sachielles

Was the $2000 bill from Princess or from your cell phone company?

 

 

 

If from Princess I am sure if you spoke with the Internet manager they would have adjusted it.

 

 

 

If from your cell phone company, do not blame Princess.

It's what princess charged the phone company for using their tower. So this was a Princess surcharged through the phone company.

As for cellular when in port, I have been in Port Everglades many times on the ship and had my cell on T-Mobile right up to sail-away. Same in St Thomas. So, is this port specific perhaps????

It must be because I was in Europe. Also different cruise lines have different rules.

Got it. No more explaining here. You aren't going to cruise Princess again and I expect most here will not care in the grand scheme of things. BTW, most replies were trying to help. Hope that your future cruises on whatever line you decide on are better. :)

Yes most replies were trying to understand what happened, but some comments were condescending and if not insulting. What it really necessary for someone to tell they are happy I'm not cruising Princess because they don't want to bump into me? Why do people feel like it's ok to be demeaning because they are online.

People do use weird colors instead of quoting here a lot. Some of them use weird colors and fonts in all their posts for no reason, and I end up putting them on ignore.

 

I'm gonna let this thread go now, but I guess I'll leave you with a final consideration: do you think if Princess was systematically scamming people out of thousands of dollars with their cellular tower that anyone would ever cruise on them a second time? I know you're not going to, but the existence of these forums should prove that most people don't have the outcome you did.

It was not just the color but what was being said. So please stop explaining.

We do that in order to distinguish our answer from the question. If it's all in the same color, it's difficult to tell which is which. This is commonly done on forums/boards to make it easier for people to read. You don't need to take offense - it's done all the time. :D

Right not condescending. It's all in my head. Thanks for the explanation.

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I have the same add on for $10 per day through AT&T and have used it exclusively since it came out several times. Because Princess does not partner with AT&T it is does not help when you use it onboard and at sea.

 

The $10 plan activates when you use any data, a text message, a call, a download of any kind.

 

It does not care where you were connected from so yes AT&T charged you the $10, but it also charged you for use when at sea connected through the ship. If you did use any data then the $10 charge would not be applied. Since it does not cover any use onboard you would be charged $$$$ for any at sea onboard use.

 

 

 

Again I say YES the internet onboard Princess is notoriously slow and frustrating.

Again this happened when we docked and not at Sea.

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Again:

Stop being so condescending if you want me to reply to your question. Why the red font? Seriously mess up.

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Again:

Yes I did and I was not the only one having a problem with them. The line in front of the Internet cafe with disgruntled passengers was very long. Everyone had the same complaint.

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I just read your post (not OP). You mention being able to change to another carrier. How were you able to do that?

I didn't say I changed to another. That must have been a typo. I do know however that Royal Caribbean has a contract with ATT and when LTE is available they do not charge.

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Not the fault of and has nothing to do with Princess.

There is no cell signal to connect to onboard while in port.

You were connected to a land based cell tower while in port.

You should be yelling at AT&T and yourself for not researching before you cruised.

End of story.

That's not what ATT said. Also when I spent 2 days before getting on board. I was only charged $10 daily. ATT specifically told that's what Princess charged for using their tower. They had contracts with other cruise lines but not Princess. Besides their wifi package was also shady. It ate up minutes very quickly and charged more minutes than actually used.

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Your phone connected to the closest tower, which was the one on the ship. You should have received a text message telling you what carrier you were on when you turned on your cellular service.

I didn't receive a message.

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How right you are! We have sailed the Caribbean, California Coastals, Mexico, the Panama Canal, Alaska, Hawaii, the Baltic, the Med, and South America on Princess. If our phone is roaming we ensure that we are connected to a local cell tower and not the ship's tower. With those precautions we haven't had a problem using AT&T.

It seems if you are onboard the ship and near the ship it goes to the Princess tower. For example Royal Caribbean has a contract with ATT which allows its customers to not be charged when on land/using the tower.

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I was NOT at sea but docked on land. I was on the boat but not at sea.

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What kind of phone do you have? We were in Europe in April and we paid for the international $10 per day through AT&T and had no problems even while we were at sea but still close to land enough to connect to towers. We never connected to the ship's wifi and even when we did, you would have had to log in to be using the ship's internet. That can't really happen by accident as far as I can see.

 

 

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Also other cruise lines have better deals with ATT. We were told by ATT that Princess didn't have a tower contract with them after the fact.

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I have an iPhone and this also happened in Europe.

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Ok, so you thought you were using whatever the local land-based carrier was, but your phone went to the nearest tower, which was the ship's. You should have received a text message warning you were using "cellular at sea" or something like that. I'd go through your text messages and find the text to see what it looks like, because Princess isn't the only cruise line that does it.

 

It's possible if you call your cellphone carrier and plead your case they will cut you a break. Unlikely but possible.

 

By the way, your $10/day international carrier should also send you a text message letting you know when you've connected and that you're on the $10/day rate. That's what my Verizon plan does, anyway.

Well I didn't get a text. Also I knew the plan worked because I didn't get charge extra when I spent two days at the embankment port. I was only charged $10 daily. Att told it was the Princess tower that picked me LTE.

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Ok, so you've cruised before but you weren't aware you have to turn off cellular service on your phone to avoid extra cellular carrier fees?

 

There's a reason everyone here is arguing with you, and I promise it's not because we own Princess stock.

I turned off my phone and didn't open it until I docked. So with my international plan I was not supposed to be charged more than $10 daily. However as long as I was on the ship my LTE was through the Princess tower. They in turn charged ATT for the usage. I bought a $200 internet plan from Princess but it kept eating up the minute every time I logged on. If I logged on for the. Minutes I would be charged for 25 minutes.

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Princess charged you $2000? Or your cellphone company did?

 

Please answer this honestly.

 

You should have received text messages warning you when you were connected to the ship's cellular service.

 

Also, was this your first cruise?

Nope the fee was going to Princess. Att has to pay Princess when their LTE tower is used.

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I have never been charged for cell phone usage while on the ship in port. I also set my phone to notify me that I need to allow for roaming so that I can cancel if I am somewhere that I know is not cost friendly to my cell usage. Unfortunately, you did not read information regarding cell phone and data usage while on board. That info is all on the Princess website. I don't have a cell service that has "agreements" with any cruise line so I suppose that I could say they all all a ripoff to me.

No I had an international plan which charged me $10 daily for roaming. However if I was still on the ship when it is being docked Princess controlled the LTE tower. I didn't know that.

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Was this your first cruise?

No it's my 4th but my first with Princess and I'm not impress with them. They also were trying to sell all kind of packages every time we used the dining room. Really aggravating!!!

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I feel for you. I have a pretty simple cell phone - it's a smart phone but a Tracphone, pay as you go. I have it for that very reason, I can't screw up. I've read here at CC where parents let their kids use their phone to play games with and the next thing they know they get a big huge bill. Reminds me when my kids were 5 & 6, and they spent a couple of hours dialing those 900 numbers to speak to Santa! Boy was I p*ssed when I got the phone bill, my kids had no idea! So, yes, there's scammers every where if you're not careful, gotta be on guard constantly.

Yes I have to admit I'm one of those people that can't be without internet. Next time I will make sure I choose a cruise that has better internet plans.

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Glad you came back! But apparently you didn't do enough research before your cruise to know how a ship's internet works. Sadly, you had an expensive mistake. Do some research now so it won't happen again. You can do a Search here on CC to find all about how each cruiseline does their internet.

 

 

 

 

 

It's OK to try another cruiseline - always good to see how each line works. I've tried 3 of them and will try a 4th in a few months.

From talking to ATT it's seems that Royal Caribbean is the best in terms of their internet package and not charging their passage for an extra surcharge for LTE.

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It states right on the AT&T website that Princess does not participate.

The $10 per day is for land use only.

Yes so when we docked but still on the boat and have LTE--we were charged extra by Princess.

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You said when docked, you are wrong.

Ok my bill told me I'm not. Do you have stocks and or work for Princess?

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Welcome to the forums! :) Everyone knows the internet packages are expensive. Everyone knows the internet packages are slow compared to land-based versions (half of that is unavoidable with present technology no matter how much bandwidth is thrown at the problem). Your comment "when we were docked they took over the LTE" seems odd - they take over the cellular no matter what, so I don't see why this is a surprise.

 

The biggest laugh here is that you sent this from your iPhone. Turn off data roaming before you board the ship and it won't cost you $2000! Enjoy your next cruise...glad you won't be on a Princess ship again.

I have unlimited roaming and data plan. And yes Princess had control over the tower when onboard the ship. Don't worry I won't go back to Princess they had a gimmick for every meal. Felt like we were at MaryKay presentation. Our waiters were constantly hounding us to buy something. Just tacky.

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