Texting while onboard

[Crazyrbbt]

I am cruising next week for the first time. I have notified my phone carrier and changed my service to cover me while in ports. I have read on these threads about texting while cruising. Can someone fill me in on how this works? I was under the impression that we should keep the phones in airplane mode to avoid excess roaming charges, we would have to turn this off to text, correct. I am cruising on a ship that does not have the internet upgrades yet so I am looking for other ways to stay in contact in case of issues back home. Thanks for any help.

[aflyingbuttress]

If your phone allows texting on wifi and you can connect to the ships wifi, then yes, put your phone on airplane mode and you will just pay whatever the ships charges are. If you cannot text on wifi you will need to be connected to your cell service in order to text and you will pay whatever your career charges.

[Jeepenfun]

Your phone should work on the ship, texts and phone calls is part of your international calling plan. Ships cell tower is operated by maritime services and most all major cell carriers are on this tower. Carnival does not charge an extra or surcharge to use the tower. It's part of your international plan. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong but when I called verizon about having international calling and texting ability on carnival ships they said you can turn off your phones data service so your not using data from data dependent apps like weather, Facebook, picture texts, email. And you will still receive phone calls and texts but not picture or multimedia texts with data off. Don't quote me though. Different carriers may be different. Call your carrier and ask.

[Crazyrbbt]

Thanks for the information. It is good to know in advance what I should be doing so I'm not worried while on vacation.

[pbsteve]

What carrier, I can pull actual charges for texts sent and recieved.

 

Also what kind of phone, iPhones are notorious for issues to other iphones, as I messaging is over the intermnet, and more costly, changing to text mode and most other iphones don't get your texts

[Crazyrbbt]

I use AT&T, and it will be iphone to iphone. My daughter is staying home and we share an account.

[Crazyrbbt]

But to be honest I'm trying to stay in contact with my 16 year old daughter who is staying home and in reality she probably won't even notice I'm gone. So if I can only check in while in port I can live with that.

[Pops, Esq.]

http://www.att.com/travelguide/coverage/coverage_details.jsp?CIDL=1578&MNC=CING

[Havingfun2010]

Simple - Turn off data roaming and turn off data. Turning off data roaming will disable roaming any place you are roaming. Turning off data, will turn off data roaming as well as home company data.

 

Texting/phone calls. Do you normally receive a ton of texts and phone calls? I don't. (but I'm not a teenager either). So you can leave your phone on and receive those texts. Most incoming texts are only $0.10 or free depending on phone carrier and service plan.

 

When I travel, this is what I do. My phone is always on. The data is turned off. The wifi is turned on. Never an issue. If and only if I really want to get email or something, I will turn data on to receive it, and turn it back off. That way you can be in control of how much you spend.

[KatieCharlotte]

If you have a teenager who does receive a billion texts, I assume the safest thing is to just turn off the phone and leave it in the safe?

[realjd]

Airplane mode is unnecessary. Just turn off data roaming. It should be disabled by default. Then you'll only get charged if you place or answer a call, or send a text. AT&Ts international rates are usually around $2/min for calls, 50c to send a text and free to receive. Picture messages cost $1.something to send and are also free to receive.

 

Texting is our typical onboard method of communicating. A couple of texts a day isn't expensive, and it's really convenient.

Edited September 22, 2015 by realjd

[Pops, Esq.]

AT&T says their rates on Carnival Ships are as follows:

 

Voice: $2.50 per minute

Text sent: $0.50 (picture text $1.30)

Text received: standard messaging rates

[summersigh]

I don't know since I don't have an IPhone (in fact I'm happy with my simple ol' flip phone ) :D Maybe the cheapest/simplest way for some folks to "text" might be buying the social media internet package" and using messaging on Facebook? It seems to send and receive messages in real time.

 

Would that work?:confused:

[Rockypoint]

We will be on the Breeze in a couple of weeks and we all have i-phones. We will all have the Carnival Hub App and my plan was to pay for the social media package and do messaging through facebook to stay in touch back home.

 

Verizon advised to put the phone on airplane mode and turn data off to avoid any unexpected charges. My question is, will the social media plan and the Carnival Hub App work with the data turned off and the phone in airplane mode?

 

We have always just put our phones in the safe while on cruises but this time we plan to use them because of the new Carnival Hub App.

 

Thanks!

[cruisinparamedic]

We will be on the Breeze in a couple of weeks and we all have i-phones. We will all have the Carnival Hub App and my plan was to pay for the social media package and do messaging through facebook to stay in touch back home.

 

Verizon advised to put the phone on airplane mode and turn data off to avoid any unexpected charges. My question is, will the social media plan and the Carnival Hub App work with the data turned off and the phone in airplane mode?

 

We have always just put our phones in the safe while on cruises but this time we plan to use them because of the new Carnival Hub App.

 

Thanks!

 

 

After you put your phone on airplane mode, go back and put wifi on. That way you can use the social media package and the hub app.

[cruisinparamedic]

If you have a teenager who does receive a billion texts, I assume the safest thing is to just turn off the phone and leave it in the safe?

 

 

That would be your best bet... Depending on what ship you're going on (not sure if it is on all of them now or not), but the social media app lets people go on facebook, instagram, etc, and even use facebook messenger...

 

I'm a fairly social person and I think I'm just going to lock up my phone for the cruise... Vacation is for disconnecting!