Holland America Internet Plan vs. International Phone Coverage?

[love2shell]

We will be on a cruise longer than 2 weeks and were wondering if anyone has experience with the internet plan vs obtaining international coverage on a cell phone to keep in touch with family and friends? Also, if we get the internet plan, can we stream things like Netflix? We will be cruising to the Caribbean if that makes a difference. Thanks in advance for any help!

[TiogaCruiser]

5 minutes ago, love2shell said:

We will be on a cruise longer than 2 weeks and were wondering if anyone has experience with the internet plan vs obtaining international coverage on a cell phone to keep in touch with family and friends? Also, if we get the internet plan, can we stream things like Netflix? We will be cruising to the Caribbean if that makes a difference. Thanks in advance for any help!

Regarding international coverage, A lot depends on your cell phone carrier and your plan. My AT&T plan allows me to buy a day pass valid for 24 hours. It allows me to use my domestic contract abroad for $10 a day.

 

As for ships internet, streaming is only available in the highest level package. I was able to buy it prior to leaving for our last trip at a discount. We did not stream.

[Cruising-along]

We use both.  Our international phone plan isn't any good while the ship is at sea.  As for streaming, we found even with the highest level package it didn't work well (if at all).  I'll try again on our next cruise, just in case the problem was due to where we were at the time (VOV last summer).  

 

 

[Vineyard View]

If you use the HAL plan, do you need to purchase it for the entire trip, or can you purchase for specific dates? A long itinerary would add up!

[TAD2005]

You can purchase either of the 3 plans on a per-day basis (most expensive) or for the whole cruise.   We had the Surf plan for a 28 day South Pacific cruise last March and it cost $259.99 purchased onboard.  You can not purchase the Social Media and Surf plans online, before your cruise.  HAL only has that option for the Premium plan and there is usually a small discount for using your own money to buy it instead of using the free, HAL provided cabin credit and buying it onboard.

 

[dave.s]

I posted the following reply in another thread about cell plans, but it’s relevant here too if you’re an AT&T customer:

 

The AT&T cruise plan has two options, both good for 30 days: $100 for 200MB of data and unlimited talk/text, or $50 for 50 minutes of talk and unlimited text (no data). One good feature of this plan for Alaska cruises is that you can use the service on land in Canada.  I purchased the $50 option for my upcoming cruise because my service doesn’t include Canada. I also have the International Day Pass option but that doesn’t work at sea. 

 

Details of the AT&T plans here: https://www.att.com/offers/international-plans/cruise-packages.html

[dave.s]

I should add that I’ve also purchased the on-board premium internet plan for data access when at sea. On HAL that plan is per cabin, and though it supports multiple devices, only one can be connected at a time. I have no experience with HAL’s internet service, but I’ve never had good internet service on any cruise line so I’m not expecting much.