Cell Service

[bakerworld]

Could you only text/call while in/near a port? Or did the Verizon Travelwise also work at sea?

Texting and talking worked at sea. The only feature we couldn't work at sea was facetime.

 

[brentm77]

Texting and talking worked at sea. The only feature we couldn't work at sea was facetime.

And did that just fall under the Verizon international plan where they charge you a flat fee each day, since it was just using cell towers on nearby land? I have always been scared to turn my cell on at sea because of horror stories about outrageous bills. So I would turn off mobile service as soon as we sailed out of each port.

 

[bakerworld]

And did that just fall under the Verizon international plan where they charge you a flat fee each day, since it was just using cell towers on nearby land? I have always been scared to turn my cell on at sea because of horror stories about outrageous bills. So I would turn off mobile service as soon as we sailed out of each port.

Yes, it was a flat $10/24 hours. I specify 24 hours because it really seemed to work out to $10 for 2 days. We learned about this when we went to London in the Spring so I knew it would work for the cruise in the Fall. We did only use one cell and we turned off the other until we were in Nassau (their wifi seems to be free - we learned that a while ago).

 

[mz-s]

I've never had a problem just waiting until the ship docks in the home port on debarkation morning to check-in to my flight. Then I don't have to worry about buying wifi or going to guest services or anything like that.

 

[Kwami]

I've never had a problem just waiting until the ship docks in the home port on debarkation morning to check-in to my flight. Then I don't have to worry about buying wifi or going to guest services or anything like that.

With Southwest, you really want to check in exactly 24 hours before the flight if you don't have the extra EarlyBird service.

 

[mz-s]

With Southwest, you really want to check in exactly 24 hours before the flight if you don't have the extra EarlyBird service.

probably true, I don't fly southwest and OP didn't specify their airline so wasn't sure. I typically will fly Spirit or a legacy like American or Delta and it is less important with them.

 

[JWG]

AT&T doesn’t seem to work on the ship. We had to use their $10/day service one day which happened to be Castaway day. As soon as we sailed out of range I got a notice their service did not work with the ship. Maybe a different plan would have.