Cell Phones

I am often tempted by T-Mobile's great international calling plan, but I live near NYC and my family plan includes a daughter in LA – and in both areas T-Mobile's coverage is not as good as Verizon's. We also vacation in Acadia NP every summer, and there Verizon is also the best. So I'm willing to risk paying $10 for any day when a phone call is a necessity, in order to have great cell coverage all the days we (or our daughter) is home. [And BTW Skype often allows us to avoid even the $10 charge.]

I live in Northern California and there is no difference in my service from AT&T to T-Mobile. My monthly bill for two phones with ATT was $120 a month which did not include an international plan. T-Mobile is $50 for one line and $70 for two lines and those prices are out the door, taxes included. I had tried on numerous occasions to get a lower plan with AT&T and to no avail. We have a son who lives in Sweden, we travel a lot and it’s important to us to have an affordable international plan while traveling.

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thank you for your help. We were just wanting to be able to use the phone to send a text every now and then to the family to let them know we were there and safe. I will check with your carrier

Use email instead of text. You'll have free wifi on board. Also, check out thee "Whats App" app. Free international texts anywhere in the world.

You can get an international plan with your carrier before you leave. ATT offered a $10 a day unlimited calling and data/texts. The charge occurs only on days where you actually use it. We declined except for one day when I needed to call and change our flights. I was on the phone 55 minutes. That would have been at $2 a minute! I turned on the $10 plan right before I made the call. Saved me a ton of money.

For most updates to home, email aboard ship should work fine for you.