Mobile phone reception on Australia east coast P&O cruise

[RFGuru]

Hi friends,

 

I am looking to book Australia domestic cruise (Brisbane to Cairns). Does anyone know how far cruise ship travel away from the coast? Is there any Telstra or Optus mobile reception on the cruiseship when it travels along the QLD coast? Thank you.

 

 

[Aus Traveller]

You would be able to use your mobile but much of the time it will access the ship's satellite system resulting in expensive phone calls. We restrict our phone calls to when we are in port when our mobile shows that we are accessing a 4G network.

[arxcards]

You will have an intermittent signal from the land at times. As mentioned, if you are going to have your phone turned on, make sure you don't have global roaming - unless you are prepared to pay zone 5 roaming costs for reception via the ships' cellular at sea network.

 

Once you leave Cairns/Port Douglas, you head well out to sea for Willis Island, and you won't have a land signal until you approach the Sunshine Coast late on the last night.

[NSWP]

Just leave your phone at home or turn it off. Why do you need your phone on a cruise? You are supposed to Escape Completly and Come Back New.

[RFGuru]

@NSWPFully agree with you, however, unfortunately I have to be online every second day due to nature of work. If the Telstra mobile reception is not reliable I will consider to buy an Internet package from P&O.

 

Thank you Geoff @arxcardsand Austraveller @Aus Traveller

[chengkp75]

Basically, if you are more than 15 miles offshore, there won't be any cell signal other than the ship's.  If you can't see land, you won't have cell reception.

[SinbadThePorter]

1 hour ago, chengkp75 said:

If you can't see land, you won't have cell reception.

 

Even if you can see land there are several dead spots along the east coast.

 

Areas around Fraser Island, Shoalwater Bay and anywhere north of Cooktown, have no reception.

[MMDown Under]

55 minutes ago, SinbadThePorter said:

 

Even if you can see land there are several dead spots along the east coast.

 

Areas around Fraser Island, Shoalwater Bay and anywhere north of Cooktown, have no reception.

Is that because they don't have towers in those regions?

[MMDown Under]

Just now, MMDown Under said:

Is that because they don't have towers in those regions?

There used to be spots on GC where mobile phones didn't work but I don't know if that is still the case.

I know Telstra has the best coverage.

[Hogbay]

On 10/16/2022 at 1:59 PM, RFGuru said:

Hi friends,

 

I am looking to book Australia domestic cruise (Brisbane to Cairns). Does anyone know how far cruise ship travel away from the coast? Is there any Telstra or Optus mobile reception on the cruiseship when it travels along the QLD coast? Thank you.

 

 

The shipping channel the reef pilot use go's  around the Great Barrier Reef no cell services. 

[OzKiwiJJ]

Just now, Hogbay said:

The shipping channel the reef pilot use go's  around the Great Barrier Reef no cell services. 

It depends where you are going. Part of the shipping channel is inside the GBR, mostly the northern bit I think - we just cruised through it yesterday. 

[MMDown Under]

9 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

It depends where you are going. Part of the shipping channel is inside the GBR, mostly the northern bit I think - we just cruised through it yesterday. 

We cruised inside the GBR on Ocean Princess with beautiful coastal views.  I was surprised to see a bigger ship closer to the shore.  

[Hogbay]

16 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

It depends where you are going. Part of the shipping channel is inside the GBR, mostly the northern bit I think - we just cruised through it yesterday. 

Op is going Brisbane to Cairns. 

[Hogbay]

16 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

It depends where you are going. Part of the shipping channel is inside the GBR, mostly the northern bit I think - we just cruised through it yesterday. 

Op is going Brisbane to Cairns. 

[Aus Traveller]

1 hour ago, Hogbay said:

The shipping channel the reef pilot use go's  around the Great Barrier Reef no cell services. 

All the maps show that the shipping route up the Queensland coast is inside the GBR. 🙂

[MMDown Under]

54 minutes ago, Aus Traveller said:

All the maps show that the shipping route up the Queensland coast is inside the GBR. 🙂

That is why all ships must have a pilot through the GBR.  We were lucky our pilot gave us commentary all the way to Darwin.  

[OzKiwiJJ]

24 minutes ago, MMDown Under said:

That is why all ships must have a pilot through the GBR.  We were lucky our pilot gave us commentary all the way to Darwin.  

We had a short commentary around 5pm last night.

 

On one cruise a few years ago we actually went through the Torres Strait in daylight and had excellent commentaries by the reef pilot at various stages. It was brilliant. We got very, very close to shore in a couple of places.

[OzKiwiJJ]

1 hour ago, Hogbay said:

Op is going Brisbane to Cairns. 

Going up to Cairns the ship will probably be inside the reef but if the ship then goes to Willis Island before returning to Brisbane it will come down outside the reef so long way out to sea.

 

On our current cruise we went to Willis Island before Cairns so well out of sight of land for most of those two days.

[Hogbay]

2 hours ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

Going up to Cairns the ship will probably be inside the reef but if the ship then goes to Willis Island before returning to Brisbane it will come down outside the reef so long way out to sea.

 

On our current cruise we went to Willis Island before Cairns so well out of sight of land for most of those two days.

There is no phone reception , The way cruises ships go . You can go by water from Brisbane to Cairns and have phone reception .

[RFGuru]

On 10/18/2022 at 11:31 AM, Hogbay said:

The shipping channel the reef pilot use go's  around the Great Barrier Reef no cell services. 

When I return from New Caledonia on P&O, Telstra network appeared the net arrival back Sydney.

[RFGuru]

Thank you everyone for your help. I don't mind purchase P&O Wifi. Anyone has any experience with P&O wifi? What is the speed like? I just need to access AWS cloud.