Massive Mobile Phone Bill Whilst @ Sea

[NoRoxie!]

I had heard about high mobile rates while cruising. Since I will be cruising very soon (with an android), I decided to contact my carrier. I was told they NEGOTIATED a LOWER rate of $20.78 per MINUTE with RCI. I was also informed that I would get hit for any automatic updates on my apps, in addition to roaming, data, and voicemail charges. They suggested I call them back on the day before I leave and they would walk me through the steps needed to avoid ANY additional charges, as simply putting my phone in airplane mode won't be sufficient. Needless to say in addition to the sea calling me, I will be calling my carrier :)

[DeltaOne]

Everyone knows to turn off your phone while on a cruise.

 

I would never turn my smartphone off while cruising or traveling out of the country. I use it for too many things! For example, I love lounging on the ship and listening to an audiobook.

 

It's really easy to avoid large, unexpected bills and still use a smartphone. I place it in Airplane Mode (which disables all the radios). I can then use any application on the smartphone that doesn't need the Internet.

 

And many may not know that you can put a smartphone in Airplane Mode and then turn WiFi back on to take advantage of free or low-cost hotspots.

[Topo Gigio]

You can better call directly from your room.

[DeltaOne]

While at sea and in ports be sure your phone is on airplane mode AND turn off mail push.

 

Airplane Mode disables all the radios -- there's no need to change any other settings.

 

And you're free to use WiFi while in Airplane Mode to check email and other things -- you're not using the cellular network -- you're using the free or low-cost WiFi hotspot.

[Topo Gigio]

Being a diamond member you can call for $1.99 per minute from your cabin!

[mommabean]

It's really easy to have no additional phone charges while on a cruise.

 

Use the phone in airplane mode with international data roaming off.

 

Turn on just the wifi while in port and use any free wifi that is found. Use your free diamond C&A booklet coupon while on board for free wifi. Learn to conserve on board wifi time by answering email off line.

 

Gina

[Iluvcruising2]

You used a massive 40mb of data and you are complaining so much.

 

You should have done your own research before using the data.

[trojan3000]

My wife is on Orange and was very upset when she received her bill after our 16 night transatlantic as it was nearly £30. She had numerous phone calls and texts to our daughter throughout the cruise.

[mommabean]

I would never turn my smartphone off while cruising or traveling out of the country. I use it for too many things! For example, I love lounging on the ship and listening to an audiobook.

 

It's really easy to avoid large, unexpected bills and still use a smartphone. I place it in Airplane Mode (which disables all the radios). I can then use any application on the smartphone that doesn't need the Internet.

 

And many may not know that you can put a smartphone in Airplane Mode and then turn WiFi back on to take advantage of free or low-cost hotspots.

 

There was once a thread that was almost totally devoted to helping people do this. :D

 

I have been known to accidentally turn airplane mode off briefly so I better keep international data roaming off, too. :eek: Fortunately my carrier will send me a free text message warning me when I'm not in airplane mode in another country. I don't do this often, but I've done it at least twice.

 

Gina

[bionicman97]

I'm honestly surprised this doesn't happen more often with the amount of people I see on their smartphones during a cruise.

[Static events]

You used a massive 40mb of data and you are complaining so much.

 

You should have done your own research before using the data.

 

40mb of data is nothing in today’s world mate!!

[galavant3]

I found a simple solution to this issue on my first cruise. I turned the phone off and locked it in the safe.

 

We do the same thing. One of the bonuses of cruising is that our kids aren't checking their phones every 30 seconds!

[Former Goalie]

It's really easy to have no additional phone charges while on a cruise.

 

Use the phone in airplane mode with international data roaming off.

 

Turn on just the wifi while in port and use any free wifi that is found. Use your free diamond C&A booklet coupon while on board for free wifi. Learn to conserve on board wifi time by answering email off line.

 

Gina

Likewise here. We put all devices in airplane mode (that should be sufficient). To be safe, we also turn roaming off. Worked on last Oasis cruise, no extra charges.

[smoosh21]

Just got my monthly mobile phone bill through and unsurprisingly £450 worth of the bill is from using my phone whilst on board the Independence of the Seas.

 

My complaint is this… nowhere on the ship does Royal Caribbean highlight that there will be extremely high prices for using data at sea and EXACTLY what that cost is. The reason for this is that no one will use the service.

The customer service manager also told me Royal Caribbean did not make any money off the mobile phone service. He is obviously a total dimwit, Royal Caribbean must get paid a rental fee for AT&T to have a mast at sea and they most likely take a percentage of whatever the service makes however don’t quote me on that as I am not a mobile communications expert. One thing I do know is Royal Caribbean are getting paid handsomely for this service at the expense of their guests and they try to be a covert as possible with the pricing structure.

 

This website here shows all the ships with this service on:

http://www.wmsatsea.com

 

 

Working in the phone industry (albeit in the US), and specializing in billing, more likely than not your carrier is also tacking onto the fees charged by AT&T. Royal may be getting some money from the leasing of space, but it probably isnt that much. Maintaining Satellite communications is not cheap, and a major reason why Iridium never took off

 

With the advent of Smart phones you need to know that your phone should always be left in Airplane mode, unless you have an International Roaming rate plan set up. Even if you are not actively using your phone, there is a lot of data transfer going on.

[leaveitallbehind]

My wife is on Orange and was very upset when she received her bill after our 16 night transatlantic as it was nearly £30. She had numerous phone calls and texts to our daughter throughout the cruise.

 

I think you are answering your own questions. You use your cells on board as if you are on land and then are surprised by the high bills! Again, it is satellite service at sea, not cellular. And the bulk of the rates are driven mostly by the carrier - not RCI. As pointed out previously, as Diamond your experience should have you aware of the rates - eapecially as they are not a secret - and the option of the occasional calls from the room is a reasonable alternative benefit that you have. No disrespect intended but I think you need to realize the reality of your usage situation on board and the associated rates and seek manage things accordingly. I don't think this is entirely RCI's fault.

[jacketwatch]

I think you are answering your own questions. You use your cells on board as if you are on land and then are surprised by the high bills! Again, it is satellite service at sea, not cellular. And the bulk of the rates are driven mostly by the carrier - not RCI. As pointed out previously, as Diamond your experience should have you aware of the rates - eapecially as they are not a secret - and the option of the occasional calls from the room is a reasonable alternative benefit that you have. No disrespect intended but I think you need to realize the reality of your usage situation on board and the associated rates and seek manage things accordingly. I don't think this is entirely RCI's fault.

 

True. Its the carrier. We have Verizon and its easy to find out what the international rates are by calling them, checking the website or just going to one of their offices. They vary by country. I don't know about A T and T but Verizon has a plan to lend you a phone for international use and you pay for your calls of course. What you can do is use your phone and please turn off the data and roaming features. We did this and though our bill was higher due to the call fees it was no where near what it could have been had we not turned off these features. I found this out by accident as I too had no idea how high the bill would be with these features active. It would have been a shock for me too but its not the fault of the cruise company. When you pay your bill to A T and T or whoever they don't pay a cruise company a cut. Its all theirs.

 

I understand your frustration at being caught unaware. It happens to all of us from time to time, just one of those things we did not consider.

 

Cheers, Larry :)

[PH8]

My wife is on Orange and was very upset when she received her bill after our 16 night transatlantic as it was nearly £30. She had numerous phone calls and texts to our daughter throughout the cruise.

Maybe Im not converting it right,but isnt that like $47.25.......to me,that doesnt seem that bad for 16 nights..:confused:

[jacketwatch]

Maybe Im not converting it right,but isnt that like $47.25.......to me,that doesnt seem that bad for 16 nights..:confused:

Are missing a 0? 300?

[kevinsgirl88]

why would you need your cell phone on a cruise? i turn mine off and leave it in the safe cause im on vcay and dont have a care in the world :p

[mon1jan1]

I always receive a text message stating that I'm in roaming, and most times it has a rate of what you will be charged in the text. I normally put my phone in airplane mode the minute the ship leaves port, there was a time or two that I forgot and it was well within the evening and the text message would remind me.

[IL-cruisers]

I would have assumed that much data usage would cost that much at sea; maybe more. That's why DD's iPhone is going into the safe for the week upon boarding. :cool:

[Ocean Boy]

I am just glad that RCI offers the service. On my last cruise I needed to make an emergency call. It cost me far less than a ship to shore call would have. I also noticed that before my phone would even connect to the service it gave me a warning and needed for me to press a button to allow it to connect to, and register, with the system.

 

Aside from that call the phone stays in the safe.

[setsail]

I stopped reading after "I had to call my provider to find out how much data I used":rolleyes:

 

Any cell phone that uses data stores the amount used in the phones menu. You can check it yourself anytime. So, I would say the user had no clue about international calling,data,etc. on cruise ships and how its billed.

[mking8288]

As technology users, we have basic responsibilities to learn the capabilities & features of our devices, including smartphones & tablets, etc. that more & more of us (even the mature, older generation grew up on the old IBM Selectrics) are now getting gifted with & owning ...

 

Curious as to what device OP was using & length of sailing for using roughly 40MB of data? It's reasonable to assume that with Orange being the home carrier, it's GSM-based technology using a SIM card, which could've been easily swapped out for use in a plain "dumb" phone - good for voice calls & SMS/text, with virtually no data usage. Leave the smartphone in the safe as being on a cruise, one don't need to be checking on BBC, CNN, Facebook or Twitter, etc. every 30 minutes ...

 

For a given month, my light to moderate data usage varied from 200MB to 400 MB (and I have unlimited data plan) as my fiber optics WiFi are almost infinitely faster at home & at the office.

 

DW uses the same, identical Android smartphone as me, both WiFi & broadband/internet enabled but wanted it mostly for its PDA features and she doesn't used more than 10MB data a month since it's on WiFi mostly, and most apps are off, not running silently in the background - and "push" notifications are disabled on apps, and Facebook, Youtube & Google Talk (similar to Skype) are OFF.

 

When we cruise, her phone has calls forwarded to home voice mail for incoming call and it's either OFF completely or in Dock Mode (or airplane mode) with all data disabled. Mine is on with home/roaming data disabled - but perfectly fine for incoming/emergency calls as needed (mom is 88 years old cared for by home aide) and SMS/texting.

 

Once the ship sailed or pull away from ports into international water, the ship's radio towers are switched ON and the "alert" or status symbol on the phone CHANGED to reflect roaming, and, a welcome message come on cautioning & reminding the device user that you are NO longer on your home system, extra charges & different rates applied .... etc. etc.

 

And, if you switched off your devices daily & powered it on each time, the same "welcome" and caution message will come up again - and, with the devices roaming, the battery drained a lot faster than usual - so I remain doubtful whether OP ever looked at her/his "device" to see & check the warnings ... Or, just assumed whatever ...

 

RCCL's satellite provider has roaming arrangement & coverage with 340 land-based mobile carriers and while I feel for OP's wallet, I'm sorry to say that using 40MB of data - even if it was for 1 or 2 session during the cruise, isn't unintentional or accidental - whether it's for checking email, uploading photos or doing GPS/Maps, etc. I would suggest calling Orange & speak to their billing people, and if necessary, ask for a supervisor to see if they will discount or negotiate a partial settlemnt of the total amount billed.

 

My nephew took his iPhone across the border to Canada & had his Facebook account running the whole time, uplinked only a few photos - thinking that he did everything right - ended up with a roaming bill via AT&T as the home carrier for about $800 worth of charges, ouch - my niece's husband owned the 5 lines family shared account - and they're mad as hell. But, he did used it - called in & finally got 50% written off, got his expensive lessons & paid his dues of $400 ... They subsequently went onto another vacation & cruised - no extra charges incurred on the same iPhone billing this time. Painful lessons learned from past mistakes - hard to swallow but true.

 

Bottom line - call & try to make a deal with Orange, as long-term customer in good standing, first time happening on a new device, etc. etc. and be thankful on whatever they can do to ease the ouch.

[Groucho]

Static events:

 

Sorry that happened to you; it also happened to us the first cruise we took with our new smart phones. We were playing with the GPS while at see (it worked), internet, etc. We were crushed by our bill, and it was not RCCL but Verizon.

 

Well, we never made that mistake again and we now turn off our phones unless we are in port and have cell service.