cell phone st Thomas

[darbysue]

If you have nationwide coverage on your cell phone does anyone know if you can use your phone on St Thomas since it is US?

also has anyone purchased phone cards to call home with if so which ones work the best and easiest

thanks

[BEACHLOVER101]

I have Sprint and my phone works great in St. Thomas.

[stewartfan]

i have verizon and my phone works better there than it does here lol

[poolcc56]

we have AT&T and it worked fine in St. thomas.

[sunsurf]

If you have nationwide coverage on your cell phone does anyone know if you can use your phone on St Thomas since it is US?

also has anyone purchased phone cards to call home with if so which ones work the best and easiest

thanks

 

 

Yes, your cell phone should work in St. Thomas. We used ours..no problems!

[erby2283]

I had Nextel last cruise - no service.

[noblepa]

If you have nationwide coverage on your cell phone does anyone know if you can use your phone on St Thomas since it is US?

also has anyone purchased phone cards to call home with if so which ones work the best and easiest

thanks

 

The best bet is to call your cell phone carrier and ask. Plans differ, carriers differ. In general, I believe that most cell phones work in St. Thomas, but yours may not.

 

On several cruises, I've called my carrier (Cingular, now AT&T) and had them add service to Mexico and a couple of Caribbean islands that were not normally covered. It didn't cost me anything, unless I used it there. Then I would have paid a fairly steep per-minute charge, but there was no monthly fee or additional feature that I needed to add to my account.

 

Now that most cruise lines have cell phone service at sea, be careful about using it on board. The per-minute charge is, I believe $2.99 per minute. This is still better than the charge for calling home from your cabin, but three bucks a minute can add up. When I'm on board, the cell phone goes in the safe and is turned off.

[fathercop]

We have Verizon and have not had a problem. The only interesting thing that happened was when we were calling from Charolette Amalie. Cingular sent me a bill, but I called them and told them that I do not have them as my phone carrier anymore(I did about a year before that). They apologized and said I was correct and that their records show I am not their customer and had not been one recently, either, nor should I have been billed. Expecting to see my bill from Verizon with calls made from there, they had no calls listed for me from that location, or from San Juan. I told them about the Cingular incident and they said, "Don't worry about it. Cingular made a mistake and I owed nothing." Now if only I can get that type of service here!!!:D

[cleavesteam]

Be very careful when you use your cell phone on the cruise ship as it will automatically go through the cruise ship's relay and then you'll be greated with a whopping phone bill from your provider. At least that is how it worked on HAL. I was able to get the charges reversed the last time, but I doubt if they will let me get away with it again.

[notentirelynormal]

I made several calls on a Princess ship when we were in Hawaiian waters coming into port. They were treated like any other land phone call. Showed up on my statement as a call made, no extra charge.

[coiran]

Your carrier's website usually has a coverage map.

 

Ron

[noblepa]

I made several calls on a Princess ship when we were in Hawaiian waters coming into port. They were treated like any other land phone call. Showed up on my statement as a call made, no extra charge.

 

The difference between your experience and clevelandsteamer's is probably that he (she?) was at sea and you were "in Hawaiian waters coming into port". The cruise lines are not licensed as cellular carriers in the US or any other country. When they get within range of land-based cellular towers, the shipboard equipment is turned off. Your calls were picked up by land-based towers.

 

The range of a cellular phone, even over open water, where there is no terrain or buildings to interfere, is only a few miles, probably less than 10. In the open ocean, hundreds of miles from land, you cell phone will "lock on" to what is essentially a cell phone tower onboard. The onboard equipment then relays your call via satellite to your regular carrier. That's where the charge will be applied.

 

When the ship is in or nearing a port, your call will go through a land-based tower and only normal roaming charges, if your plan has any, will apply. If the port in question is in your plan coverage, you're in luck.

[gracie65]

I have Alltel & mine worked perfectly there. Also worked in San Juan.

[kryssaren]

Thanks, I was wondering the same thing. And does anyone know if we can expect cell reception in any of our other stops, as well as on the Sea Princess itself (Dec.8)? Ports of call: Barbados, St. Lucia, Antigua, St.Maarten, St.Thomas, Grand Turk, Montego Bay(Jamaica), Grand Cayman, Bonaire, Caracas(Venezuela), and Grenada.

 

We have Verizon. A year ago, on the Caribbean/Panama cruise, we were thrilled in Aruba, where suddenly we had perfect reception, and the bill wasn't too bad either at $1.29/minute to the States.

 

Does anyone with experience with using a blackberry type device on these cruises? Could it be a better way to stay in touch by e-mail than the ship's internet cafe comps? I was disappointed with our past cruise ships that had very poor internet connection and computer terminals that required you to be logged onto the wireless even while composing e-mails. You couldn't compose off-line and just log onto the wireless to send. And it often lost connectivity, so that you would lose everything you had just typed! It got very expensive. So, I'm toying with the idea of getting a blackberry for the combined e-mail/cell phone capability...

[cleavesteam]

The difference between your experience and clevelandsteamer's is probably that he (she?) was at sea and you were "in Hawaiian waters coming into port". The cruise lines are not licensed as cellular carriers in the US or any other country. When they get within range of land-based cellular towers, the shipboard equipment is turned off. Your calls were picked up by land-based towers.

 

The range of a cellular phone, even over open water, where there is no terrain or buildings to interfere, is only a few miles, probably less than 10. In the open ocean, hundreds of miles from land, you cell phone will "lock on" to what is essentially a cell phone tower onboard. The onboard equipment then relays your call via satellite to your regular carrier. That's where the charge will be applied.

 

When the ship is in or nearing a port, your call will go through a land-based tower and only normal roaming charges, if your plan has any, will apply. If the port in question is in your plan coverage, you're in luck.

 

This is correct. And I'm a he.

[beth4652]

We have AT&T and here's how we handle it. We have them temporarily add their World Traveler Feature for $5.99/month. Calls from US territories are free. Calls from other countries are $.99-$1.29/ minute, depending on the country. Calls from the ship are $2.49/minute. We can receive text messages anywhere at no charge. We can send text messages from anywhere, including from the ship, for $.50/message.

[sunnyv]

T-Mobile worked great in St Thomas and San Juan. There was no additional charge, just the minutes used subtracted from our monthly allotment.

 

In Grand Turk and Bermuda it was 99 cents a minute (with the free international calling feature turned on before we left)

[manlie]

I apologize for hijacking the thread, but I have a question for sunnyv regarding the Caribbean Princess room D732. I see that you posted a question a year ago and didn't get an answer. Did you book that room? Do you have any photos?

[sunnyv]

I apologize for hijacking the thread, but I have a question for sunnyv regarding the Caribbean Princess room D732. I see that you posted a question a year ago and didn't get an answer. Did you book that room? Do you have any photos?

We were in E731, the famed Emerald deck minisuite with the extended balcony. WE LOVE IT!

 

I was asking the question for our friends who were in D733, same cabin as D732 opposite side of the ship. If you don't mind being on the Dolphin Deck with the totally exposed balcony, it was a great cabin! It does have the extended balcony. Sorry, I don't have any photos.

 

This past summer we had a Dolphin Deck mini suite on the Crown and we would not choose one again. The Emerald deck has mini-suites that are totally covered and if we couldn't get one of those, we would prefer being in a balcony cabin with a covered balcony before a minisuite that is open.

[notentirelynormal]

We have AT&T and here's how we handle it. We have them temporarily add their World Traveler Feature for $5.99/month. Calls from US territories are free. Calls from other countries are $.99-$1.29/ minute, depending on the country. Calls from the ship are $2.49/minute. We can receive text messages anywhere at no charge. We can send text messages from anywhere, including from the ship, for $.50/message.

 

I have them too - that's a great idea.

 

The difference between your experience and clevelandsteamer's is probably that he (she?) was at sea and you were "in Hawaiian waters coming into port". The cruise lines are not licensed as cellular carriers in the US or any other country. When they get within range of land-based cellular towers, the shipboard equipment is turned off. Your calls were picked up by land-based towers.

 

The range of a cellular phone, even over open water, where there is no terrain or buildings to interfere, is only a few miles, probably less than 10. In the open ocean, hundreds of miles from land, you cell phone will "lock on" to what is essentially a cell phone tower onboard. The onboard equipment then relays your call via satellite to your regular carrier. That's where the charge will be applied.

 

When the ship is in or nearing a port, your call will go through a land-based tower and only normal roaming charges, if your plan has any, will apply. If the port in question is in your plan coverage, you're in luck.

 

Good Point. Didn't even occur to me you were talking open water since everyone was giving islands.

[jbpinkie]

We have AT&T and here's how we handle it. We have them temporarily add their World Traveler Feature for $5.99/month. Calls from US territories are free. Calls from other countries are $.99-$1.29/ minute, depending on the country. Calls from the ship are $2.49/minute. We can receive text messages anywhere at no charge. We can send text messages from anywhere, including from the ship, for $.50/message.

 

Everything you said is correct, I work for AT&T. The great thing is that St. Thomas and San Juan are part of the domestic network, so as long as you have a national plan with allover coverage, it bills just like making a call from home. I have also used blackberry coverage in those ports with no problem as well.

 

Others are also correct, make sure you are truly picking up a land signal versus the ship. Best rule of thumb is to wait until standing there :)

[stungazed]

I have a Verizon "Pay As You Go" Phone and while I am in St. Thomas and Puerto Rico I'm roaming. Instead of being 10c per minute like normal it would be 99c - Not a bad deal for a few minutes but anything more than that and it's expensive.

[RichardCruiser]

I have Tracfone prepaid service. If I get a connection anyplace, can I assume there is no way they would charge extra, (other than normal roaming)?

[tamariadawn]

I plan to use my pay phone minutes via a calling card at approx 2.5 cents

a minute. I signed up with http://www.onesuite.com. They allow international calls for various rates. I think the worst rate is around 15 cents a minute.