Guide to communicating cheaply & effectively at sea and ashore using cell phones

[NCLSEA123]

So, I thought I'd make this guide for all you cell phone users who still like to keep in touch with home but don't like paying the ridiculously high prices charged by your cell phone carriers. This stuff is applicable to all ships, all lines, not just RCCL. Please note that most of these tips are only applicable to GSM carriers, (ie. AT&T, TMobile, and the rest of the world) and most will not work with TDMA carriers such as Sprint and Verizon. AT&T will be the example carrier in most situations.

 

Roaming rates on the ship

First off, you want to go to your carriers website and see what it's going to cost you to talk, text, and surf the web on the ship. For instance with AT&T, it's $2.49 a minute, 0.50¢ per text (Outgoing SMS), $1.30 per picture & video message (Outgoing MMS), and .0195¢/KB for data. Also with AT&T & TMobile, all incoming texts received including video and picture messages are pulled from you domestic plan (0.20¢ when you don't have a plan) when roaming internationally. With T-Mobile Voice rates are $4.99 a minute and all texts sent (SMS & MMS) are 0.35¢. Obviously these rates are ridiculous and although a few texts might not hurt, (especially with AT&T and TMobile texts pulled from your domestic plan) you don't want to rack up a huge bill when you get home.

 

Roaming rates in Port

After you've checked the ships rates and figured out how ridiculously expensive they are, you will want to check on the rates for the countries that your ship is calling on. You will find that most of the time, these rates are more reasonable than those on the ship, (with a few exceptions) but they're still ridiculously high and a five minute conversation could end up costing you $15. It should also be noted that most carriers offer a international roaming plan, in which you pay a flat fee for a reduced per minute rate, but these rates too are very high.

 

Avoiding Roaming Charges When Someone Leaves A Voicemail

Many people go on a cruise or travel internationally and leave their phone on in order to receive texts or to see if they get a voicemail. Most don't know however is that when someone calls and the call is sent to voicemail after it rings, you are charged the international roaming rate for however long it takes the person to leave a message! Also, many carriers charge you even if they hang up prior to going to voicemail! In order to get around this, you only need to do the following. Before leaving the country in which your cell phone service is based, you need to activate what's called immediate call forwarding. (This should work for all GSM carriers in the US and abroad) To do this get out a pen and paper to write down a number and prepare to do some dialing on your phone. You may be charged a small amount from your carrier for a voice message alert on your phone, but most of the time this should be very negligible or free. (0.02¢-0.03¢) NOTE THE CALL FORWARDING FEATURE ON YOUR PHONE WILL NOT WORK AND YOU WILL BE CHARGED, you need to follow the directions below. (All # characters in the following instructions mean to push the # key on your phone and the same for * characters)

 

1)Dial *#67# to check the number used to forward calls to voicemail then exit the screen. (Write down that number to use for next step)

2)Dial *21*number# to forward all your calls to your voicemail then exit after the screen pops up.

3)When you get back to your home country, dial ##002# to restore your setting and turn off call forwarding.

 

You can still send and receive texts with call forwarding enabled as well as dial out and surf the internet. (If you want to get charged a lot lol) Also if you need to dial out to check your voicemail, at least wait until port where it's probably cheaper, or continue reading and see other methods.

 

Using the Texting System to Your Advantage

Well, we already know that with AT&T and TMobile, and most other international GSM carriers, incoming text messages are pulled from your domestic plan. Also, some carriers offer International Roaming Texting Plans, such as the AT&T global messaging 50 plan for $10 a month, which gives you 50 messages (Text, Picture, Video) that can be sent from over 90 countries, including most port countries usually visited. (Sorry won't work on the ship) Some of the advantages to using texts are listed below.

1)Tell all your friends and colleagues that want or need to communicate with you, to send you a text message. They can send them all day long and they will be covered by your domestic plan.

 

2) Receive all of your email for free via text message- To set this up, do the following. For AT&T forward your email to yournumber@mms.att.net , and for TMobile forward your email to yournumber@tmomail.net . Be advised that sometimes graphics and pictures are sometimes rearranged or taken out of emails sent via MMS and most attachments other than pictures, audio, and recognized video files cannot be accessed. Also if you want to retain a copy of the forwarded message in its original form, make sure your email client is able to do that. (For instance Yahoo is not) Do not use Mobile Email or the web to access your email while you're away because you will be charged data charges that way. Also if you have a voice to text feature on your voicemail at home or the office, you can also have it send a message to the above email addresses usually as a .wav or .avi file and you can listen to it for free!

 

3) Send text messages out to your friends, family, and colleagues much cheaper than it would normally be to talk. Remember, you can also send and receive text messages to and from email addresses.

 

4) Update your Facebook Status via text message to Facebook by setting up Facebook Mobile. You can also get a personalized email address from Facebook, which you can use to Text pictures to the mobile uploads section of your profile (usually max 3 at a time (600kb)) without incurring an extra data charge! Imagine how much expensive data it would take to upload 3 pictures to Facebook using an app or mobile browser.

 

Tips for Smartphone Users

Smartphone users have both good and bad features that usually come with their phone. Smartphones are usually always connected to the internet and are always downloading small bits of information from the internet, so before you go, make sure you turn that feature on your phone off so that it doesn't send or receive data. (Or else you'll come home to some hefty international data charges) Next, many smartphone users have the ability to connect to the internet using wifi hotspots. Not only is this useful for surfing the web, but it allows the user to make free calls home from any available wireless hotspot in port, using applications such as Skype. (If it is available for your phone that is)

 

Hope I haven't caused too much confusion and have helped a few people out. Bon Voyage and happy travels!

[scubapuss]

Thank You This is very helpful.