Cellular service in Western Carribean

[dh01498]

I know this has been discussed before and will again however I wanted to post some solid info on this since I just returned from the 9 day Western Carribean on the Voyager.

 

We have Cingular with a quad band phone.

 

The service worked quite a ways out from Bayonne, but then DID NOT work on the ship until we reached Jamaica. It did not work on Labadee which I did not expect anyway since Labadee is quite primitive.

 

I made and received calls in Jamaica, Grand Cayman & Grand Bahama for $1.99 per minute that included roaming. Not bad.. and this was the rate I was told I would get prior to the cruise by Cingular.. at least I was not mislead LOL which often happens.:rolleyes:

 

So for the peace of mind we got by contacting home ( we have an elderly parent at home) it was well worth the $20 bill we got for the calls. No we did not carry on long conversations 1-2 mintues only, nor did we make a great many calls but it made us feel much more at ease knowing we could at least check in at home and they could call us as well. And it was convenient rather than looking for a pay phone that would accept phone cards. I know many people prefer to do this and that's good too.. but we liked being able to use our own phone and it was not expenisve.

 

So for those of you who are wondering about this that is the info with Cingular.

Interesting however... my DH had his phone with him with Verizon and also had service in all three islands. We did not make any calls with his phone so I have no idea what the cost would have been. I found that interesting in so much as we were told by a lot of people that there was no service with Verizon on any of the Carribean islands.. including a Verizon CSR LOL:confused:

 

Also... we got messages on our phone while in Jamaica offering a better rate on our calls while there but we did not try it .. we did not want to fall into any kind of scam.

 

Also be SURE you get international calling on your plan if you plan to use your phone and be SURE you have a Quad Band phone. ;)

[DPurcell58]

i was on the same cruise as Deb, I have Verizon , I had no service anywhere. I don't have an international plan though. In Jamaica, I got a recording that said my call couldn't be completed. I opted to use my internet coupons and emailed my family instead.

[dh01498]

i was on the same cruise as Deb, I have Verizon , I had no service anywhere. I don't have an international plan though. In Jamaica, I got a recording that said my call couldn't be completed. I opted to use my internet coupons and emailed my family instead.

 

Wow that is so odd.. it had to be the internatinal calling plan that made the difference even with our Verizon phone. We have it on our Verizon phone because we have friends in Germany that we sometimes call on our cell. I don't know what made us turn on the Verizon phone but we were very surprised to see a signal. However maybe if we had tried to call out we would have gotten the same recording as you since I know I was told my many that Verizon does not work there.:confused:

Anyway we used e-mail as much as possible too since it was cheaper than calling.;)