Wifi ?s

[ctc917]

ok got it thanks

 

[psupachic]

Thanks for the info!

 

[Doingitagain]

I’m in Cozumel on the Fantasy right now. (The weather’s been terrible today! ) We’re using Verizon TravelPass while we’re docked—for $10/24hrs we can use our talk, text, and data allowance as we normally would at every port. It’s great because the app is pretty horrible and we can’t use it to communicate. iMessage works on the DCL-GUEST wifi, but unfortunately for me ¾ of smartphone users in my family have Androids.

We have Andoids and use WhatsAp when we travel internationally

 

[lbus42]

To help with some of the confusion, there are no cellphone towers at sea. Once the ship leaves a dock, if you do not turn on airplane mode, your phone will try to connect to the ship’s cellular service which is called Cellular at Sea. You cannot just automatically connect to it. You must purchase a plan (whether the free 50mg plan) or another one. The plan will give you a certain number of mega-bytes. Once you use this allotment up, your connect time will stop unless you authorize further purchases.

I found that the data plans got used up pretty quickly. 1 meg is about 1 short email or 1 text message. Any type of App that has graphics, music, or video will use the 50 mg up pretty fast. As others have said, you can turn on Airplane Mode, connect to DCL-Guest WiFi, and you will be able to use the DCL Cruiseline App to view the daily Navigator, see menu’s, and text others on the ship.

 

[Doingitagain]

To prevent using up your free Wi-Fi allowance, just be sure to log out of it when you’re done. You will still be able to use the Disney navigator even when you’re logged out.

 

[SmileEar2Ear]

To prevent using up your free Wi-Fi allowance, just be sure to log out of it when you’re done. You will still be able to use the Disney navigator even when you’re logged out.

Yes, this. You do not want WiFi on when you are just using the Navigator app. It will work without WiFi. So basically you should have everything off and be in airplane mode the whole time. If you want to send an iMessage to someone not on the cruise ship, turn WiFi on, but turn it back off when you are done. The Navigator messaging feature to talk to each other onboard works without WiFi.

 

[Numtini]

To help with some of the confusion, there are no cellphone towers at sea. Once the ship leaves a dock, if you do not turn on airplane mode, your phone will try to connect to the ship’s cellular service which is called Cellular at Sea. You cannot just automatically connect to it. You must purchase a plan (whether the free 50mg plan) or another one. The plan will give you a certain number of mega-bytes. Once you use this allotment up, your connect time will stop unless you authorize further purchases

Cellular at sea is totally different from the Wi-Fi plan which is conmect@sea. Cellular at sea is cellular phone calls and texts. Connect@sea is Wi-Fi internet data.

 

[ctc917]

Thanks for all the information and I know more now then I did before. One of the reasons why I'm trying to get more information about how things work is not for myself really because I'm smart enough to keep my phone in airplane mode but sometimes my teen is a pain in the a** about things thinking he knows more about things then I do and even thou I will be telling him to keep his phone in airplane mode that doesn't mean he wouldn't turn if off just to see what happens and I'm wondering if that would cost me a lot of money before he turned it back on. If he turned it off would he have to do something else before it would cost me any money or would he have to sign into something else to use his phone, if this makes any sense

thanks
ctc917

 

[JARNJ3]

So if you go to Verizon Trip Planner - and just put the country in - in my case Italy - it comes up with $10.00 a day. If you put the Disney Magic in - it comes up with 2.99 per minute for calls - then something like $.50 per message - I presume that is while you are at sea?

I would like to upload some photos a day on facebook, chat with the family via whatsapp, and check the news in the mornings..... think the largest data package from Disney will suffice?

 

[DisneyAndrew]

One great thing about using the Connect@Sea is that you can turn it on and off as needed. I signed up for our free 50 MB on our first day, then logged off so that it wasn't being used. A couple of times throughout the cruise, I would turn it back on and check an e-mail or whatever, then log right back out again. I needed to save some to check in for my Southwest flight, so this worked out great for me. Every time you log out of the connection, it shows you how much you have left.

 

[Kennywood]

I might be completely wrong about this, but can't Guest Services help with flight check-ins?

 

[lanejudy]

I might be completely wrong about this, but can't Guest Services help with flight check-ins?

No, not generally. Well...they could, but unlike at the land resorts, on DCL it's not something the desk typically does. Their access to wifi isn't particularly better than guest's. Wifi may be too spotty for them to get their work done AND deal with a lot of flight check-ins.

Enjoy your cruise!

 

[Doingitagain]

I might be completely wrong about this, but can't Guest Services help with flight check-ins?

If you use DCL transportation to the airport and are on a participating airline, they will check you in as part of the process of checking your luggage (if you opt in for that).

 

[disneypoor]

It only works in port, as far as I know; we were at sea yesterday and carried the wave phones. Before we left, I signed up for TravelPass on the Verizon website and listed all the countries we’d be in during the trip. After we docked, I turned off airplane mode and my phone connected to the local service (it says “Movistar”). I triggered it by loading a webpage with WiFi turned off, and then I got a “Welcome to Mexico” text from Verizon. I expect it to work similarly throughout the trip. Data speeds here are comparable to Boston, and better than the Connect@Sea ship WiFi.

I have Verizon and was able to use my phone last May at Castaway Cay, so I think it should work for you there as well.

 

[kiford]

Turn off cell service and disable all background updates and downloads. Once you run out of the free 50MB, you have to not only log on, but you have to request the purchase of another package and specify which ones in order for you to use the ship's wifi. So adding to the wifi package costs is not going to be: (a) automatic; or (b) unknown. We found that the 50MB is sufficient for us to check and respond to e-mail for at least a week for both of us and to download the occasional Kindle book. One time DH used the entire 50MB to Skype (audio only) to friends for about 20 minutes plus send some photos to them. That was a 12-day cruise and we added another 100MB and 50MB packages and used it to check e-mail and check some news sites every day and download the occasional book. We had a bit left at the end. Note that the wifi package is based on the cabin, not the individual so everyone in the cabin shares the same data package and anyone can log on and purchase it.

A couple of times throughout the cruise, I would turn it back on and check an e-mail or whatever, then log right back out again.

A good reminder that you need to actually log off every time or it will continue to use data to load mail or do anything that you may still have running in the background that requires data. Just shutting it down doesn't log you off.

 

[Starwind]

Thanks for all the information and I know more now then I did before. One of the reasons why I'm trying to get more information about how things work is not for myself really because I'm smart enough to keep my phone in airplane mode but sometimes my teen is a pain in the a** about things thinking he knows more about things then I do and even thou I will be telling him to keep his phone in airplane mode that doesn't mean he wouldn't turn if off just to see what happens and I'm wondering if that would cost me a lot of money before he turned it back on. If he turned it off would he have to do something else before it would cost me any money or would he have to sign into something else to use his phone, if this makes any sense

thanks
ctc917

If he turns airplane mode off the phone will try to connect to Cellular at Sea. If it successfully does so, you will get a large bill. Tell him if he does that, HE is paying for it, not you.

This is what we do:

While in the departure port [we have always sailed form Port Canaveral] BEFORE the muster drill we set our phones up for the cruise. At that point you can still get US cellular service, though reception can be pretty bad inside the ship.

We have iphones, so this is iphone specific, but you would want similar concept with other devices.

Settings/General/Software Update/Automatic Updates >> turn it OFF [you do not want it downloading a huge update on you]

Settings/General/Background App Refresh>> set it to wi-fi and manually turn everything OFF

Settings/General/Background App Refresh>> turn it OFF

Settings/iTunes & App Stores>> turn OFF all apps under "automatic downloads"

Settings/Cellular >> turn OFF all apps under "cellular data" [this way none can use cellular data; later if you do want to use an app on cellular data you will need to give permission for that app to do so]

Settings/Cellular/Cellular Data Options >> turn data roaming OFF

Settings/Cellular >> turn cellular data OFF

Settings >> turn ON Airplane Mode


I think that is everything. The idea is you want it set up so no app should be connecting out via cellular data without you giving it active permission. And cellular data won't roam off your home network.

You then stay in Airplane mode on the ship.

Turn ON Wi-Fi **ONLY** when you want to connect the DCL Navigator app to the DCL WI-Fi [ "DCL-GUEST" network on board the ship ]

On the FIRST DAY ONLY of the cruise, you can sign up for 50 MB [yes, megabytes; it is very small and doesn;t let you do much] of free data. This would let you quickly check email each day as an example. Most other things are too data-intensive and will eat your data. If this isn't enough data, you can sign up for a paid data amount. To use eithe the 50 mb free data or any of the paid data amounts, you actually have to LOG IN to the DCL wifi.

To use ONLY the DCL Navigator app [and also you can browse the DCL website using a web browser app; IIRC you may also be able to browse the WDW website and a couple other Disney sites, including a news one, but that is it on the free side] you connect to the DCL wi-fi but you DO NOT LOG IN.

If you log in to the wifi you are using the data under the 50 mb or paid allotment. So it is very important to segregate your activity and to log OUT when you are done using apps that need you logged in. Do not stay logged in when you do not actively need to be.

We turn off the wifi when we won't be using the navigator app for a while.

In port:

Most cell companies have an international package of some kind. You can find out from your provided what your options are. A common option is a fixed fee per day of use in a foreign country [say $10] allows you to use your pools of minutes and data in that country. You will want to find out what it includes -- e.g. are there additional long distance charges for calling back home etc. If you don't have such a plan, using cellular in a foreign country can be very expensive, so know before you go.

Some restaurants, coffee shops, and other places will offer free or low cost paid wifi. You will have to make a decision on whether you feel comfortable security-wise using this type of public wi-fi. To use it, you would stay in airplane mode, turn on wi-fi, and connect to the desired wi=fi per the instructions at the location.

Hope this helps.

SW

 

[Starwind]

More info about how to lock down your device:

https://disneycruiselineblog.com/20...-cruise-lines-connectsea-internet-data-plans/

 

[mocodis]

I was able to use my free 50 meg on my iphone to do my southwest airline check in, only needed 20 of the 50. for a backup plan, I asked at guest services if they could do it. they said yes.

 

[mark0157]

OMG...I think I'll just pay $100 for the Att&t cruise package for the month...what a headache and knowing me I'd mess it up anyways!

 

[BartmanLA]

Thanks for all the information and I know more now then I did before. One of the reasons why I'm trying to get more information about how things work is not for myself really because I'm smart enough to keep my phone in airplane mode but sometimes my teen is a pain in the a** about things thinking he knows more about things then I do and even thou I will be telling him to keep his phone in airplane mode that doesn't mean he wouldn't turn if off just to see what happens and I'm wondering if that would cost me a lot of money before he turned it back on. If he turned it off would he have to do something else before it would cost me any money or would he have to sign into something else to use his phone, if this makes any sense

thanks
ctc917

One thing that hasn't been addressed is depending on your itinerary, and if you think you might be doing multiple cruises in the future is to look at investing in an international hotspot (SkyRoam is one for example) that lets you connect to local cellular networks ONLY WHEN IN PORT (this will NOT work at sea!), packages offered usually run about $8-10 per 24 hours of unlimited access, this is a wifi hotspot that will let you access the net for email, messaging, websurfing and even some limited video chatting, it would not be very good for online gaming or streaming movies though. But it would give you an alternative on port days, most of the hotspots let you connect to multiple devices at the same time so you can share the online access. You basically purchase "day passes" that gives you 24 hours of access from the time you start the pass, granted most cruises don't spend that long in port but it is a cheap alternative to purchasing the horrendously expensive Internet Packages on board the ship. But again you definitely need to realize these only work when you're in port (you can still be on the ship, just as long as you're in range of the cellular network for that particular port, most int'l hotspots work in most countries you visit, Skyroam for example works in 160 countries)