Can passengers receive faxes onboard?

[pringle]

If anyone knows the answer or has experienced receiving a fax, please post. Thanks.

[VanessaC322]

Although I really don't want anyone to get a hold of me, I would be interested in knowing this also.

[pringle]

I don't either but either I check my email everyday on the ship (work related, ugh) which I don't want to do, or wait for notification that the specific issue I need to address is at hand. That way I don't need to waste time or money on the internet cafe minutes until I know I need to.

 

Here's another question: Do the stateroom phones have voicemail (assuming we'll be away from our cabin most of the time)? It's another alternative. Not to have an extended conversation but someone to leave me a message that I need to check my email.

[skiiergirl]

pringle...I don't know about faxes but if they do let you receive them the cost would probably be high. As far as voicemail, that may depend on what ship you are on. I know the newer ones do have voicemail. But the cost for someone to call you at $7.95 per minute to leave you a voicemail is probably more than the cost of checking email at $ .50 per minute. Hubby has to check email for work so he takes his laptop and buys the cybercabin package at $100 for the week so he can check it at leisure in the room. He then turns the cost in on his expense report.

[pringle]

Thanks skiiergirl, I appreciate your advice. I was just thinking of a way to avoid thinking about work every day but I'd probably end up going to the internet cafe and checking emails daily.

 

 

My thought was if I checked emails daily then there's some part of every day of my vacation that I thought about or did work (even if it's only 15 minutes). However, if I got notification somehow of the one particular issue I need to address, then I only need to do work 1 or 2 days out of the 7 days.

[Nige]

I can think of two alternatives to help you receive faxes - if you really must.....:

 

(a) Ask those who may need to send you a fax to scan the document and send it to you as a .pdf attachment. Of course that only works if the people sending the fax have a scanner.

 

(b) Use a fax service that delivers your faxes to your email. I have used for sometime http://www.efax.com. If you get a limited number of faxes they will give you a number with a random area code and when someone sends a fax it arrive in your email as an attachment. The sender doesn't even know it is not a regular fax machine. You need their software to open the document. If you receive a lot of faxes they have a subscription service that can also give you a local area code.

 

Hope one of the above ideas helps.

[HB Cruiser]

Unfortuantely I have experience in this field.

 

We were on Enchantment, eastern caribbean, in August of 2002 to celebrate our 20th anniversary. On the second night of the cruise we were notified by phone that our bowling center had been destroyed by fire. The next morning I had to deal with the situation from the ship since we were at sea and not expected to reach land until 2:00 that afternoon. We needed to get something from our travel agent via fax and they allowed the TA to send it to the ship.

 

I am not sure if they would allow business related, nonemergeny type, information to be faxed but they did allow this to occur. While I am on the subject, the staff on the Enchantment went out of their way to accomodate us during this situation. They allowed me to make calls from the purser's desk so I would not be charged for them as well as crediting my seapass account for all the calls that was made from my stateroom. This may not sound like much but my bill for calls alone was over $900.

 

I hope this information helps you.

 

Tim

[cruiselovers]

Here's what I tell my company...I'm in the middle of the Caribbean...No phone, No Internet...See you when I get back...I'm paying too much to be working