Texting on iPhones on the ship - Do I need to access my Wifi minutes?

[cfarrow2112]

Hi All,

 

My family (4 of us total) all have iPhones and will be on the Prima in less than 2 weeks.  We only have 150 mins of "free" wifi time with our "Free at Sea" package.

Does texting each other while we are on the ship require us to use those minutes?  We'd obviously like to be in touch without having to pay for it, if possible, while we are doing things separately.

 

Thanks!

[cruiseny4life]

Most iPhone users claim they are able to message using the iPhone messaging app without going online. I forgot what it's called as I'm definitely not owning anything from the devil's company. I think you'll be ok, but am sure plenty of happy Apple users will chime in. 

[cfarrow2112]

Just now, cruiseny4life said:

Most iPhone users claim they are able to message using the iPhone messaging app without going online. I forgot what it's called as I'm definitely not owning anything from the devil's company. I think you'll be ok, but am sure plenty of happy Apple users will chime in. 

 

Apple = The Devil?   I've certainly never heard that before... but I'm sure there's a forum for that! 🙂

[StarAFire]

I am on getaway right now. I can text my sister using iMessage for free.  Just put yourself on airplane mode and connect to ship internet

 

My parents however are on android. We weren’t able to find a free solution and ended up I and my mom had to both join the ncl app text/call plan for $9.95 each. It’s awful. We ended up at the internet manager so many times. Because the phone part would just stop working on the android phone. The iPhone would stop ringing when she called me. We left it as we had obc to use and text working about 85% of the time

Edited April 12, 2023 by StarAFire

[spenecer]

iMessage works while on ship's wi-fi and in airplane mode.  You do not need to be logged in to your minutes.  I tested with a passenger that I randomly met on my first cruise who had an iPhone and I could text him without him being logged in.

[hawkeyetlse]

I don’t what makes iMessage different, but if there was an easy way to make this stop working, I feel confident that NCL would have put that into action by now. They are certainly well aware that iPhone users have been taking advantage of this for years. 

 

You do not get full iMessage functionality. Sometimes you only see a snippet of the message as a notification and it doesn’t show up in the actual Messages app for a while (or ever). And don’t expect photos or “share my location” or any other fancy stuff to work.

[PATRLR]

IMessage works not on to folks on the ship, but to anyone with an Apple phone worldwide.

 

To do it, you put your phone in airplane mode, then turn on WiFi.

Connect to the ship's WiFi but do NOT login or otherwise authenticate against the ships WiFi.  Doing so will enable full internet access and start consuming your minutes.  You do not need full internet access to use iMessage.
Now you should be able to send text messages to other iPhone users.

Note:  Text only.  Pictures, video, etc won't get through.

 

6 minutes ago, hawkeyetlse said:

I don’t what makes iMessage different, but if there was an easy way to make this stop working, I feel confident that NCL would have put that into action by now. They are certainly well aware that iPhone users have been taking advantage of this for years. 

 

Yeah, I don't know either but it must be something significant.  FWIW, I notice United Airlines is actually promoting this exact same access on their inflight networks.

 

[cfarrow2112]

9 minutes ago, PATRLR said:

IMessage works not on to folks on the ship, but to anyone with an Apple phone worldwide.

 

 

Wow, that's great news.  My daughter was IN TEARS that she couldn't text her BF for a whole week! 😆

[hallux]

1 hour ago, StarAFire said:

My parents however are on android.

Interesting that you mention this.  When I was on the Escape in March I was definitely able to use my Android phone (and the Google Messages app) to receive and send SMS/MMS messages to people not on board the ship, without being signed on to access the external internet.

[spenecer]

7 minutes ago, hallux said:

Interesting that you mention this.  When I was on the Escape in March I was definitely able to use my Android phone (and the Google Messages app) to receive and send SMS/MMS messages to people not on board the ship, without being signed on to access the external internet.

Any two people with the same SMS texting app should be able to communicate on or off the ship.  I would assume you could text anyone with the Google Messages app installed.

Edited April 12, 2023 by spenecer

[StarAFire]

24 minutes ago, hallux said:

Interesting that you mention this.  When I was on the Escape in March I was definitely able to use my Android phone (and the Google Messages app) to receive and send SMS/MMS messages to people not on board the ship, without being signed on to access the external internet.

Are you talking about the google chat app or something else?  Because we tried google chat, teams, discord and WhatsApp before giving up and using ncl app. I do oddly see notifications from teams when my co-workers are talking. But when I try and go in the app to see the message it doesn’t load.  Same thing happened when my brother who isn’t on the cruise with us sent an Easter greeting through our google group chat. We all saw the notification but couldn’t open the app to see message or load app to respond. I think my parents can text each other from two android phones although they are typically together.  It’s just we aren’t able to reach each other between iPhone and android. 

Edited April 12, 2023 by StarAFire

[js]

1 hour ago, PATRLR said:

IMessage works not on to folks on the ship, but to anyone with an Apple phone worldwide.

 

To do it, you put your phone in airplane mode, then turn on WiFi.

Connect to the ship's WiFi but do NOT login or otherwise authenticate against the ships WiFi.  Doing so will enable full internet access and start consuming your minutes.  You do not need full internet access to use iMessage.
Now you should be able to send text messages to other iPhone users.

Note:  Text only.  Pictures, video, etc won't get through.

 

 

Yeah, I don't know either but it must be something significant.  FWIW, I notice United Airlines is actually promoting this exact same access on their inflight networks.

 

Thank you for this. My internet minutes come with the FAS but if I follow your instructions, I can text my dh on the ship with our iphones, correct?

 

When we go away, or whwn my kids go abroad, we pay $10 so we can text or call while in another country ( I think this is correct, I let my dh take care of all that stuff). 
 

Anyway, if I do above, can I also text my adult kids  back home?

 

My guess for why this is still a thing is so crew can text each other maybe. 
 

Thank you. 

[hallux]

23 minutes ago, spenecer said:

I would assume you could text anyone with the Google Messages app installed.

Except one was a group chat, with one member having an iPhone (yes, my primary circle is mostly Android. Shocking, isn't it?)

21 minutes ago, StarAFire said:

Are you talking about the google chat app or something else?

Messages, the texting app.

[PTC DAWG]

4 hours ago, cruiseny4life said:

Most iPhone users claim they are able to message using the iPhone messaging app without going online. I forgot what it's called as I'm definitely not owning anything from the devil's company. I think you'll be ok, but am sure plenty of happy Apple users will chime in. 

LOL

[fredflint]

We were not able to make wifi calls on my Android phone but i could make voip calls.

My wife with an iPhone had no issues.  One  reason it is nice sometimes to have both types of  phones.

[spenecer]

13 hours ago, StarAFire said:

Are you talking about the google chat app or something else?  Because we tried google chat, teams, discord and WhatsApp before giving up and using ncl app. 

None of those are SMS apps.  Clearly they have to leave SMS open to allow the NCL chat app to work which is why it works for iMessage and Google Messages.  Both of those send SMS.

[BigRedFan]

17 hours ago, cfarrow2112 said:

Hi All,

 

My family (4 of us total) all have iPhones and will be on the Prima in less than 2 weeks.  We only have 150 mins of "free" wifi time with our "Free at Sea" package.

Does texting each other while we are on the ship require us to use those minutes?  We'd obviously like to be in touch without having to pay for it, if possible, while we are doing things separately.

 

Thanks!

you can text on imessage between iphones as long as you stay in airplane mode.

Genzi

[cruisinmeme]

The texting question has been answered many times (above) but you mention you have 150 internet minutes. Most of the free at sea is 150 mins for first two people.  My husband does not use any minutes so i had his minutes applied to my phone.  Internet guy can do that.  Also if you do any emails. While logged out type up your email, log in to send the email. 

Edited April 13, 2023 by cruisinmeme
LEFT OUT A WORD