Free At Sea Wi-Fi Question

[BarnCat1]

Is this perk of 150 free minutes per cabin or per guest? I have seen it written both ways.  Is it worth it to upgrade for just being able to check in at home every other day and read or delete emails? Can you text between phones with this perk? 

Once on the ship, do you put your phone in airplane mode, turn off roaming (which it always is anyway), and turn on Wi-Fi?

Do the ports still have free Wi-Fi available in certain areas?  It's been a few years since we cruised, we're a little rusty 😷

I am not interested in social media, streaming, web browsing, etc.

  I'll be on vacation, FINALLY!!  🚢 🌴 🍹

[ColeThornton]

Current offer on NCL.com

 

Internet Package (Free WiFi)
Internet package is based on number of nights.
75 minutes per person for 3-6 Day Cruises.
150 minutes per person for 7-11 Day Cruises.
300 minutes per person for 12+ Day Cruises.
Offer will be applied to the 1st and 2nd guest in the stateroom.
Internet package is per person. Two logins per stateroom.
Can be used only on one device at a time.
Package is limited to number of minutes and doesn’t allow streaming.
Internet package is not available at Great Stirrup Cay or Harvest Caye.
Internet package includes activation fee

 

 

https://www.ncl.com/about/terms-and-conditions/promotions

[BirdTravels]

1 hour ago, BarnCat1 said:

Is this perk of 150 free minutes per cabin or per guest? I have seen it written both ways.  Is it worth it to upgrade for just being able to check in at home every other day and read or delete emails? Can you text between phones with this perk? 

Once on the ship, do you put your phone in airplane mode, turn off roaming (which it always is anyway), and turn on Wi-Fi?

Do the ports still have free Wi-Fi available in certain areas?  It's been a few years since we cruised, we're a little rusty 😷

I am not interested in social media, streaming, web browsing, etc.

  I'll be on vacation, FINALLY!!  🚢 🌴 🍹

Guest 1 and 2 in the room get an account. You need to be very disciplined and log on, down load email, log off quickly. 150 mins goes very quickly. 
 

If you use an internet based message like iMessge in iPhones, you can send messages. BUT,,, everyone needs to be online and that eats up minutes quickly. 
 

Airplane mode on. Wi-Fi on. Data roaming off. 
 

Nothing is “free”. A lot of “free wifi hotspots” in port areas are designed to skim personal information from people using the “free wifi” and sell it. The crew don’t care… but you should. 

[Sailing12Away]

Our cell phone carrier is TMobile. While in port, we have free data in nearly every country. Once the ship starts pulling away from the dock, we go on airplane mode with wifi on. Don't log into the NCL wifi server unless we need it, mostly save it for the laptop which is 100x easier to do stuff on than our phones. 

 

We'll log in, check email, check in here at CC or on FB, do some research on our next port of call if we need something to do or need to check the local maps, then log out.

 

Our last trip was a 10 day Canada/NE trip and we only used up minutes for one of our accounts and that was with me checking in nearly every day and uploading photos and making a near live review of our trip here on CC. So for us, the free minutes are more than sufficient when they're combined with our unlimited access on dry land.

[ShadowRegent]

We found that iMessage worked even when "logged out" on our cruise a few weeks back (connected to Wifi but not using minutes).  I was surprised to see that and suspect it wasn't supposed to be working, but it did throughout our entire cruise.

[kaprin02]

8 minutes ago, ShadowRegent said:

We found that iMessage worked even when "logged out" on our cruise a few weeks back (connected to Wifi but not using minutes).  I was surprised to see that and suspect it wasn't supposed to be working, but it did throughout our entire cruise.

This is a fairly well known "glitch" or loophole.  It's been like that since at least the post-covid restart.  Works only for text based iMessages, not pictures.

[Megamixer]

Also notifications.  I got notifications from every app on my phone that sends them when I was connected to the ship but not logged in.  My security cameras, garage door, local tv news.  Of course clicking on the notification would go nowhere but I'd have an idea of whether or not to sign in.

[Liz.m.m]

I've heard WhatsApp also works while not being "logged in" has anyone used it recently?

 

I'm also hearing the pay per person NCL app messaging isn't working very well on Prima.

[dexddd]

41 minutes ago, Liz.m.m said:

I've heard WhatsApp also works while not being "logged in" has anyone used it recently?

 

I'm also hearing the pay per person NCL app messaging isn't working very well on Prima.

Welcome to CC.  Can't answer that but can say the internet is like dial-up on Prima.