Surprise $117 cell phone charge--How to Avoid in Future?

OP here.

thanks for all of your suggestions and comments. I guess the best thing for me to do in the future is look at the carrier when I turn my phone on. If it says Cellular at Sea, then I will go to airplane mode immediately! This has been an expensive lesson. I hate that you have to be so vigilant now.

OP here.

 

thanks for all of your suggestions and comments. I guess the best thing for me to do in the future is look at the carrier when I turn my phone on. If it says Cellular at Sea, then I will go to airplane mode immediately! This has been an expensive lesson. I hate that you have to be so vigilant now.

Yeah..it's called technology...good or bad ;)

OP here.

 

thanks for all of your suggestions and comments. I guess the best thing for me to do in the future is look at the carrier when I turn my phone on. If it says Cellular at Sea, then I will go to airplane mode immediately! This has been an expensive lesson. I hate that you have to be so vigilant now.

Not cruise related but I have family in metro Detroit and if you are not careful there are areas along the water where your phone can roam to Canada . . . I am always checking when I’m out f the country or close to it as a result. ATT has a Roam North America plan that gives free calls/texts in US Canada and Mexico. I signed up while sitting at Tropicante.

Let me just make sure I have this right.

I should turn off roaming and ALSO be in airplane mode.

Is this correct? I have an IPhone. Under Cellular Data Options there are two choices: One is a toggle button for data roaming. I understand this one--it's either off or on.

The other one says Enable LTE. When you click that you can choose off, data, or voice and data. I Can I leave this one alone? Right now I have LTE enabled for voice and data.

Let me just make sure I have this right.

 

I should turn off roaming and ALSO be in airplane mode.

 

Is this correct? I have an IPhone. Under Cellular Data Options there are two choices: One is a toggle button for data roaming. I understand this one--it's either off or on.

 

The other one says Enable LTE. When you click that you can choose off, data, or voice and data. I Can I leave this one alone? Right now I have LTE enabled for voice and data.

You can leave the LTE button enabled for voice and data. Once you are in Airplane mode, you don't have to mess with the cellular data settings, al cellular communications are off. Turn back on WiFi and you can connect to the ship's VOOM service.

During our TA from Copenhagen back in August, I turned off the Data, kept WiFi on and only text our daughter back in the States and shared photos with her, while in Port on tours. and didn't even use the ships cellular. I also had an INTL plan on the Android. While on the ship I kept the phone off.

Sorry this happened to you.

Keith

Many thanks to OP for creating this thread. I have always been careful but always assumed that when at port, I would be ok to switch phone on. I need to be extra careful in the future.

Quit using the overpriced full service phone companies. I use cricket pay one flat fee and never any overages. Unlimited data and works in Mexico and Canada. Currently you can get 4 lines of unlimited calls texts and data for $100.

 

Eat more Tuna!

Thanks for the advice but I pay less than half of that $100 per month with AT&T and I don't have to worry about any limitations on my service. I'll stick with them.

Thanks for the advice but I pay less than half of that $100 per month with AT&T.

The $100/mo the poster mentioned was for 4 lines.;)

This has been an expensive lesson. I hate that you have to be so vigilant now.

If you feel like fighting it, Royal should eat the charges they passed to AT&T because their cell system was supposed to be off, and it wasn't. Their mistake, their problem.

But it might be a protracted battle as you'll be trying to convince AT&T to remove the charges from your bill and go harass Royal for reimbursement, and if you don't get the right CSR they might not have any idea what you're talking about.

Quit using the overpriced full service phone companies. I use cricket pay one flat fee and never any overages. Unlimited data and works in Mexico and Canada. Currently you can get 4 lines of unlimited calls texts and data for $100.

 

Eat more Tuna!

Fine if you have no need or desire to use your phone when you travel to places other than Canada and Mexico. You do realize Cricket is ATT, yes?

Way too technical for me :eek:.... My iPhone 7 has many features that are way beyond my senior old style abilities...and I'm actually fine with that...but thanks. :D

This is easy. While at home, connected to your cellular service, go into Settings -> Phone -> Wi-Fi Calling and set to On.

You have to do this while connected to your cellular service, and they have to support it. ATT, Verizon, and T-Mobile all support wifi calling.

Once you do that, any time you are connected to wifi, at the top of the phone it will say ATT WiFi or something like that.

I use it at home, as my house is in a poor cell area, but I can call fine using my home wifi.

This will also allow you to call from any country if you find a wifi connection.

My husband forgot to turn his work-supplied IPhone data off on a 5-day cruise to Cozumel. Company got a bill for $820! Well, they love him so it wasn’t a problem.

Sent from my iPad using Forums

The $100/mo the poster mentioned was for 4 lines.;)

And I am paying $105 per month for 3 lines on T-Mobile. With unlimited calling, unlimited texting, and unlimited data in over 140 countries.

This is easy. While at home, connected to your cellular service, go into Settings -> Phone -> Wi-Fi Calling and set to On.

 

You have to do this while connected to your cellular service, and they have to support it. ATT, Verizon, and T-Mobile all support wifi calling.

 

Once you do that, any time you are connected to wifi, at the top of the phone it will say ATT WiFi or something like that.

 

I use it at home, as my house is in a poor cell area, but I can call fine using my home wifi.

 

This will also allow you to call from any country if you find a wifi connection.

This is super helpful. We have AT&T and iPhones. So once I've done this, when I get on the ship, I should switch to airplane mode, but then can connect to the ship's VOOM WiFi service, which will allow me to talk, text and use my internet just like normal? Basically, my phone will work "normally"?

And when I'm in a port, if the port has WiFi I would do the same thing with whatever available WiFi they might have?

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Try it at home first.

If you feel like fighting it, Royal should eat the charges they passed to AT&T because their cell system was supposed to be off, and it wasn't. Their mistake, their problem.

 

But it might be a protracted battle as you'll be trying to convince AT&T to remove the charges from your bill and go harass Royal for reimbursement, and if you don't get the right CSR they might not have any idea what you're talking about.

It would likely be a waste of time to try and get reimbursement from Royal Caribbean. Cellular at Sea is a contractor. AT&T is who has to be convinced and often has been conviced to reduced the charges. And by the way Cellular at Sea is owned by AT&T.

Really, with the ability to do WiFI calling and get $10 a day passes that can be used on land in ports, the cruise lines should get rid of Cellular at Sea. It costs to much and passengers get screwed by confusion.

AT&T has a real interesting Cruise package:

$100 for 30 days:

Unlimited Talk

Unlimited Text (Picture and Video)

200MB Data

Plus, you can use your device on land in Mexico, Canada, and on these select Caribbean islands at no additional charge.

Anguilla, Antigua, Arub and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, Bonaire, British Virgin Islands, Cayman, Curacao, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, Saba, St. Barthelemy, St. Eustatius, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Maarten, St. Martin, St. Vincent & Grenadines, Trinidad & Tobago, Turks and Caicos.

https://www.att.com/offers/international-plans/cruise-packages.html

https://www.att.com/offers/international-plans/cruise-ship-list.html

This is easy. While at home, connected to your cellular service, go into Settings -> Phone -> Wi-Fi Calling and set to On.

 

You have to do this while connected to your cellular service, and they have to support it. ATT, Verizon, and T-Mobile all support wifi calling.

 

Once you do that, any time you are connected to wifi, at the top of the phone it will say ATT WiFi or something like that.

.

However, At&T does not support wi-fi calling on non at&T branded android phones. Androids have to be At&T branded, I-phones can be either branded or not.

It would likely be a waste of time to try and get reimbursement from Royal Caribbean. Cellular at Sea is a contractor. AT&T is who has to be convinced and often has been conviced to reduced the charges. And by the way Cellular at Sea is owned by AT&T.

I wasn't under the impression that a CaS contract employee was on every ship with the sole job of flipping the switch on and off. I figured a crew member was supposed to do that. At any rate, that's what I was getting at. Get AT&T to reverse the charges and then tell them to go after whoever screwed up by leaving the CaS equipment on when they weren't supposed to.

You can also manually switch your carrier. I recently had to do that on Celebrity because Cell at Sea was still on and I needed to switch to local towers for service.

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

The $100/mo the poster mentioned was for 4 lines.;)

I caught that the first time I read it.

I wasn't under the impression that a CaS contract employee was on every ship with the sole job of flipping the switch on and off. I figured a crew member was supposed to do that. At any rate, that's what I was getting at. Get AT&T to reverse the charges and then tell them to go after whoever screwed up by leaving the CaS equipment on when they weren't supposed to.

The equipment is supposed to automatically switch over using GPS when it is 12 miles out from a port.

I would not necessary believe that it was not off. I tend not to. After reading many confused posts on Cruise Critic a lot of people are confused about their phone settings and roaming. Or could be forgetful.

This is easy. While at home, connected to your cellular service, go into Settings -> Phone -> Wi-Fi Calling and set to On.

 

You have to do this while connected to your cellular service, and they have to support it. ATT, Verizon, and T-Mobile all support wifi calling.

 

Once you do that, any time you are connected to wifi, at the top of the phone it will say ATT WiFi or something like that.

 

I use it at home, as my house is in a poor cell area, but I can call fine using my home wifi.

 

This will also allow you to call from any country if you find a wifi connection.

Thanks for your information and help...but still a bit weird for me to get used to this...and Yes I'm one of the few that still have and use my land line ;)