International Texting - would this work?

[momoftwins]

Hi all. We will be on the Med cruise and i have a question re: texting, Facebook, etc

If we put our phones on airplane mode and turn on Wifi, can we do texting to US, Facebook etc for free as long as we are connected to Wifi? I am thinking about when we are out and about and we happen to find free wifi at say a restaurant, etc.

Thanks and have a great day!!

 

[ACQUADUCK]

There are places in the ports that have free wifi so you can use thoose hotspots.

Restaurants, also on private shore trips for example.

 

[momoftwins]

There are places in the ports that have free wifi so you can use thoose hotspots.

Restaurants, also on private shore trips for example.

So, just to make sure ... if we did what I said, it would be free to send texts to US and read FB, etc at the wifi hotspot? We do not have international roaming.

Thanks!

 

[ACQUADUCK]

So, just to make sure ... if we did what I said, it would be free to send texts to US and read FB, etc at the wifi hotspot? We do not have international roaming.

Thanks!

I do it, there are free wifi places, if it comes via your data, which FB does, at free wifi it works. I have uploaded photos etc for free.

Depending on your phone you could select wifi only.

 

[Anchors Away 2016]

So, just to make sure ... if we did what I said, it would be free to send texts to US and read FB, etc at the wifi hotspot? We do not have international roaming.

Thanks!

On free WiFi, you are using your phone like a computer, not like a phone. After all, you will be in airplane mode. No cell tower usage, only Internet. Bandwidth is your only issue. How much data can the WiFi where you will be handle. Texts? No problem! E-mail? Fine! Want to stream video? That could be an issue.

For example (not that I would suggest it in a restaurant), when I was in a hotel in France, I was able to Skype/videochat every night with my family on my phone via the hotel's WiFi at no cost to me. Their bandwidth on their WiFi could handle it. Some can't. So if you are on WiFi, and in airplane mode, you won't have any trouble with Roaming costs or International plans.

Have Fun!

 

[momoftwins]

On free WiFi, you are using your phone like a computer, not like a phone. After all, you will be in airplane mode. No cell tower usage, only Internet. Bandwidth is your only issue. How much data can the WiFi where you will be handle. Texts? No problem! E-mail? Fine! Want to stream video? That could be an issue.

For example (not that I would suggest it in a restaurant), when I was in a hotel in France, I was able to Skype/videochat every night with my family on my phone via the hotel's WiFi at no cost to me. Their bandwidth on their WiFi could handle it. Some can't. So if you are on WiFi, and in airplane mode, you won't have any trouble with Roaming costs or International plans.

Have Fun!

Thanks so much!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[mousefan73]

But doesn’t airplane mode automatically shut off all connections even wifi? So you have to go to settings and activily look. Turn also cellular off.

 

[laceltris3]

I got a Skyroam device for our Baltic cruise last year. Once you get the device, it's $10 (or $8, depending on how you buy the day passes) per 24 hours for unlimited wifi for up to 5 devices on a secured Wifi. It was so worth the investment. We were close enough to the shore that we would have connectivity almost all the time, and we could use it only on days when we wanted to. It is in a ton of countries, and we are taking it on all of our international trips so we don't have to worry about using unsecured public Wifi.

 

[ACQUADUCK]

But doesn’t airplane mode automatically shut off all connections even wifi? So you have to go to settings and activily look. Turn also cellular off.

(1) switch to airplane mode.
- this does turn wifi off.
(2) turn wifi mode back on.

 

[amberwc]

I have a question for texting, do you have to add any country code or anything? We're heading out on ABD next month and I was planning on doing the same thing.

 

[Geomom]

DD18 was using Google Chat with us when she had WIFI in Germany as we couldn't get international texting to work on her phone even after we put a European SIM card in it. It worked well enough so that we had some sort of contact with her!

 

[Minniesgal]

Everyone is saying texting but technically no you cannot text on airplane mode with wifi on.

What you can do is send iMessages but only to those with an apple device, Not the same as texting which is universal.

 

[jenf22]

I think texting might depend on your phone and/or carrier. We have Verizon and both Europe trips we were able to add international for $15ish. Verizon does it for one month and then reverts back to your original plan. It had unlimited texting and a small amount of data. We used wifi whenever we could for Facebook, etc. We had a couple of tours where the tour guide's car had wifi. That was awesome!

 

[LYSE]

A true text message (SMS) cannot go via WiFi, as stated you can send other messages through other apps like the iphone messenger to other iphones or whatsapp or allo facebook messenger etc..

 

[ninergrl6]

If we put our phones on airplane mode and turn on Wifi, can we do texting to US, Facebook etc for free as long as we are connected to Wifi? I am thinking about when we are out and about and we happen to find free wifi at say a restaurant, etc.

That's exactly what I do when I travel internationally. I texted pictures to my family from the top of a mountain in Norway on my last cruise. It work from iPhone to iPhone, not from iPhone to Android. I try to use Whatsapp internationally, but not all of my family members have it.

 

[cyclenut]

Facebook uses a lot of data. If you want to use FB on your cruise, I recommend removing the app from your phone and use the FB web site, which will only download the content you are actually viewing. The FB app fetches updates periodically and stores the images on your phone. The FB app assumes that when you are connected to WiFi you have a lot of very fast bandwidth. By default, it will play videos as you scroll with connected to WiFi. You also need to consider other apps on your phone when WiFi connected that make the same assumption. Your phone is likely set to automatically backup pictures to the cloud. I found my phone was backing up the phone contents to three different cloud providers (Android). Google, OneDrive and Verizon. Every picture uploaded three times. The Connect at Sea desk has tips and can even look at your phone for you to change settings.

Text messages will not work over WiFi if they are true SMS messages (most are). You will need a cellular connection to send typical text messages.

 

[Dug720]

My sister uses WhatsApp a lot of the time while she's on contract. Works like texting and uses less data than FB.

 

[anricat]

For around $20 you can get a prepaid international SIM card with about 3,000 minutes, 3,000 texts and 1 G of data. DH and I plan to buy one of those so that at least one of us can make/receive calls (we'll have a new number, but that's okay). This way we are covered if there is an emergency, schedule change (and we need to contact a tour guide, AirBnB host, etc.) or some other situation. For the other phone, we're planning on the same thing except a data only SIM card, which is around $12. That way we can iMessage each other if we split up or iMessage friends or family, get maps and directions, and reference other things we might need to even if we aren't near a Wi-Fi hot spot. We're both using iPhones, so we don't need SMS text since we can use iMessage and all our parents and one of our pet sitters (we are having two of them splitting the time for our long trip) has an iPhone so we can use iMessage with all of them. For anyone without an iPhone (like pet sitter #2), we will instruct them to use our new, temporary international SIM number or Facebook messenger.