Emergencys at home while on cruise

[jpeppers]

I plan to turn my phone off while on the ship so I was wondering if there was a way to be notified if there was an emergency at home while on your cruise? I have elderly parents and hate to be completely out of touch but don't want to pay cell phone rates while on the trip. Thanks in advance!

[pdwimmer]

Originally Posted by jpeppers

I plan to turn my phone off while on the ship so I was wondering if there was a way to be notified if there was an emergency at home while on your cruise? I have elderly parents and hate to be completely out of touch but don't want to pay cell phone rates while on the trip. Thanks in advance!

When you get your cruise packet from Disney there is a section that has an emergency number that someone from home can use to contact you. They will have to pay international long distance rates.

[MPS516]

Don't forget your passport even if you are on a closed circuit trip, you will need it to get off the ship and fly home should that emergency occur.

[MissMet]

My dad is a pastor. Once while on a cruise we got word that one of the church board member's 19 year old son was tragically & unexpectedly killed. Luckily, we were in Puerto Rico that day & were able to get a decent flight home for my dad. It was day 3 of our 10 day cruise. We had left that emergency card with the ship's number on it with the church office. So make sure you have your passport, give that number to anyone who may need to get ahold of you & check your stateroom messages.

[kcashner]

Ship to shore rates are $7 per minute, and the caller will have to give a credit card number when they call.

Another option is e-mail. There are wifi areas in every port where we have looked, either free or very inexpensive. Some are at internet cafes which sometimes also rent international cell phones (at one port it was $3 for 30 minutes phone time). Easy if you just want to check in. Internet on the ship is very slow and very costly, but if someone just wanted to check in or leave an "everything is OK" message, this could work.

[blessedmomofboys]

My inlaws were on a 14 night cruise when I went into premature labor and had my oldest son 6 weeks early. The fastest way to reach them was to pay the ship to shore rates. Our fraud dept of our credit card co called to make sure they were legit charges as it was so expensive. But we were able to leave them messages and such on their room phone.

[nkochrn]

I've been wondering about this too! My Dad has a stage IV cancer and in the event something would happen to him while I'm gone I need them to be able to get a hold of me! This is also the whole reason we decided to go ahead and get passports.

[gigi1313]

with a 90yo mom and an ailing mil, i checked my text messages every morning... i could scroll thru to see who texted and only open (and pay for) those that seemed important (very few)... you may want to set up a text relationship w/someone at home (if you don't have one already) for just this purpose.

[reigle4]

you can put your phone on airplane mode so you don't get data charges. If you have Verizon you only get charged 50 cents for outbound texts and 5 cents for inbound texts. Tell everyone who may call you that you will not be accepting any calls except emergency and that way you won't have to pay for the calls. Outbound calls are $2.49 a minute and that is not much to pay for the peace of mind if there is an emergency.

ATT has a plan that you can pay $10 before you go and have international calling. without it they charge 89 cents a minute. Hope this helps

[disney1990]

I plan to check our phone periodically to see who has called. Calling rate for Cellular at Sea is $2.49 vs $7.00 for the Ship to Shore Rates. Much cheaper to use our cell phone. People watching our house have been told to text us if they need us -- at 5 cents to receive and 50 cents to send - I consider it a bargain.

That said, I hope nobody gets sick or dies while we are on our 7 day cruise, because we won't be coming home early.