Keeping in touch

[Damascus43]

How do you keep in touch with others in your party when onboard? Very foggy about how phones work on ships as well as how you make sure you don't overuse your complimentary minutes (I have 150). Do you use minutes if you're not online? If you put your phone on airplane mode, what can you and can't you do?

[ldubs]

A lot of the times we have the wifi plan and will use our iPhones. Because we have the plan, we don't have to count minutes.  If you have limited minutes, then yeah, you would need to monitor usage.  Your minutes should only be used when you are on wifi.  

 

My experience with this is limited to a few cruise lines, so it may vary.  The iPhone is in airplane mode all the time while onboard, even when using the ship's wifi.  You can leave an iPhone in airplane mode and still access wifi, but you have to turn wifi on in settings.  I can't speak to android phones.  

 

If you don't want to use any wifi, Carnival, Princess, and RCI have a chat function that can be used to communicate with one or more members of your travel party. It would be similar to your phone's text or messaging function.    I think it is free on Princess and RCI.  I seem to recall a small daily charge for it on Carnival.  Other cruise lines might have it too, IDK.

Edited May 20 by ldubs

[leaveitallbehind]

Text or WhatsApp through ship wifi is our preference.  It almost becomes a necessity to have the ship wifi if you are going to want to easily communicate on board as well as with home through wifi calling.

Edited May 20 by leaveitallbehind

[CruiserBruce]

All of this is going to depend on the cruise line, and perhaps the ship. Without knowing those things, hard to give a correct answer.

[Damascus43]

NCL Breakaway.

[CruiserBruce]

1 hour ago, Damascus43 said:

NCL Breakaway.

You might want to ask on the NCL board.

[Host Kat]

5 hours ago, Damascus43 said:

How do you keep in touch with others in your party when onboard? Very foggy about how phones work on ships as well as how you make sure you don't overuse your complimentary minutes (I have 150). Do you use minutes if you're not online? If you put your phone on airplane mode, what can you and can't you do?

 

1 hour ago, Damascus43 said:

NCL Breakaway.

 

Hello @Damascus43

 

Thank you for your new thread on the Ask a Cruise Question forum! However, it is the forum for general questions regarding cruising. Your inquiry concerns a specific cruise line and is off topic there.

 

To help you out I have moved your new thread to the Norwegian Cruise Line forum where it will be on topic. The majority of your fellow Cruise Critic members that have sailed NCL & used their phones frequent this forum and provide feedback here. Browse through the thread titles on this forum looking for threads of interest. You will probably find your fellow Cruise Critic members have already posted questions and received answers that may be of interest to you. Also, you might want to research the Cruising Technology forum. You may find more information about using various phones & service providers there.

 

The Cruise Critic website and message boards are both great resources for new as well as experienced cruisers and we are so glad you have posted! Please feel free to browse the Cruise Critic Community categories list of the various forums. I suggest you Bookmark the page or put it in your Favorites for easy access in the future. Please read a few threads in the different forums to get a feel for what each forum is about. Make sure you read any pinned threads (aka Stickies) on the top of the first page of threads in most forums. You will find very important instructions or information there.

 

Hope this will be helpful and glad to have you aboard Cruise Critic! 

 

Happy sails,

 

Host Kat

[FLAHAM]

You can call any cabin from your cabin phone at no charge.  You can also leave voicemail messages.

[ChiefMateJRK]

Our iPhones will normally send and receive text messages while attached to the ship's wifi but not using internet plan minutes.  Many here have reported the same.  That said, every cruise seems to have times when NCL's wifi breaks down and won't do anything for a while.

[hallux]

5 hours ago, Damascus43 said:

Do you use minutes if you're not online?

Log in, do what you need to, log out.  This is done through websites (login.com and logout.com, the DNS on the ship resolves them properly but you can't see the same sites at home. though some say the NCL app can do this as well while on board).  If everyone has iPhones, Apple's built-in messages app SHOULD work as long as you're not sending images, without being logged into the internet.

 

5 hours ago, Damascus43 said:

If you put your phone on airplane mode, what can you and can't you do?

Airplane mode on, WiFi on, connect to the ship's WiFi.  Once connected, you can use the NCL app to get a PDF of the Freestyle Daily (the daily listing of events), make show and dining reservations, book excursions, look at your on-board account.  As noted above - if you all have iPhones you should be able to continue messaging each other, the NCL app's messaging protocol requires a port on the ship's firewall to be open that allows Apple's app to function to a degree without logging in and using minutes.

 

The NCL app changes to 'on board mode' and looks different once you connect to the ship's WiFi, you won't be able to see it and play around with it until you board and connect.  However, be sure to have it installed before.

 

One more thing - NCL offers messaging within the app for $10 per device.  It's hit-and-miss as to how well it works.