Cellphone Reception?

[soundwaves]

Can anyone tell me what the cellphone reception is like while cruising? Specifically, Verizon Wireless. And port vs. at sea?

Thanks for your help!:)

[LARGIN]

Depends on the port.. At sea, no service.

[soundwaves]

I'll be on the Crown; Eastern Carribean (Grand Turk, Bermuda, St. Thomas, and San Juan).

[LARGIN]

Best bet is to call Verizon.. I think there is a way to allow for roaming in certain Caribbean Islands.

[JGR01]

TOTALLY depends on where you are cruising.

 

Caribbean may have decent ATT/Cingular service but the roaming charges will be VERY high.

 

If you are going to Europe you need a different type/band of phone (it will not work in the US .. I have two!)

 

At sea .. yes it will not work!

 

Some cruise line (not Princess) has the ship wired so that the calls from your cell are beamed to a sattelite while at sea . tho assume this service is very expensive.

 

That said, a true sattelit phone should work where ever in the world you might be but they run $1000 or more to buy I think.

 

Hey .. you are on a CRUISE! Forget work for the time being!

[OnlineMom]

We were on the CB last month (eastern itinerary). My cell phone (Cingular) worked until late Saturday and then was dead until we reached St. Thomas. It worked all day there (just got my bill - no roaming charges at all). I had no signal in St. Maarten or while cruising back to Florida.

[losuds63]

not at sea thank god !!!

[coiran]

We have Alltel - worked with no roaming 10 miles out of FLL, St. Thomas and Puerto Rico.

Ron

[LARGIN]

Looks like lots of info out there however OP wants to know about Verizon.

[ashleytera]

i have called from jamaica and the bahamas and cingular did not charge me any extra.

[lynn247]

Verizon worked for me last year while in San Juan.

[FredS]

You really need to check with Verizon. If they consider the call as international the charge is very high per minute. Just going down to Mexico on the west coast and using Verizon to call the US is over $.65/min. It was cheaper to use a phone at a port and call for $.10/min. I found a little bar/cafe that had lines set up as though you were in the US and making the call. Cost me $3.00 to call New York City for 3 min from Cabo

[CleoChase]

We used our Verizon phones in St. Thomas. We were not billed anything extra, but it may have do to with our plan, so checking with Verizon would be a good idea. I think that San Juan is also included in our plan, but I don't think that Grand Turk or Bermuda are.

 

Actually DH would tell you that the call from St. Thomas to his job was expensive due to the jewelry he bought me to make up for talking to work for over an hour. :rolleyes:

[moski]

Hi

I would definitely call Verizon. Last year I called to see if St. Thomas and San juan would be in my coverage area. I was told that I would not be billed any extra on my Verizon bill for calls from those areas, however I received a huge roaming bill in the next billing cycle. I called and Verizon did have a record of my initial call regarding coverage so they took the charges off.

 

This past year I did a western itinerary and my phone would not work at all. I know for a fact that Verizon does not work when you are at sea and other than St. Thomas and San Juan I have never had a signal on a cruise. I would call in the event that you are charged so that they have a record of your inquiry. Hope this helps.

[alibail]

If you are going to Europe you need a different type/band of phone (it will not work in the US .. I have two!)

 

At sea .. yes it will not work!

 

has the ship wired so that the calls from your cell are beamed to a sattelite while at sea . tho assume this service is very expensive.

 

It depends on the type of handset you have, you could always buy a european one while your over here, since most of ours are 'tri-band' and will work worldwide, also tend to have lots of cool features :)

 

Purely for informational purposes, the system that is fitted to Island Cruises Island Escape, carried the same charges as you would have recieved for roaming in France / Italy while we were in the med.

 

Which worked out about 10 pence more per minute than to call from the UK to UK.

[soundwaves]

Thanks for all the info! I will call Verizon.:)

[bstrauss3]

ALWAYS check with your carrier's web site. They may have short term 'world phone rentals', and/or may have service in odd places you don't expect.

 

Still, you should pretty much assume if it's not a US territory, posession or state, the service you will find is going to be GSM (Groupe System Mobile).

 

AND: Although the rest of the world uses GSM, you need at least a tri-band phone (with GSM although the modulation scheme is the same, the frequencies are still different in the US vs. rest of the world).

 

Among US carriers, Cingular(and some of the former AT&T customers) uses GSM. The other carriers may have small pockets of GSM, but mostly use CDMA.

 

-----Burton

[sfvoyager]

I am technologically challenged, and therefore did not understand a good deal of this thread.

 

I just upgraded to a razor phone on Cingular. I asked the salesperson there if this phone would work in port on my cruise to Europe, and the sales person said yes. Reading this post is making me doubtful. We never discussed "GSM" and "World Phone". We will be stopping in Portugal, Spain, France, and Italy. Will my phone work?

[alibail]

I am technologically challenged, and therefore did not understand a good deal of this thread.

 

I just upgraded to a razor phone on Cingular. I asked the salesperson there if this phone would work in port on my cruise to Europe, and the sales person said yes. Reading this post is making me doubtful. We never discussed "GSM" and "World Phone". We will be stopping in Portugal, Spain, France, and Italy. Will my phone work?

 

Look at the manual for your phone, on the back page there is normally a technical specifications sheet, or occasionally on the box or the label attached to the box, if it says "GSM900/1800/1900" it will be able to connect to the mobile providers in Europe.

 

Whether you can actually make / receive a call will depend upon wether your network provider has an access contract with one of the mobile providers in the country you are visiting.

[capecodfam]

WE were just on the Golden and have Verizon also. We had service in San Juan, St. Thomas and by midnight the last night as we approached San Juan. In Aruba we had bars as though we had service but it didn't work.

[JMikeC]

Can anyone tell me what the cellphone reception is like while cruising? Specifically, Verizon Wireless. And port vs. at sea?

Thanks for your help!:)

 

I have Verizon. Took the Grand western carib. Called Verizon, bought the Mexico plan, activiated it, all set, right? Wrong! Even though I was getting reception and followed the instructions to make calls from Mexico, all I got was a recording in spanish telling me God-knows-what.

[Mjjpower]

I just did the Mexican Riviera trip and Verizon told me that my phone should work...I paid a little extra to have the international plan temporarily added to my account. Long story short...it did not work. I tried phoning Verizon while in Mexico to work it out but that did not work as well. Apparently you can "re-set" your phone in CA prior to leaving and it will work...but it did not for me.

[Ammonium]

When I was cruising southbound from Alaska to Vancouver last summer, I was able to get cell phone service most of them time. The only places where it was absent for a long period of time were once we got way out to sea in the Gulf of Alaska (I assume that the cell tower went under the horizon) and in Glacier Bay.

 

I had Cingular back then and only had roaming charges for the day we were cruising through Canada. It was an old phone, so it worked with analog systems, which may have helped with the reception.