Verizon Cellular Service at Sea how Good Is It?

[Princess4959]

I have a client that wants to surprise his wife with a cruise, but has to conduct business from his celluar. Does anyone have any experience with this? Is anyone ship better than the other? Does it matter?

Please help.

 

Thank you,

 

Becky

[spongerob]

On most ships, there is no cell service at sea. Sometimes you might be close enough to the coast to pick up a tower now and then, for example on a Canada/New England cruise. The same is true in port, sometimes phones work, sometimes they don't. Some ships are adding a satellite link for cell phones, which will likely cost several dollars per minute.

[kitty9]

Some cruise ships have capability to call when you're at sea, but most do not. You must be less than 2 miles from an island with a cell tower. Also, unless his phone is GSM equipped, the cell will only work in St. Thomas, San Juan and sometimes in the Bahamas.

[wraithe]

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=335321

 

Here's a link to a thread about cellular phone service on the ships, if it's available. Basically, Verizon works on CDMA, which is only popular in the US, and they won't sign contracts with the people who deliver phone service to the ships, so you won't get any signal on a Verizon phone even though the guy next to you with Cingular is chatting away. Hope this helps.

[BoozeCruise2]

My two cents:

 

Verizon is the worst at sea. I dont travel abroad enough to switch to Cingular, which happens to stink where I live. I tried the phone card thing and that was very unpredictable.

 

For my kids and business reasons, I am not playing games this time and renting a sat. phone that I can use 24/7 anywhere's, and the cost isnt too scary. Here is the link. Why chance it?

 

BC2

 

http://www.satellitephonestore.com/globalstar/globalstar-phone-rental.php#faq

 

For $200 bucks the peace of mind is worth it to me!

[melika091900]

Yes Verizon will NOT work... we went to the caribbean and mexico 2 times with NO service at all.. as soon as we left port ,, POOF there went the service.... and I called verizon each time before and was told to punch in these certain things on the phone so the signal will be stronger.. but it never worked...... i would definetley try to work off email if you can,, much cheaper,, phones on board are ridiculous...

and each time you use it to call out , ( even if they dont answer ) it just rings , you are charged 1 min,, which i found out the hard way on NCL in JAn... but when you have a lil one at home with grandma,,, you gotta do what you gotta do..

but yeah ive heard singular is the best at sea.

ive also heard that the cruiselines block the satellite on purpose so cells done work,,who knows...

take care

[melika091900]

My two cents:

 

Verizon is the worst at sea. I dont travel abroad enough to switch to Cingular, which happens to stink where I live. I tried the phone card thing and that was very unpredictable.

 

For my kids and business reasons, I am not playing games this time and renting a sat. phone that I can use 24/7 anywhere's, and the cost isnt too scary. Here is the link. Why chance it?

 

BC2

 

http://www.satellitephonestore.com/globalstar/globalstar-phone-rental.php#faq

 

For $200 bucks the peace of mind is worth it to me!

 

have you used those satellite phones before ???? looks interesting ,, ive never seen that before... it would definetley be worth it for sure ....