Can you check in for airline on ship

[DopeyDame]

We'll be flying home on southwest. We don't usually pay for the early check in and just checkin ourselves at 24 hours. But of course we'll be in the middle of the ocean. Is there a way to checkin on the ship or should we just buy the early checkin?

 

[MillauFr]

The ship has WiFi so yes you can check in.

 

[mmouse37]

You would have to buy the internet package...you could just purchase the smallest package to sign in.

I checked us in while we were on Castaway Cay in January since I had a travel pass from my wireless carrier. $10 a day out of the country.

MJ

 

[Freeman867]

For the amount you'd pay for the wireless package, probably just better to have the piece of mind and purchase the guaranteed early check-in if you're on Southwest. The internet is still slow and spotty, and you're going up against people checking in at the same 24 hour mark who don't have those issues. In my experience, even if you check in right at the 24 hour mark, you can still get a C boarding pass, so probably best to just purchase the check-in and not worry about it.

 

[MomOTwins]

You would have to buy the internet package...you could just purchase the smallest package to sign in.

I checked us in while we were on Castaway Cay in January since I had a travel pass from my wireless carrier. $10 a day out of the country.

MJ

Not necessarily: if you go to the connect at sea site on the first day of the cruise, they will give you 50MB of internet free for use during the cruise. That is plenty for an online check in.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Not necessarily: if you go to the connect at sea site on the first day of the cruise, they will give you 50MB of internet free for use during the cruise. That is plenty for an online check in.

As long as your can control your phone from doing crazy stuff in the background. I tried to check in for my flight on ship wifi, and the second I enabled my phone to connect to the internet, it went crazy trying to download every email I had missed over the past five days and I was out of data before I got through the check-in process.

 

[Freeman867]

As long as your can control your phone from doing crazy stuff in the background. I tried to check in for my flight on ship wifi, and the second I enabled my phone to connect to the internet, it went crazy trying to download every email I had missed over the past five days and I was out of data before I got through the check-in process.

I'd be very worried about this very thing. The second you re-connect, the phone is going to want to catch up and download all mail, texts, everything. That would eat up a ton of data before you had a chance to check in. There are settings to turn this auto-refresh off, but wouldn't trust it in this situation.

 

[ironz]

We used the ship Wifi instead of doing early bird check in. We had forgotten to get the free ship Wifi on the first day, so we would have used that, so I bought the smaller package for $19, which was less than paying a total of $40 for our EBCI. I had disabled all of the automatic updates and push notifications on my phone and it only took 2MB of the 100 that we purchased to complete our checkin on the Southwest app.
(note: we did not get the best check in number because there was delays in communicating if my husband was going to check us in or if I was, and I was in the middle of a bingo game--lol)

 

[insureman]

Avoid the stress and buy early check in if your using Southwest. On Castaway Cay day before they had cell service on the island I used to go back to the ship and guest services would do it for me. What a hassle that was, so when they introduced early check in I started using that on the return flight.

 

[Beaker314]

You can also just get early check in for one person. They can get on and save seats for the rest. Even if trying to check in on the boat, it would ensure you at least have something in case the internet is flaky when you try.

 

[Chemist]

You can also just get early check in for one person. They can get on and save seats for the rest. Even if trying to check in on the boat, it would ensure you at least have something in case the internet is flaky when you try.

Please don't do that. Besides that it is against Southwest rules, its really obnoxious.

 

[Girl of the South]

On a trans Atlantic Disney cruise the tech guy told me a trick with iPhones. If you switch to Low Power Mode (the battery in the corner turns yellow) "your phone reduces its brightness, disables email pushing and turns off background app refresh completely." So much easier than disabling background app refresh on it's own.

 

[Mle8308]

You can also just get early check in for one person. They can get on and save seats for the rest. Even if trying to check in on the boat, it would ensure you at least have something in case the internet is flaky when you try.

Please don't do that. Besides that it is against Southwest rules, its really obnoxious.

I wish I could like this comment 100 times!!!

 

[mmouse37]

Not necessarily: if you go to the connect at sea site on the first day of the cruise, they will give you 50MB of internet free for use during the cruise. That is plenty for an online check in.

Yes, you just have to remember to sign up for it the first day but not use the wifi before you need to check in....that 50 MB goes fast!

MJ

 

[LeiaOfAlderaan]

On a trans Atlantic Disney cruise the tech guy told me a trick with iPhones. If you switch to Low Power Mode (the battery in the corner turns yellow) "your phone reduces its brightness, disables email pushing and turns off background app refresh completely." So much easier than disabling background app refresh on it's own.

Similarly I just recently learned that iPhones have a Low Data Mode you can turn on for a specific WiFi network. Supposedly it stops everything going on in the background. I’ll be testing it out on my next cruise.

 

[JWelch62]

Similarly I just recently learned that iPhones have a Low Data Mode you can turn on for a specific WiFi network. Supposedly it stops everything going on in the background. I’ll be testing it out on my next cruise.

You can also do this with Android. When you connect to DCL-Guest you can set it up as "metered". Then you turn on the data saver option in network settings. This will prevent all apps from using background data. You can add specific exemptions.

 

[Chemist]

What you CAN do is buy early check-in for JUST the members of your party that need it.

(My teenager doesn't need me to sit with him, my husband is okay solo, but not happy in a middle seat. My 8 year old is too old for family boarding so I'd buy early check-in for him and one parent, and leave the other two to fend for themselves.)

 

[msmama]

I go with the early bird check-in on my way home, every time. I don't want to pause my vacation with 24 hours left to check in. More than worth the money for me, even though early bird is getting $$$.

 

[mlayman7]

You can also just get early check in for one person. They can get on and save seats for the rest. Even if trying to check in on the boat, it would ensure you at least have something in case the internet is flaky when you try.

This is very rude. Please do not do this.

 

[MomOTwins]

This is very rude. Please do not do this.

I actually don’t think this is possible. We recently did early bird check in and the way it worked is that Southwest automatically assigned us a boarding number before the general public can check in. You can’t go in early and do it for yourself (or others).