Ship's WiFi vs CellAtSea?

[justlovlie]

Hello! First time posting!

 

I am taking a solo "mommy rehab!" cruise in April aboard the Norwegian Epic. There was a deal at booking where I could choose between 250 mins of free wifi vs a free bev package (as well as 2 other options that I didn't need). I do need to occasionally keep in touch with the family at home and don't plan to booze it up big time, so I went with the wifi deal.

 

However...I've since discovered the CellAtSea thing, and I'm wondering if I made the right choice! So my questions: is cruise ship wifi akin to hotel wifi? (AKA occasionally zippy but typically wonky and slow as Christmas..?) If I have cell data off and limit my CellAtSea use to a little texting and, say, a daily call to check in, will I rack up a big charge or is that pretty reasonable? I have tried reading up on how it works, but when they start talking about sms vs imessage and cdma and blah blah blah, well, it's all Greek to me. Pretty sure I can restrain myself from the obligatory facebook check-ins and can do without wifi entirely - I only thought it worthwhile because my husband and I use the Viber app to make wifi calls to each other when one us is out of the country.

 

Any tips for a newb? The last time I cruised, it was in the pre-Smartphone era, and the only person I needed to talk to was with me!

[Crew News]

Hello! First time posting!

 

I am taking a solo "mommy rehab!" cruise in April aboard the Norwegian Epic. There was a deal at booking where I could choose between 250 mins of free wifi vs a free bev package (as well as 2 other options that I didn't need). I do need to occasionally keep in touch with the family at home and don't plan to booze it up big time, so I went with the wifi deal.

 

However...I've since discovered the CellAtSea thing, and I'm wondering if I made the right choice! So my questions: is cruise ship wifi akin to hotel wifi? (AKA occasionally zippy but typically wonky and slow as Christmas..?) If I have cell data off and limit my CellAtSea use to a little texting and, say, a daily call to check in, will I rack up a big charge or is that pretty reasonable? I have tried reading up on how it works, but when they start talking about sms vs imessage and cdma and blah blah blah, well, it's all Greek to me. Pretty sure I can restrain myself from the obligatory facebook check-ins and can do without wifi entirely - I only thought it worthwhile because my husband and I use the Viber app to make wifi calls to each other when one us is out of the country.

 

Any tips for a newb? The last time I cruised, it was in the pre-Smartphone era, and the only person I needed to talk to was with me!

 

Every time you turn on your phone, you will incur a minimum of one minute charge (estimate $7.99/minute) for the phone to locate a satellite. Most cell companies round up to the nearest minute for calls. There is no charge while in US ports for cell phone use because the ship's cell tower is shutdown while in US ports.

 

Just turning your phone on and off could get very expensive. Using the ship Wifi with a tablet is much cheaper.

Edited January 19, 2016 by Crew News

[justlovlie]

Every time you turn on your phone, you will incur a minimum of one minute charge (estimate $7.99/minute) for the phone to locate a satellite. Most cell companies round up to the nearest minute for calls. There is no charge while in US ports for cell phone use because the ship's cell tower is shutdown while in US ports.

 

Just turning your phone on and off could get very expensive. Using the ship Wifi with a tablet is much cheaper.

 

 

Is this true for all carriers? I'm looking through AT&T's site, and there is no mention...? It gives a per minute/voice call price, and text pricing...of course there is data pricing as well, but if I have data off it should not incur those charges...I think?

 

I'm wondering also about the wifi quality on the Epic, if anyone knows, since our wifi calling app barely works if the signal is poor.

[Underwatr]

You want to look here:

 

https://www.att.com/shop/wireless/international/roaming.html?tab=4

 

Calls will be $2.50 per minute, text messages are 50 cents to send, MMS/picture messages are $1.30 to send. Receiving text and picture messages costs whatever your plan nomally charges at home, probably free.

 

Data over Cellular at Sea is 1 cent per kilobyte = $10.24/Megabyte. It's trivially easy for your phone to go through 50 or 100 Megabytes without any action on your part, so make sure you have your phone set to Data Roaming off to avoid expensive data charges.

 

You will not incur a roaming charge just for turning your phone on.

 

WiFi onboard will probably be quite slow, and further the ship might block the use of WiFi calling apps from your cellphone. This is all in flux as cruise lines upgrade their satellite systems to higher bandwidth and I'm not familiar with NCL.

 

AT&T offers some travel plans on many cruise ships to help manage the cost but Norwegian is not one of the lines in that plan.

 

This all assumes you have a regular postpaid plan. With a prepaid plan you're likely not to have any cell service aside from if you should call on Puerto Rico or the USVI.

Edited January 19, 2016 by Underwatr