Cell Phone service

[P&PNH]

Greetings to all.  Have searched the forums and have not found an answer to my question so here goes.  If you are cruising from Montreal to Boston, do you need to purchase the internet plans to get text and email messages?  I would think your have coverage traveling up the St. Lawrence till you reach the ocean, but are you far enough off the coast for it to not work after that? We Have T-Mobile that has covers Canada.

[princeton123211]

1 hour ago, P&PNH said:

If you are cruising from Montreal to Boston, do you need to purchase the internet plans to get text and email messages?  I would think your have coverage traveling up the St. Lawrence till you reach the ocean

Even in the St Lawrence cell service is spotty while underway. Also your phone will connect to the nearest available cell source which will invariably be the ships cell service and most likely not included in your TMobile plan. 

 

1 hour ago, P&PNH said:

but are you far enough off the coast for it to not work after that? We Have T-Mobile that has covers Canada.

Yes-- you will not have any outside cell service once in the open ocean. Really after Quebec City the St Lawrence is very wide and cell service will be limited if you can pick up the signal at all. 

 

From experience on this itinerary I would not plan on having reliable outside cell service any time you are underway. 

[ericosmith]

9 hours ago, P&PNH said:

Greetings to all.  Have searched the forums and have not found an answer to my question so here goes.  If you are cruising from Montreal to Boston, do you need to purchase the internet plans to get text and email messages?  I would think your have coverage traveling up the St. Lawrence till you reach the ocean, but are you far enough off the coast for it to not work after that? We Have T-Mobile that has covers Canada.

I would normally go up to the glassed in lounge at the top of the ship at night and connect to a network on shore.  I selected the network manually on my phone to avoid the ship cell service.  Not always the greatest but it worked most of the time.

[P&PNH]

Thanks to all for the information.  Guess I will go with the internet plan so the pet sitter can stay in touch.

[Ashland]

We purchased the RCI Voom Surf n Stream. We also had our iPhones on Airplane mode and were able to easily text. No problems at all to do this from Quebec to Fort Lauderdale.