Emergency phone number?

[DVC Jen]

Is there an emergency phone number in case family members, dog boarding facility needs to get in touch with us while we are on board? Or do I just give the normal DCL phone number with ship and room information to them?

 

[scgustafson]

Yes, it is provided in the cruise booklet sent to you about 30-days before your sailing.

 

[DVC Jen]

Yes, it is provided in the cruise booklet sent to you about 30-days before your sailing.

Thank you. It has been 5 years since we last sailed. I had forgotten about that.

 

[DynamicDisneyDuo]

Make sure they know to keep any calls short and to the point as it is expensive.

 

[Dug720]

Make sure they know to keep any calls short and to the point as it is expensive.

This. And I am pretty sure the person calling has to enter a credit card number. I doubt a dog sitting facility is going to be doing that.

 

[sweetpee_1993]

This. And I am pretty sure the person calling has to enter a credit card number. I doubt a dog sitting facility is going to be doing that.

They do have to enter a credit card. Still no guarantee they’ll get you. Hubby spent $200 trying to get me on the Dream in September. Took that + about 7 hours for me to even get a message to call him.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

They do have to enter a credit card. Still no guarantee they’ll get you. Hubby spent $200 trying to get me on the Dream in September. Took that + about 7 hours for me to even get a message to call him.

Seems like email might be faster. Even email onboard a ship.

 

[sweetpee_1993]

Seems like email might be faster. Even email onboard a ship.

I was out of mbs & getting off the ship the next morning. But, yes, email would’ve been exponentially faster even at DCL’s speeds.

 

[xavier2001]

We had people communicate with us via email. You can log on and check your emails for 1-2 megabytes. You get 50 free ones which equals lots of checking in.

 

[gotomu212]

Just a suggestion but when we cruise we give the dog boarding the name of a local friend that we trust to make any emergency decisions for our pet. Short of approving an emergency procedure/medicine there’s not much you can do from sea if they need you. We let the friend know what we’d be comfortable with and he’d go and get our dog if there was some freak emergency where you couldn’t stay anymore.

 

[Ravenne]

They do have to enter a credit card. Still no guarantee they’ll get you. Hubby spent $200 trying to get me on the Dream in September. Took that + about 7 hours for me to even get a message to call him.

Holy crap! What's the point of even using their "emergency" number then?

 

[DVC Jen]

This. And I am pretty sure the person calling has to enter a credit card number. I doubt a dog sitting facility is going to be doing that.

They will if they have our credit card number to do so

 

[DVC Jen]

We had people communicate with us via email. You can log on and check your emails for 1-2 megabytes. You get 50 free ones which equals lots of checking in.

This is a great suggestion. Thank you

 

[YawningDodo]

Just a suggestion but when we cruise we give the dog boarding the name of a local friend that we trust to make any emergency decisions for our pet. Short of approving an emergency procedure/medicine there’s not much you can do from sea if they need you. We let the friend know what we’d be comfortable with and he’d go and get our dog if there was some freak emergency where you couldn’t stay anymore.

Yeah, we board with our vet and they have blanket approval to provide emergency treatment without calling to confirm. Similarly, when I'm leaving my pets in my housemate's care next fall I'm going to contact the vet and let them know that she has the authority to make those decisions on my behalf. OP, can you make arrangements between the boarding facility and your regular vet to pre-authorize care? It sounds like they may not be able to reach you in a timely fashion even if they have your permission to charge it to your card.

 

[DVC Jen]

Yeah, we board with our vet and they have blanket approval to provide emergency treatment without calling to confirm. Similarly, when I'm leaving my pets in my housemate's care next fall I'm going to contact the vet and let them know that she has the authority to make those decisions on my behalf. OP, can you make arrangements between the boarding facility and your regular vet to pre-authorize care? It sounds like they may not be able to reach you in a timely fashion even if they have your permission to charge it to your card.

I will be doing that. We just had an incident with the vet we used for 16 years, and left them because of it. It's a long story but to shorten it a bit they told us to come in and they would get us in ( we would have to wait which was fine) when our male newfie split open an incision that was just a few days old. We got there and they changed their story saying they would only board him over night and have someone put staples in the next morning. Wouldn't even allow a tech to look at him. We ended up taking him to the emergency vet. It took them a whopping 10 minutes to get him back, stapled and back to us. After 16 years with them we expected better treatment. There had been a few other instances over the years but we let them slide. This was the final straw. So we now have a new vet and will be boarding with our groomer instead of the old vet like we used to (new vet doesn't have boarding facilities).

 

[su_A_ve]

My suggestion would be to pay for the data plan, properly set up the device to minimize data consumption, and have the facility IM (FB Messenger, Twitter IM, iMessage, WhatApp, etc).

 

[rhinodadz]

Most cell phone providers have per text price when roaming. Turn off mobile data on your phone and you'll only be charged the rate for sending/receiving texts.

 

[kiford]

Just a suggestion but when we cruise we give the dog boarding the name of a local friend that we trust to make any emergency decisions for our pet. Short of approving an emergency procedure/medicine there’s not much you can do from sea if they need you. We let the friend know what we’d be comfortable with and he’d go and get our dog if there was some freak emergency where you couldn’t stay anymore.

I used to board my cats with the vet and they had me sign a document indicating that I was authorizing them to do emergency treatment (up to some $ amount I think) either at their premises or with the emergency veterinary clinic in town. The last few years I have been having friends come in and take care of the cats (3 cats boarded at the vet for 3 weeks gets a bit pricey!) so I provide a letter authorizing them to take any of the cats to my vet and to run up a bill for a certain $ amount. My vet actually suggested this so that they could show it they needed treatment and the clinic would bill me afterwards. In reality, I expect my friends would probably pay on my behalf and have me pay them back but this at least lets them know how much I'd be willing to pay back. That then gives them a day at least to get in touch with me without waiting on treatment and I can authorize more if needed. They do the same for me when I look after their cats.

I currently have one cat who's recently had major surgery (I had basically only a couple of hours to decide on doing it or euthanizing her as she was in such bad condition) so I expect I'll probably board her with the vet and will arrange for them to handle any emergencies. Given her condition, any emergency would have to be handled immediately and is likely to be expensive so I don't want to put that on them. I'll still be giving my contact information also to my friends and a letter both for the cats at home and the one in the clinic and will give the clinic their name as emergency contact.

 

[cyclenut]

Cell phone services and pricing have evolved. I just returned from WBPC and did not use airplane mode on my phone. I turned off the data roaming capability on my phone and left my cell service working. You can still receive calls and text messages. Text messages received are five cents each on my plan and when I send one they are fifty cents each. Calls are much more expensive, but if you don't answer the call, there is no charge.

Like most places, there is no cell service every place you go on the ship, but many places there is. You will need to set your time synchronization to manual as the ship time is set to GMT. You'll want to manually change your time zone as directed in the Navigator during your sailing.

Contact your cell carrier to ensure your plan and phone line is enabled for international calling. It doesn't cost anything to enable it, but it isn't enabled automatically.