How much does it cost to use your iphone on the ship or on the islands?

[Joanzey]

We are going to the Eastern Carribean next week. (St. Thomas, St Maarten, Grand Turks and Princess Cays). Does anyone know what it costs to use your iphone on the ship for calls or texts? Is there additional roaming fees added to the charge of the text or call from the ship or on the islands?

[ticman]

I too would like to know the answer.

 

I believe if you call AT&T they can tell you as you may have to get an "overseas" plan for your trip.

 

Mike

[Pam in CA]

While at sea, it's $2.49/minute plus any international minute and roaming charges. Texts, which can be sent or received only while in port, are $.50 to send, $.05 to receive. Plus, if you leave data on, it can get very expensive very fast. Your phone and data plan do not apply once the ship sails from the US. If you want to use the ship's WiFi, you must buy an Internet package.

 

A suggestion is to get "World Traveler" turned on for $5.99/month which gets you discounted rates if you use your phone in port to make calls. Phone charges can be $.99-$1.49/minute when in port, depending on where you are. Go to the ATT site and search for "world traveler." There is a list of countries and the per-minute rates.

[ticman]

Pam, thank you for the info re iphone

 

your past cruises certainly qualifies you at the "go to" person for questions.

 

In a wifi area in port, are emails free?

 

You mentioned that in foreign ports the data plans do not apply. Does this include texting even if you have unlimited text plan. I am assuming yes based on the 50 cents vs 5 cent comment you made.

 

Thanks again,

 

Mike

[Carolin]

In St. Thomas you will not get charged anything extra.

 

On the other island you could get dinged with major roaming charges. Please be very very careful.

[Naismith]

Since it is an iPhone, and not a regular phone, you have some options. You can leave it in Airplane mode, and then turn on WiFi only, if you can find a free network. Then you can email and Facebook people. Last summer in Taiwan I also used the Skype app on WiFi to talk to people at home on their computers, but I am not sure if that is still free.

 

To keep from racking up international data usage fees, it is important to leave the 3G turned off, and only enable the WiFi.

 

(Okay, I confess, I cruise to get away from things, and really don't want/need to take phone calls as if I was home.)

[Pam in CA]

In a wifi area in port, are emails free? -- Not really. When you access your email, you are downloading data. Same when you send an email. It's all at international rates and has nothing to do with your US cell or data plan.

 

You mentioned that in foreign ports the data plans do not apply. Does this include texting even if you have unlimited text plan. I am assuming yes based on the 50 cents vs 5 cent comment you made.

NO US plan applies once you leave the US, whether you have unlimited texting, gigabytes of data, etc. That's all thrown out the window once the ship sails out of Ft. Lauderdale, San Pedro, etc.

 

Here's the page from AT&T with the international rates and packages. http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/international/roaming/affordable-world-packages.jsp

 

One thing to remember when adding packages to your phone service, you can cancel them when you get home and they are pro-rated. So, if you get an international data plan for $24.99/month, if you're gone for a week, it'll really be only about $8-9. And, pay very close attention to which countries are applicable.

[sonoma03]

NO US plan applies once you leave the US, whether you have unlimited texting, gigabytes of data, etc. That's all thrown out the window once the ship sails out of Ft. Lauderdale, San Pedro, etc.

 

 

That's not entirely true. For AT&T, your U.S. plan also includes U.S. territories, such as Puerto Rico and St. Thomas. Therefore you can use your phone with all the same plan features as you do at home when you are in those ports, and there is no extra cost. But in all of the other ports, you will be roaming, so all of the other comments about international plans would apply.

 

Using either Internet cafes or free Wi-Fi in the ports is probably the cheapest way to stay in touch if you're okay with emails instead of phone calls.

[Pam in CA]

That's not entirely true. For AT&T, your U.S. plan also includes U.S. territories, such as Puerto Rico and St. Thomas.

Right. I wasn't specific enough as I assumed someone would know that St. Thomas and Puerto Rico are US territories. Technically, they are US ports.

[Gail & Marty sailing away]

Use wifi at each port

[Joanzey]

Wow, thank you for all the great information. I just confirmed with an AT&T representative that it is totally the same to use your phone in St Thomas as it is in the US. No additional fees apply. That will be my phone catch up day!:p

[ncsongbird]

 

One thing to remember when adding packages to your phone service, you can cancel them when you get home and they are pro-rated. So, if you get an international data plan for $24.99/month, if you're gone for a week, it'll really be only about $8-9. And, pay very close attention to which countries are applicable.

 

Yes, the plan is pro-rated but so is the amount of data. So if you subscribe for only half of the month, you only get only half the total amount of data. When you sign up, which can be done online, you can designate when you want your package to start or go retroactively back to the beginning of your billed month to get the entire amount of data. Then when you get home, you can check to see how much you used and you may be able to cancel the plan early if you didn't use all of your data. AT&T has also been pretty good if you go over your usage. They did a retro billing for me so I didn't have to pay a $400 charge :eek: when I didn't realize I had exceeded my data plan.

[DrivesLikeMario]

Unless you buy one of the big data plans, make sure you leave your phone in Airplane Mode. You can rack up MAJOR charges for downloads, especially those with pictures in them (1 picture in an email advertisement can run around $35!!!)

[IECalCruiser]

On our South American cruise last year I choose not to get an international plan and left my iPhone on airplane mode. Very glad I had it onboard after the Chilean earthquake. In 17 minutes of phone calls I was able to contact our TA and confirm she was able to transfer our return flight made with frequent flier miles from Santiago to Buenos Aires. Because of congestion, people trying to use the ship's phones took hours or days to resolve flight issues. A good TA is priceless as others were trying to deal directly with their airlines. The per minute cost in Chile was $3.49/minute.

[DrivesLikeMario]

I got the international plan for my 2 fall cruises in Europe and I'm glad I did. During the one that I was on alone, my DH had a bad car accident. The one time he has one - it just happened to be while I was gone, of course! Having cell coverage while in the middle of the North Atlantic was a godsend. Even with the international plan, it was a very expensive trans-Atlantic crossing!

[GranJean]

USA Today had a good article in its Sept 30, 2009 issue. I printed it out and keep the copy in my 'Travel Binder". A link to the article is: http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2009-09-30-iphone-international-fees_N.htm.

On a RCCL Caribbean cruise last January we had a sever earthquake at home about the same time as the Haiti quake. I made several calls 'at sea' as well as from San Martaan, Saint Thomas, Puerto Rico and Haiti because our house was damaged and we needed to coordinate the immediate work with our daughter. I didn't have any special plans from AT&T for the travel as I usually communicate by email from the ship's computers. So .,. the total cost of all of the calls and text messaging was $106. It took 3 billing cycles for all of the charges to show up. The total was much lower than I had anticipated.

The calls from Saint Thomas and San Juan, PR, were covered under my normal plan. The 'at sea' calls were the most expensive accounting for $84 of the total.

We are still repairing the damage to the house.

Hope this helps.

[georgiavol]

Resist the urge and turn it off. I got a nasty bill on my last cruise, even after I thought my plan was set up for international coverage.

[Joanzey]

I have been told that I can use my iphone for taking pictures as well as using the ipod if I turn it to "airplane mode" and I wont be charged for any roaming fees if I am on the ship or an island. Has anyone tried this?

[kelkel2]

I have been told that I can use my iphone for taking pictures as well as using the ipod if I turn it to "airplane mode" and I wont be charged for any roaming fees if I am on the ship or an island. Has anyone tried this?

 

This may work, but are you going to leave it on all the time and charge it at night? The reason I ask, is I would love to use mine as a video camera, but am so worried that as soon as I turn it on, I am going to be bombarded with emails, texts, voicemails, facebook alerts etc. I don't want to be charged for those just because I turned my phone on...

[S.S.Oceanlover]

Unless you buy one of the big data plans, make sure you leave your phone in Airplane Mode. You can rack up MAJOR charges for downloads, especially those with pictures in them (1 picture in an email advertisement can run around $35!!!)

 

This is so true. My son turned his phone on in Nassau a couple weeks ago and racked up over $200 in charges in minutes.

 

Bill

[Tikibird]

I just take the SIM card out of my iPhone and use the wifi where I can find a connection. If I was going to be in one place for a while, I might buy a local SIM card. Everything else works without a SIM card-games, camera, video, apps like TripIt, etc.

[IECalCruiser]

This may work, but are you going to leave it on all the time and charge it at night? The reason I ask, is I would love to use mine as a video camera, but am so worried that as soon as I turn it on, I am going to be bombarded with emails, texts, voicemails, facebook alerts etc. I don't want to be charged for those just because I turned my phone on...

Just leave your iPhone in "Airplane Mode" and you should not have a problem. We had our iPhone in South America and in Canada with no cost until I had to turn the phone on to change return flights after the Chilean earthquake last year. If you find a free Wi-Fi hotspot you can turn on Wi-Fi and send and received e-mail, browse the web, etc. at no cost as we did in Vancouver. As additional insurance you can shut off Notifications, turn off Location Services in "General" and turn Fetch New Data off in "Mail, Contacts, Calendars". Perhaps "belt and suspenders" but it works. You can use the camera and iPod whenever you wish with no charge. In Chile I forgot to turn the phone back to "Airplane Mode" and it was on for almost 60 minutes but the only charge was for the actual phone calls. Didn't receive any text messages so that may be an issue -can't say. Hope this helps.