communication back home

[lizajune]

We are traveling with friends on our cruise in October and they are leaving their infant home with Gramma. What is the best way for them to keep in touch with home. Do international calling cards work on the ships or at the ports. What about cell phones? Do they work at ports? I would truly appreciate any info you could pass my way. Thanks so very much. Lisa

 

[traycie2201]

there is an internet cafe which has unlimited access for about $80 a week so e mail / im would be good, the ship phones are about $7 a minute so doable but expensive and charged to your shipboard account, there are phones in all ports and i think tri band cellphones work in ports too.

 

[ksjayhawks]

Callaing from the ship is very expensive-$6.95 or higher a minute. Her best bet would probably be to get an international calling card with a lot of minutes on it (remember some of the minutes will be lost due to access charges). I've read on some threads that some people have had luck with cell phones--depends what ports and what service you have. Key West should be no problem for cellphones.

Sure some other posters can give you more info on cell phones. We always take the calling cards and use them.

 

[kcashner]

First, give grandma DCL's number for an emergency. If an at home emergency occurs, the cruise line office will contact the ship, and they will get a message to you. They have a history of allowing FREE ship to shore phone use in the event of immediate family emergencies (can't say that they will do this, but they have done it in the past.)

Your next best bet is the internet package if grandma is internet savvy. Yes, international phone cards work in all ports. Some cell phones work in some ports--depends on your brand, etc. You might get blasted with big international rates if you don't have an international package. Ship to shore is $7 per minute...pretty pricey just to "check in" if you could use the internet instead. Also, talk to the CMs (dinner servers are a good bet) about where the best places are to call from--these guys know everything about the ports.

Internet usage is 75 cents a minute if you don't want to do the package.

 

[Rence]

With regards to Cell Phones, call you Cell phone company or stop by one of their stores and ask.

We got a lot of conflicting information with regards to Sprint, but calling customer service we got the latest and greatest. They had just added service in St. Thomas and it was considered a local call, so no roaming charges to call home. However, because service was new and phones needed a software update to work there. If we hadn't called, we wouldn't have known. Got the update and it worked great. My sister who also had Sprint did not get the update and her phone didn't work.