Turn your phone off during cruise duration?

[canderson]

45 minutes ago, Charles4515 said:

It is not a requirement but it is headed that way. 

Depending upon X's IT for shoreside comms is scary enough as many of us already know.  I'm not yet ready for them to ruin the experience aboard.

[Jeremiah1212]

I can't say in the past 3-4 cruises I have seen all of this erroneous info in the app. It works quite well lately. Notable improvement from several years ago.

 

I'm one of those hooligans that uses his phone onboard. Obviously use WiFi on the ship, pay the AT&T $10 day pass rate in Caribbean stops, and use a $15-$20 eSim in Europe which saved me about $140 last trip. 

[sanger727]

On 10/27/2022 at 10:36 AM, Bigdrinks said:

No, it depends on your data contract with your service provider surely? Nowadays most have data roaming included, thus no need to switch off! 

 

Note how I didn't resort to the “if you don’t do it like me, you’re doing it wrong” motif. 😉

 

I would really like to know what cell phone providers included free international data roaming! I've never seen that.

[LB_NJ]

On 10/27/2022 at 8:50 AM, NJRonbo said:

It has been a long time (12 years) since I cruised and will be on my first Celebrity vacation next year.

 

There used to be a big warning to cruise travelers to turn off their phones (or at least the cellular connection) during a cruise.

Reason being, when you are out of range of the domestic cell towers, your phone is now roaming and can accumulate all sorts of data charges during your time onboard and on foreign soil from signal roaming.

Is this still a problem?  Is it necessary to turn your cellular connection off during a cruise?

Turn phone to Airplane Mode then turn on Wi-Fi.

[GottaKnowWhen]

3 hours ago, sanger727 said:

 

I would really like to know what cell phone providers included free international data roaming! I've never seen that.

T-Mobile/Sprint. But you need to be in a country, within reach of a cell tower, not out at sea. At sea you are piggybacking on Celebrity's satellite access and need to pay Celebrity for the privilege.

[canderson]

2 minutes ago, GottaKnowWhen said:

T-Mobile/Sprint. But you need to be in a country, within reach of a cell tower, not out at sea. At sea you are piggybacking on Celebrity's satellite access and need to pay Celebrity for the privilege.

^^^ This.  Was/am on Sprint.  Switched, finally,  SIM to T-Moblile which they kept harping about - using an old plan carried forward from Nextel to Sprint to T-Mobile.

[DaKahuna]

 I use the ships horn at sail away as my signal to put our phones in airplane mode.  Prior to the COVID shutdown, I would leave our phones in the safe and only use the WiFi for my tablet or PC.  Now I find having the phone with it's wonderful camera, access to the electronic schedule/daily planner, restaurant and bar menus worth carrying. 

 

Since we always have the premium WiFi package.  Our shipboard routing is to connect my Wife's iPad to the ships WiFi so she can watch the things she wants to watch on YouTube.  Her phone gets turned off and goes into the safe.  On the other had, I primarily use the WiFi for my iPhone and our kids know to call my number and not their mom's if they need to reach us.  

I do alternate my connections between the iPHone, my MacBook Air, and my iPad depending on the activity that I am engaged in.  It is all 100% personal use since I am retired and have not 'work' commitments that require me to be connected.  

 

[sanger727]

14 hours ago, GottaKnowWhen said:

T-Mobile/Sprint. But you need to be in a country, within reach of a cell tower, not out at sea. At sea you are piggybacking on Celebrity's satellite access and need to pay Celebrity for the privilege.

hmm. Interesting. I stand corrected. Though to get their plan w international coverage is almost 3X what I pay now so probably not a good investment for me.

[CNSfromHI]

My two cents: Turning off cellular on an iPhone (I have a 12) does NOT prevent you from racking up roaming charges and other unexpected billing nonsense -- a hard lesson I learned after our September cruise courtesy of AT&T. 😡

 

As I've since learned, and as others have stated here, Airplane mode enables use of WiFi and Bluetooth without the unpleasant billing surprises.

 

cjr

[GottaKnowWhen]

2 minutes ago, CNSfromHI said:

My two cents: Turning off cellular on an iPhone (I have a 12) does NOT prevent you from racking up roaming charges and other unexpected billing nonsense -- a hard lesson I learned after our September cruise courtesy of AT&T. 😡

 

As I've since learned, and as others have stated here, Airplane mode enables use of WiFi and Bluetooth without the unpleasant billing surprises.

 

cjr

That’s why I switched from AT&T to Sprint, hundreds dollars charges on a Europe trip in 2017 or 2018. I thought I had their $10/day plan set up, they tricked me with the fine print.

[TravelingCircusof5]

What about if you need to receive calls from shore? Will they come through on the wifi using your actual phone number? If we book,  my son will be on a different international school trip (Europe) with chaperones while i would be in the Caribbean. I am worried about being able to be notified if he gets sick or an emergency. I hope i don’t get any calls, but what number would you give?

[RichYak]

6 minutes ago, TravelingCircusof5 said:

What about if you need to receive calls from shore? Will they come through on the wifi using your actual phone number? If we book,  my son will be on a different international school trip (Europe) with chaperones while i would be in the Caribbean. I am worried about being able to be notified if he gets sick or an emergency. I hope i don’t get any calls, but what number would you give?

If you enable wi-fi calling on your phone, you can receive calls using your own phone number via wifi with cellular turned off.

[GottaKnowWhen]

13 minutes ago, TravelingCircusof5 said:

What about if you need to receive calls from shore? Will they come through on the wifi using your actual phone number? If we book,  my son will be on a different international school trip (Europe) with chaperones while i would be in the Caribbean. I am worried about being able to be notified if he gets sick or an emergency. I hope i don’t get any calls, but what number would you give?

Check your booking documents. An emergency contact number is given. 

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Emergency: Friends and family can contact the ship by calling 877-266-1020. From outside the U.S., they can call 321-953-9002. The cost is $7.95 USD a minute. This can be charged to their MasterCard^® or Visa^®.

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The caller will need to know your ship's name, your name, and your cabin number. As I recall, the call comes to Guest Services, they try to call you in your cabin, if no answer they leave you a voice message. You can call out, again at $7.95/minute. Or you can wait until the next time you are near an island with cell service you can use via roaming.

 

Stan

[markeb]

29 minutes ago, TravelingCircusof5 said:

What about if you need to receive calls from shore? Will they come through on the wifi using your actual phone number? If we book,  my son will be on a different international school trip (Europe) with chaperones while i would be in the Caribbean. I am worried about being able to be notified if he gets sick or an emergency. I hope i don’t get any calls, but what number would you give?

 

Yes. You can also give the emergency number as posted, but if you're on WiFi calling, it works as though you're on your home network. Connect it and try it at home if you haven't before! (Turn on WiFi calling, switch to airplane mode, and wait for WiFi calling to show. Then make a call.)