Avoid cell roaming and use new internet package?

[nancipants]

Just back from the cruise on the fantasy. I purchased the highest speed option for the length of the cruise. It’s a massive game changing improvement over the prior system. It was $36/day or $30/day if bought for the length of cruise. Very easy to share across devices and family members. We had some personal and business reasons to stay connected while on the cruise and this worked well.

Thanks for the update! Did you use iMessage or any other kind of texting all with the plan? I’m assuming those will all work with the various plans?

 

[MarriedAtDisney]

iMessage worked for all of us all the time, text only. Some apps had notifications come thru as well.

 

[n2mm]

I noticed there are 3 levels of wifi packages you can buy. I need to book my dvc reservation while on the ship. Can someone answer which plan I need? Would the middle one be sufficient? Only need it for hopefully one day.

 

[LambertLion]

imessage works by accident on Disney, not by design. I’ve had this verified by many people on the forums and by the crew onboard. It may work for you your entire cruise, it may only work for one or two days, it’s a crap shoot. We’ve had it go both ways on our cruises. If you want dependability for iMessage to work, you should buy their data plans. We bought the new plan on the Wish and it was a HUGE upgrade over the old packagaes Disney offered (tho still behind in terms of speed and freedom use streaming data compared to other cruise lines.) If the cruise you are going on has the new data plan, I advise getting it and you’ll be fine For iMessage at any level of their data plan.

 

[YourEveryDayAdam]

As someone who has some technical experience on this:

The reason iMessage works on Disney cruise is because of the push notifications for the DCL APP. For DCL to be able to send push notifications to the DCL APP they have to allow certain traffic from Apple's internet servers. That internet traffic is encrypted between Apple's servers and your phone. As such it's impossible for the Disney Internet provider to tell whether that traffic is "DCL APP" traffic or other Apple traffic.

Turns out, the push message notification internet traffic is indistinguishable from iMessage traffic. They both use the same set of systems on Apple's servers to make it work. iMessage is, essentially, a "push notification" for the messages app. The encryption between Apple's servers and your phone makes it impossible for Disney to tell what the push notification is for...DCL APP or anything else that uses those same servers. Basically: They can't block iMessage without also blocking the DCL APP push notifications.

 

[Lisa Lisa]

Just back from the cruise on the fantasy. I purchased the highest speed option for the length of the cruise. It’s a massive game changing improvement over the prior system. It was $36/day or $30/day if bought for the length of cruise. Very easy to share across devices and family members. We had some personal and business reasons to stay connected while on the cruise and this worked well.

When you mention sharing with family members I'm assuming you mean you purchased an individual package. Did that mean that only one of you could be logged in a time?

 

[MarriedAtDisney]

When you mention sharing with family members I'm assuming you mean you purchased an individual package. Did that mean that only one of you could be logged in a time?

more specifically we purchased for one device. That basically means one device at a time. So you can login on another device and disconnect the prior device and use the new one. So think of it as purchasing concurrent use licenses.

 

[Lisa Lisa]

more specifically we purchased for one device. That basically means one device at a time. So you can login on another device and disconnect the prior device and use the new one. So think of it as purchasing concurrent use licenses.

Thanks for the quick response! I'm thinking about purchasing for two devices to be shared among my family of three.

 

[nikem3]

Has this rolled out on the Dream yet too? Or is it still the old package?

 

[dina444444]

Has this rolled out on the Dream yet too? Or is it still the old package?

The dream and the wonder have not received the upgrade yet.

 

[Girl of the South]

As someone who has some technical experience on this:

The reason iMessage works on Disney cruise is because of the push notifications for the DCL APP. For DCL to be able to send push notifications to the DCL APP they have to allow certain traffic from Apple's internet servers. That internet traffic is encrypted between Apple's servers and your phone. As such it's impossible for the Disney Internet provider to tell whether that traffic is "DCL APP" traffic or other Apple traffic.

Turns out, the push message notification internet traffic is indistinguishable from iMessage traffic. They both use the same set of systems on Apple's servers to make it work. iMessage is, essentially, a "push notification" for the messages app. The encryption between Apple's servers and your phone makes it impossible for Disney to tell what the push notification is for...DCL APP or anything else that uses those same servers. Basically: They can't block iMessage without also blocking the DCL APP push notifications.

Interested in this explanation. When I am on a Disney ship I am in Airplane mode and low battery mode AND Notifications are turned off. Is there an iPhone configuration that would be more "amenable" to iMessage working on the ship? It's not a necessity but would be nice. THANKS YourEveryDayAdam!

 

[YourEveryDayAdam]

Interested in this explanation. When I am on a Disney ship I am in Airplane mode and low battery mode AND Notifications are turned off. Is there an iPhone configuration that would be more "amenable" to iMessage working on the ship? It's not a necessity but would be nice. THANKS YourEveryDayAdam!

If you have push notifications off, that might be why you don't get iMessages. It's also possible that when iMessage doesn't work, neither do the Disney Cruise app push notifications...i.e. just normal technical issues with Disney Cruise internet. You might leave push notifications turned on. They don't use that much traffic at all if you're trying to save data usage.

Low battery mode also likely prevents the phone from being available for push notifications. Basically, it takes some extra power to always be "ready" to receive a push notification. Low battery mode likely makes the phone "pull" for notifications...in that it just wakes up every few minutes and checks...or it just disables them altogether.

I don't think there is a good compromise there. Leave the phone in just regular airplane mode and connected to Disney Wifi and it should work. Low battery and disabling push notifications are likely things that would cause the phone to not do the things it needs to for the push notifications, and as such iMessage, to work right.

 

[Girl of the South]

If you have push notifications off, that might be why you don't get iMessages. It's also possible that when iMessage doesn't work, neither do the Disney Cruise app push notifications...i.e. just normal technical issues with Disney Cruise internet. You might leave push notifications turned on. They don't use that much traffic at all if you're trying to save data usage.

Low battery mode also likely prevents the phone from being available for push notifications. Basically, it takes some extra power to always be "ready" to receive a push notification. Low battery mode likely makes the phone "pull" for notifications...in that it just wakes up every few minutes and checks...or it just disables them altogether.

I don't think there is a good compromise there. Leave the phone in just regular airplane mode and connected to Disney Wifi and it should work. Low battery and disabling push notifications are likely things that would cause the phone to not do the things it needs to for the push notifications, and as such iMessage, to work right.

Thanks so much! Maybe this will solve the mystery of why it works and then doesn't work. The reason I have notifications turned off is 1. I find them annoying and 2. I believe they are sleuthing in the background but I guess if I am in Airplane mode, that shouldn't be an issue? It's the same reason I use Low Battery Mode, which was shown to me by a DCL tech guy when my 50 free mb went POOF in 10 seconds! This was a guy who used to be near the shared computers center. I suspect they are long gone.

I won't be buying any level of Internet Package . . . will have free wifi in Mexico and can turn on Verizon Travel Pass on Castaway Cay if necessary.

In the meantime, I will make sure iMessage is turned on.

Notifications - I see there is an option to turn it ON or OFF for the specific Disney Cruise App. So that should be ON?

And Low Battery - I will not use it. Unless I have a low battery. Maybe the ship wifi that 'powers' the Disney Fantasy digital Navigator will boost the iMessage reliability. I will report back, although the cruise is not until December.

THANK YOU for your tech explanation!