a US number anyways if you're from the US.

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