Cell Phone Question

[POF1234]

Our cruise is Royal Princess, Northbound Alaska, leaving out of Seattle.  

 

I have a cell phone question or two

 

My carrier, Verizon, treats Canada like US and all of our ports are US.  While we are cruising, I know to put turn off Cell Phone Data roaming and we are purchasing an internet package. 

 

When do we need to turn off Cellular - as soon as we board the ship ( some sort of force field LOL ) or do we have to be a certain distance offshore ?  I'm really talking about when we are in Vancouver, at what point do we go to ships WIFI ? 

 

I'm debating whether we need the package for both my husband and I.  Can I hotspot from the WIFI.  I'll have all my info downloaded so I won;t need to get on-line, but if I had too - it would be nice to have an option.  

 

Thanks 

 

 

 

 

[Essiesmom]

No, I don't believe you can  hotspot from the wifi.  .  Put your phone in airplane mode as soon as the ship clears the Lions Gate Bridge, if not sooner.  Then turn on wifi and bluetooth.    Since your question is specific to Princess, you should as on the Princess board here, under Cruise Lines P-Z  You might also ask on the board here for Alaska under Ports of Call, and under West Coast Departures (North American Homeports.  Lots of areas to explore here on Cruise Critic.  EM

[chipmaster]

I'd turn it off after you set sail, we found that in most ports/sailing you can get land based cell for a good 1/4-1/2 mile, but once at sea user beware of charges from the ship based cell service.  

 

When we sailed Europe we got free cell while insight of land, funny as we were easily more than a couple miles offshore was shocked but my kids were happy even with slow cell, LOL

Edited July 21, 2019 by chipmaster

[POF1234]

Thanks, 

 

I will post on Princess - since I have some specific questions related to their plans.  

[zqvol]

Double check with Verizon. Unless they have recently changed they do not give you included coverage in Canada, which means you should turn it off when you get to Vancouver. Verizon will send  you  a message letting you know if you have to pay roaming charges. Once you reach AK, you can leave it on most of the time. Turn it on as you come into port, and off after you sail.

[SRF]

Until you turn off cell service, CHECK the info at the top of your screen before making or taking a call.

 

If is says something like Cellular at Sea for the carrier, DO NOT TAKE OR MAKE THE CALL.

 

Best is, if you have wifi, enable wifi calling before you leave home.  It must be set up while connected to your cellular carrier.

 

Then as soon as you board, you can turn of cell, and use wifi calling if needed.

[cb at sea]

You can use your plan WHILE you're in your home port...and you can pick up a signal until you're almost out of sight of land.  So, if you don't turn the phone off immediately upon setting sail, you're still ok...but do it soon after!!!

[Robinsoncruiseso]

I have Verizon unlimited plan and can use in Canada. At times while sailing up Sunshine Coast (between mainland and Vancouver Island) you may pick up a cell signal from land. You will for sure be good in Alaskan ports. For those without coverage in Canada, we sometimes bounce off Canadian towers here in Washington, so always check to make sure you are not roaming

[Sancho_proudfoot]

Although not Canada/Verizon related, we got caught out on our recent Med cruise. 

 

Phones stayed OFF until we got into port. Our provider (3) has very comprehensive roaming included in the plan. We arrived in Gibraltar, went ashore, did the touristy things, then sat at a cafe in the square for a drink.

 

DW phoned home to her elderly mother while we were sat there.

 

Next port, she gets a SMS from 3, saying she had racked up some £42 in additional charges. 

 

Spoke to 3, on their free number. Turns out that although in Gibraltar (one of their free roaming destinations) her phone had actually connected to a mast all the way across the Strait in Tangier, Morocco (which isn't a free roaming destination)

 

We managed to persuade 3 to waive the charge, luckily.

Edited August 9, 2019 by Sancho_proudfoot

[chipmaster]

7 hours ago, Sancho_proudfoot said:

Although not Canada/Verizon related, we got caught out on our recent Med cruise. 

 

Phones stayed OFF until we got into port. Our provider (3) has very comprehensive roaming included in the plan. We arrived in Gibraltar, went ashore, did the touristy things, then sat at a cafe in the square for a drink.

 

DW phoned home to her elderly mother while we were sat there.

 

Next port, she gets a SMS from 3, saying she had racked up some £42 in additional charges. 

 

Spoke to 3, on their free number. Turns out that although in Gibraltar (one of their free roaming destinations) her phone had actually connected to a mast all the way across the Strait in Tangier, Morocco (which isn't a free roaming destination)

 

We managed to persuade 3 to waive the charge, luckily.

 

Always be aware what the little icon on our phone says, at least on our phone we see what we are connected to and thus a flag to check further if you are getting thoroughly $$$$

[basictek]

On 7/21/2019 at 5:57 PM, POF1234 said:

I'm debating whether we need the package for both my husband and I.  Can I hotspot from the WIFI.  I'll have all my info downloaded so I won;t need to get on-line, but if I had too - it would be nice to have an option.  

 

I wasn't able to hotspot, but I was able to do wifi calling and unless calling each other a single account is typically enough with both of us taking the wifi as needed switching devices. This seems to be a popular practice. With 2 voom's you could actually do wifi texting and calling which would be neat. 

[ggtjr]

On 7/21/2019 at 4:57 PM, POF1234 said:

Our cruise is Royal Princess, Northbound Alaska, leaving out of Seattle.  

 

I have a cell phone question or two

 

My carrier, Verizon, treats Canada like US and all of our ports are US.  While we are cruising, I know to put turn off Cell Phone Data roaming and we are purchasing an internet package. 

 

When do we need to turn off Cellular - as soon as we board the ship ( some sort of force field LOL ) or do we have to be a certain distance offshore ?  I'm really talking about when we are in Vancouver, at what point do we go to ships WIFI ? 

 

I'm debating whether we need the package for both my husband and I.  Can I hotspot from the WIFI.  I'll have all my info downloaded so I won;t need to get on-line, but if I had too - it would be nice to have an option.  

 

Thanks 

 

 

 

 

Since you will have wifi, Turn to airplane mode and set phone to WiFi calling. You will be able to text or phone anywhere---even home without cellular charges.

[Sancho_proudfoot]

On 8/9/2019 at 4:40 PM, chipmaster said:

 

Always be aware what the little icon on our phone says, at least on our phone we see what we are connected to and thus a flag to check further if you are getting thoroughly $$$$

 

That presupposes that you know the name of the partner carrier in each country you visit. In Gibraltar, you can get Movistar (Spanish) Gibtelistar (Gibraltar) or Meditel (Morocco). We already knew Gibtelistar is pretty weak,  but Meditel sounds like a Mediterranean carrier ( which it is, l suppose).  In countries with multiple networks, you never know which carrier will have the best signal at the moment your phone connects.

[SRF]

On 7/21/2019 at 5:57 PM, POF1234 said:

Can I hotspot from the WIFI. 

 

No, you cannot hotspot from wifi. Only from cellular data.

 

Some laptops running Win 10 can do so.

 

Normally it requires 2 wifi chipsets. One for the carrier and one for the hotspot.

[clo]

On 8/9/2019 at 12:51 AM, Sancho_proudfoot said:

We managed to persuade 3 to waive the charge, luckily.

I wouldn't think that as difficult, was it?

[Sancho_proudfoot]

4 hours ago, clo said:

I wouldn't think that as difficult, was it?

 

Not especially. They needed to investigate to see why the charges had occurred ( which is how we found out about the Tangier connection). As we have been customers of 3 for several years, and never missed a monthly payment, they offered to 'write off' the charge as a one-off. We learned in that conversation that in Spain their chosen partner network was Movistar, so we could check on arrival in further Spanish ports that we connected to Movistar and nobody else.

[brillohead]

I just always put it in airplane mode and turn on WiFi once I get on the ship.  I already have WiFi calling enabled on my phone, so I don't "need" my cell connection at all once I'm connected to the ship's WiFi.

 

[brillohead]

On 7/21/2019 at 6:08 PM, Essiesmom said:

No, I don't believe you can  hotspot from the wifi.  .  Put your phone in airplane mode as soon as the ship clears the Lions Gate Bridge, if not sooner.  Then turn on wifi and bluetooth.    Since your question is specific to Princess, you should as on the Princess board here, under Cruise Lines P-Z  You might also ask on the board here for Alaska under Ports of Call, and under West Coast Departures (North American Homeports.  Lots of areas to explore here on Cruise Critic.  EM

You would only need to turn on Bluetooth if you're using another BT-enabled device (maybe a speaker in your room?) that needs to connect to your phone.  

I only ever turn on WiFi after going into airplane mode.