Verizon Wireless Warning

[Island_Guy]

I wasn't sure where to post this, but we were on a Celebrity cruise, so I will post it here.

 

We were on Celebrity Reflection in January through the eastern Caribbean. We had a wonderful cruise and this out as a general warning to cruisers in general, and not just on Celebrity. Celebrity is not at all responsible for our phone experience.

 

We are frequent cruisers, and one of the things I like is the ability to leave it all behind.. no cell phone, no emails. But recognizing times have changed, I signed up with Verizon for coverage during our cruise in January. I was under the impression that I would have both cell phone coverage (when available) and internet service for what I thought was a very reasonable fee of $25 per phone (for my wife and I). I arranged this through Verizon before our cruise started, and cancelled it when I returned.

 

Our bill has never been the same. First, Verizon kept charging me for the service in the subsequent month. Took several phone calls to get them to cancel it. We actually ended up paying for it in Feb (a month after our cruise), and they eventually credited it off our bill.

 

Then we got a bill for $142 for one telephone call. I use my phone as a phone (imagine that), and was under the distinct impression that the coverage I bought was for the ability to use my phone. I knew it was only available on certain islands (we used it on St. Thomas). Turns out that Verizon lets you use the phone, but charges you by the minute the roaming rate (which is very, very high) for actually using the phone. I laugh (through tears) when looking at my bill for access to the phone, which they bill as a "roaming service". Never do they tell you that they are still going to charge you a per minute roaming rate. I have no idea what benefit I received from signing up for a $25 per line charge.

 

Today I received our bill, three months after our cruise, and there was another $50 charge for "data usage". Verizon said that the cruise line must have been tardy in relaying the charges. Still not understanding that comment, as I thought I had Verizon 4G service, and that coverage would have been based on Verizon, but they said that the cruise ship bills Verizon and Verizon bills us. Three months later.

 

I have learned my lesson. It is cheaper to call ship to shore than it is to use your Verizon cell phone. It is cheaper to buy the internet service from the cruise line than to purchase Verizon's cruise package.

 

I feel Verizon is very deceptive in their description of their service, and they most certainly do not warn you that you will be paying months after your cruise for their services.

 

So, let others be warned, whether you are a first time cruiser, or an experienced cruiser. We all learn something new each cruise.

 

This cruise taught me never, ever to use my Verizon phone on a cruise ship.

 

I wonder what next month's bill will bring, and if I will ever be done paying for cell phone usage on my past cruise.

[purduemom1]

I have Verizon service but have never added any additional service when we have cruised. I have always received a text when arriving in a new port(countey) listing the charges for voice and data. On one occasion I received a call from a family member and we talked for quite a while but my bill was no where near as high as yours. We had just left Panama at the time. I have never used data while cruising so can't comment on those charges.

 

It sounds to me as if Verizon did not clearly explain the service you were purchasing. Hopefullt your experience may alert others so that they make sure they know what they are buying......no matter which carrier they use.

[royalcruz]

We have Verizon and a phone with a SIM card that works internationally. We can use the phone internationally without getting the international plan. The purchase of the international plan gives you a discount on each talk minute and text. If you might be making a lot of calls and texting a lot it is worth getting the plan. The talk charge for each country is different. They prorate the plan, so you can turn it on right before you leave and turn it off after you return.

 

Before we got a phone with international access, we borrowed/rented a phone from Verizon that we could use with our regular phone number. They sent us a defective phone. We returned it and got another one which was also defective, causing us to waste a half day at a Verizon store and at home trying to get the phone to work, the weekend before a long trip. Never again...so now we have phones with international access.

 

I can't tell you about the international data, as I am careful not to use that. I use the internet lounge computers and buy time from Celebrity to check emails.

[Jade13]

 

I was under the impression that I would have both cell phone coverage (when available) and internet service for what I thought was a very reasonable fee of $25 per phone (for my wife and I). I arranged this through Verizon before our cruise started, and cancelled it when I returned.

 

Then we got a bill for $142 for one telephone call. I use my phone as a phone (imagine that), and was under the distinct impression that the coverage I bought was for the ability to use my phone. I knew it was only available on certain islands (we used it on St. Thomas). Turns out that Verizon lets you use the phone, but charges you by the minute the roaming rate (which is very, very high) for actually using the phone. I laugh (through tears) when looking at my bill for access to the phone, which they bill as a "roaming service". Never do they tell you that they are still going to charge you a per minute roaming rate. I have no idea what benefit I received from signing up for a $25 per line charge.

 

Verizon said that the cruise line must have been tardy in relaying the charges. Still not understanding that comment,

 

Just to clarify, you thought you would pay $25.00 per smart phone for the month and would have unlimited internet use and unlimited phone use while out of the country, which includes on the ship and on St. Thomas and other Islands?

 

I don't believe anyone at Verizon told you that.

 

It looks like for St Thomas they have CDMA domestic rates. The ship has its own rates with Verizon for tower use.

You can find all of the rates online, or have Verizon email them to you before you leave. We always look at the rates for each country when we travel.

 

Your expense are due to roaming fees. You need to turn off data roaming on your phones (or shut the smart phone down while not in use) both on the ship and on the Islands while not using the data/internet so you do not rack up roaming fees while not using the services. If you were using data/internet on the ship, the fees are based on Verizon's Agreement with Celebrity. If you did not turn off data roaming you would also likely pick up roaming fees on many of the Islands you visited.

Edited April 14, 2015 by Jade13

[Jade13]

Verizon Cruise Ship rates are right on the Verizon Wireless website.

 

Voice Roaming $2.49/min

Text Messaging 50¢/message sent

5¢/message received

Pay As You Go Data 2¢/KB or $20.48/MB

Edited April 14, 2015 by Jade13

[cookiersmom]

Today I talked to them.

First, they now say that their international plans do cover, at least Eclipse. But your input on data charges thru Celebrity is scary.

 

Their $25 plan is 100MB of DATA only.

For $40 you can get the 100MB plus some talk and some text. Otherwise you are paying (depending on country, but in Europe and on ship) about $1.79 per minute of talk. Outgoing texts are 50 cents and incoming are 5 cents.

 

I am going to get the $25, not use text or phone, use Facebook messenger via data instead of text. And on the ship, I will get a Celebrity data package for the wifi. I think the 100MB will go very fast if I use it to check email or such, whereas Celebrity charges by the minute, so it is easy to keep track of your usage.

[gergles]

Today I talked to them.

First, they now say that their international plans do cover, at least Eclipse. But your input on data charges thru Celebrity is scary.

 

Their $25 plan is 100MB of DATA only.

For $40 you can get the 100MB plus some talk and some text. Otherwise you are paying (depending on country, but in Europe and on ship) about $1.79 per minute of talk. Outgoing texts are 50 cents and incoming are 5 cents.

 

I am going to get the $25, not use text or phone, use Facebook messenger via data instead of text. And on the ship, I will get a Celebrity data package for the wifi. I think the 100MB will go very fast if I use it to check email or such, whereas Celebrity charges by the minute, so it is easy to keep track of your usage.

 

Their international plans **do not** cover voice on the ships, despite their CSRs saying they do. You can get the charges reversed if you have the voice package, but you will have to call and escalate.

 

The data service via ship's data was incredibly bad for me. I couldn't establish connections to my email or even to Google. I would not recommend attempting to use the ship's data service (cellular data. Wi-Fi is slow but works.) at all. Sure, you 'have' 100MB of data, but being able to actually use it is another story. :)

[absolutboy20]

The only thing I can think of the two charges for $50.00 a month would be that you rolled over to another month on your cell phone billing during your cruise, so you were charged $50.00 again. If that is not the case, I would contest the 2nd charge for $50.00 if I were you as it appears they are charging you again for the second month of service that you were refunded. The voice, sounds like you were on roaming on the international and unfortunately your on the hook for that.

 

I personally don't think the cruise ship deal is that great. I rent an international mobile wifi router that I can connect to on port days or when sailing parallel to a country where I can get the local cell 3g service. This provides faster and more reliable service than on the ship, and since it uses wifi not the cell service through my phone, I can keep data roaming off and still receive calls for emergencies.

[Cruise Raider]

Thanks for the info. This is what my plan entails:

 

Shut down the phone and put it in the safe until back on US soil. Sorry this happened to you.

[Straughn]

Thanks for the info. This is what my plan entails:

 

Shut down the phone and put it in the safe until back on US soil. Sorry this happened to you.

 

I have the same plan and find it very cost effective.

[Wine-O]

Thanks for the info. This is what my plan entails:

 

Shut down the phone and put it in the safe until back on US soil. Sorry this happened to you.

 

I had problems last year with Verizon. I've learned to turn off roaming data and only use the phone for text or calls (expensive per minute) and with wifi whether it be on the ship or ashore to download your e-mails.

[Morganmanx]

I've found the solutions! Dump predatory Verizon and get a prepaid plan from T-Mobile or Sprint and turn off roaming. In most ports, your T-Mobile plan will give you phone, text, and data. (120 countries covered) I do get $4 to $7 a month "mystery charges" but that's pretty minor.

[cruisead]

We've had Verizon and have traveled extensively throughout the world and never had to purchase any kind of plan for our phone to work in every country.

[jenninlaca]

We just returned from an extended family trip to Canada and Alaska. Several different family units on the trip had purchased some versions of international plans (to work in Canada), and ATT at Sea data plans. We kept our data (of course including roaming) completely turned off and relied on ship wifi only (yes it costs money but there are no hidden charges). Without fail everyone in our group who had these various plans ended up with massive charges they were not expecting. I am not saying that this was the company's fault, in most cases I think my family members did not understand what they had purchased and what all of the hidden charges were. My FIL thought he was covered by his ATT at Sea plan that he paid a lot for and he ended up with $800 in roaming charges because apparently roaming still should have been turned off. Bottom line was that I did not feel any of these plans were a good value, they caused a lot of confusion and problems and the AT&T at Sea did not work well anyway. I will stick with ship Wifi and not make calls unless absolutely necessary.

 

I always thought you could call the US while in St. Thomas without incurring extra charges, though.

[absolutboy20]

I think a lot of people who purchase a cruise ship plan through their wireless carrier incur more charges for data as they are not aware of when they need to turn data roaming on and off. You will need to turn data roaming on to use the service as it's using the cellular connection, not the ship's wifi network.

 

I'm just going to use AT&T in this scenario.

 

When to have data roaming on:

If one purchased the cruise ship package through AT&T for $120 which is the only plan that AT&T offers with data included for 100mb, you will need to make sure to turn data roaming on while the cell reception shows "Cell at Sea" or something along the lines of "Sat..." . Once the cruise ship gets into the range of port, the cruise ship's cellular network is then turned off and turned over to the local carrier. At that point, if you do not have a separate international data roaming plan, you will start to incur roaming charges which is $19.97 PER MB.

 

When to have data roaming off:

If you only have the cruise ship data plan through your wireless provider, you will want to turn data roaming off when you get near port before the cell phone switches to the local wireless carrier. The tricky part is sometimes the cruise ship sails alongside the coastline of a country where your phone can pick up the local carrier's reception. What sometimes will happen is that unless you lock your phone to the "cell at sea" connection, your phone may start transmitting through the land based carrier at which point will start to incur the international roaming charges above. NOTE: I see a lot of people get confused with the ship's own internet option which uses wifi, and a cell phone providers data plan that uses cell reception. If one only uses the ship's wifi, data roaming can always be left off and you will not incur charges from your wireless provider.

 

Hope this helps. And yes Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands are part of included network for AT&T.

Edited July 22, 2015 by absolutboy20

[notjaded]

Just signed up with the Verizon International $40 plan, with Cruise Ship option. The CSR said that included:

 

Preferred Pricing Countries Preferred Pricing Countries

$40/mo for 100 min, 100 sent msg, 100 MB

 

Overage:

$.25/min, $.25/msg, $25/100 MB

 

Overage:

$25/100 MB

Includes:

Unlimited Incoming msg and Global Wi-Fi Promotion Includes:

Global Wi-Fi Promotion

 

The CSR claims that there are no extra charges unless one exceeds these levels. Is the above consistent with your understanding?

 

I learned the hard way a few years ago to turn my data roaming off before I travel, and will do so with this trip as well unless there is an emergency.

 

 

Messages received are .05

[absolutboy20]

Notjaded,

 

So my personal familiarity is with AT&T not Verizon, but going off of Verizon's website it seems correct. The only thing that the website doesn't list is the overage.

 

http://www.verizonwireless.com/landingpages/international-travel/

 

Couple of items I would do if I were you would be to confirm through the above link the countries you are visiting are indeed part of the plan. I would also inquire if Verizon sends a free text message to you informing you when you are approaching your data limit for international roaming. If you keep roaming off the entire time, you're really won't be able to utilize anything your paying for. You need to turn roaming on as you're technically out of your own network, and turning roaming on authorizes the phone to be able to connect to the local carrier. If you're still concerned, you can always turn roaming on when you are actually using the phone to check e-mail, etc. and turn it off after you've finished.

 

I've utilized international roaming data packages on all of my cruises and trips, and haven't had a surprise bill. It's just a matter of getting an understanding of what plan you actually paid for and when to turn data roaming off and on.

Edited July 22, 2015 by absolutboy20

[julia]

Just signed up with the Verizon International $40 plan, with Cruise Ship option. The CSR said that included:

 

Preferred Pricing Countries Preferred Pricing Countries

$40/mo for 100 min, 100 sent msg, 100 MB

 

Overage:

$.25/min, $.25/msg, $25/100 MB

 

Overage:

$25/100 MB

Includes:

Unlimited Incoming msg and Global Wi-Fi Promotion Includes:

Global Wi-Fi Promotion

 

The CSR claims that there are no extra charges unless one exceeds these levels. Is the above consistent with your understanding?

 

I learned the hard way a few years ago to turn my data roaming off before I travel, and will do so with this trip as well unless there is an emergency.

 

 

Messages received are .05

 

Have been with Verizon for a decade. Would not change at this point.

However, my question is WHY would anyone pay for something called "global wi-fi"?? Seriously folks.... wi-fi is available everywhere! Just buy a drink and sit down. We have never purchased any special package to travel with. Turn OFF your data, and use free wi-fi throughout the world.

[BunnyLebowski]

So sorry to hear of your experience. How frustrating this must be for you.

 

Your experience is exactly what I'm afraid of during international travel. My family switched to T-Mobile last year for their generous international text and data plan.

 

In 2 weeks when we are aboard the Constellation, I plan to keep all our phones/iPads, etc in airplane mode which has worked well in the past. For voice communication (if necessary) we'll use our Viber app (which we already use for several hours per month for international calls at no cost- amazing...)

 

Hope your phone bill gets sorted out quickly, and thank you for sharing your experience as a cautionary tale for others.

[phoenix_dream]

To clarify, Verizon does not cover St. Thomas, and covers only part of Puerto Rico without assigning roaming charges (San Juan being one of the covered areas). We found this out the hard way, via a $150 charge for a call to United from St. Thomas when our flight was messed up.

[gergles]

Have been with Verizon for a decade. Would not change at this point.

However, my question is WHY would anyone pay for something called "global wi-fi"?? Seriously folks.... wi-fi is available everywhere! Just buy a drink and sit down. We have never purchased any special package to travel with. Turn OFF your data, and use free wi-fi throughout the world.

 

Verizon has access to paid Wi-Fi hotspots that you get included with a VZ International roaming plan.

[sarahc78]

Have been with Verizon for a decade. Would not change at this point.

However, my question is WHY would anyone pay for something called "global wi-fi"?? Seriously folks.... wi-fi is available everywhere! Just buy a drink and sit down. We have never purchased any special package to travel with. Turn OFF your data, and use free wi-fi throughout the world.

 

Depends on where you are traveling too I guess. Bermuda for example does not have a free Wi-Fi spot in the Dockyard area. You have to purchase a package.

[Wine-O]

Depends on where you are traveling too I guess. Bermuda for example does not have a free Wi-Fi spot in the Dockyard area. You have to purchase a package.

 

They had a free wifi hot spot at the Frog and Onion. You just have to ask them for the code, and of course order a beer. :D

[sarahc78]

They had a free wifi hot spot at the Frog and Onion. You just have to ask them for the code, and of course order a beer. :D

 

Awesome! We always go there for their fish & chips and a few beers but never thought to ask if they did free Wi-Fi! Thanks!;)