ATT (cellular at sea) vs Celebrity Package???

[teacherman]

We are booked on a Trans Atlantic.  We may be doing a few calls, texts, and web surfing.  Just wondering if any of you can comment on the difference in these 2 types of packages as far as how well they function on Celebrity Equinox.   I can get probably all that I need from ATT for $100.  I do not know the price of Celebrity package.   I also get the free 90 minutes of Elite wifi, and so does my wife.  Have any of you had experience with these plans?

[gfkcruiser]

38 minutes ago, teacherman said:

We are booked on a Trans Atlantic.  We may be doing a few calls, texts, and web surfing.  Just wondering if any of you can comment on the difference in these 2 types of packages as far as how well they function on Celebrity Equinox.   I can get probably all that I need from ATT for $100.  I do not know the price of Celebrity package.   I also get the free 90 minutes of Elite wifi, and so does my wife.  Have any of you had experience with these plans?

[gfkcruiser]

39 minutes ago, teacherman said:

We are booked on a Trans Atlantic.  We may be doing a few calls, texts, and web surfing.  Just wondering if any of you can comment on the difference in these 2 types of packages as far as how well they function on Celebrity Equinox.   I can get probably all that I need from ATT for $100.  I do not know the price of Celebrity package.   I also get the free 90 minutes of Elite wifi, and so does my wife.  Have any of you had experience with these plans?

Not clear if it connects to the wifi or thru cellular after reading the info.  Only good at sea.  I have ATT and have only used the daily international on land service at $10/24 hours.  

[teacherman]

Yes, I also have that plan but it will not work once you are about 5 miles from shore.   I have used the Cellular at Sea pay by the text message and that works well ($0.50 each text) but I have never used it for internet and calls.  I do know that ATT has a list of the ships it will work on, so maybe it does not work on older ships.

[sanger727]

I looked into this recently. cellular at sea works through your cell phone service but only works at sea. It connects with cellular at 5-10 miles from the port. The main downside I see to this is that for cellular at sea to work, you have to turn roaming on. But you have no coverage on land, so you will have to remember to cellular or roaming off at least 10 miles from a port.

 

I personally would just plan on using your free wifi minutes and use the $10 travel pass in port if additional time is needed. if you log in, do a wifi call, or imessage text, and log back out again. You won't use 90 minutes. 

[prmssk]

Read the fine print. Last I checked the amount of data included was so tiny that you would run through it with very little use and overage costs for any data that exceeds that limit was very high. 
 

Keep in mind that any plan (Celebrity or Cellular at Sea) may not have service at times on a TA. 

[someguyfl]

I'd agree with what others said - the amount of data typically included on cellular roaming plans is very small, with very expensive overage. Read the fine print.

Also, make sure your cell phone plan allows roaming onto it. The last several cruises I have been on, my T-Mobile plan showed "No Service" even with Roaming available.

 

Personally, I just pay for the premium wifi service, and with that, my T-Mobile connects to "WiFi Voice", and I'm able to talk/text on my regular cell phone plan over that with no concern about cost, and the speed with Starlink is pretty good nowadays.

 

From what I've heard, the basic wifi blocks many sites, and is mostly just good for email and some text services like WhatsApp... but I haven't used it personally.

Edited December 9, 2023 by someguyfl

[paulh84]

If you read this page from AT&T they all but encourage you to just use ship WiFi. It's been years since I used Cellular at Sea due to improved ship WiFi. The call quality was always terrible using CAS. You are also only getting 1 gig for $100 with a $10 per mg charge if you exceed a gig. You aren't doing much web surfing with that, assuming it even works. Celebrity's WiFi price is in your Cruise Planner. 

 

https://www.att.com/wireless/what-is-cellular-at-sea/

[Tyler414]

My cell service is from a discount carrier (Straight Talk) it works in US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico and the US.  There is an International plan, but I think its just for making phone calls.  

On the ship I use the WIFI, if not in USVI or PR, I use an app called Airalo and add an E-sim for the specific area I'm traveling so I have internet.  This does not allow voice or text, but there are many options for messenger services that work just fine with internet.  I   basically turn of my cell service and use WIFI on ship and E-sim Airalo on land.