Contacting your kids when away? Help Please!

[chrisn]

Honey and I will be cruising on Emerald Princess in March for 10 nights on one of the Caribbean medley trips.

 

I am worried about keeping up communication with my kids. I know email but I would rather call. Is there a good international calling card that will work on the islands that any of you have had experience with?

 

Does Princess offer the maritime cellular service thing?

 

Thanks for any help you can give!

[Colo Cruiser]

Honey and I will be cruising on Emerald Princess in March for 10 nights on one of the Caribbean medley trips.

 

I am worried about keeping up communication with my kids. I know email but I would rather call. Is there a good international calling card that will work on the islands that any of you have had experience with?

 

Does Princess offer the maritime cellular service thing?

 

Thanks for any help you can give!

 

 

You can call from the ship but is really expensive $4-$8 minute.

 

Set up a hotmail account and keep in contact through e-mail.

You can purchase a package for minutes to use in the internet cafe onboard. :)

 

We just did this Emerald cruise and our AT&T cell worked in all the ports too.

[chrisn]

We just did this Emerald cruise and our AT&T cell worked in all the ports too.

 

Honey has ATT! Our itinerary is Princess Cay, St. Thomas, St. Kitts, Barbados, St. Lucia and Antigua. Is this the same itinerary?

 

I will feel so much better if his phone works in port. We also have T-mobile. Thanks!

[cruzfiend]

What about Nextel? We could use it in Hawaii - I know, still the USA, but I was wondering if they have Nextel in the Carribean?

[cusyl]

You can instant message on AIM from the ship. We found this just as good as calling and much cheaper.

[chrisn]

You can instant message on AIM from the ship. We found this just as good as calling and much cheaper.

 

What is AIM?

[HurricaneSally]

What is AIM?

 

 

Ask Honey.

[beatriz22]

is a part of aol thats instant messaging, in mexico our verizon cell phones worked everywhere, just set it up w/ the cell phone carrier first , maybe you can do that

[Host CJSKIDS]

My sprint phone worked well as did my husband's blackberry with AT&T. Call your cell phone provider and they will be able to tell you exactly which islands your phones will work on and how much per minute the charges will be. It can add up being as much as $3 per minute if you have to pay the roaming and long distance charges. Some carriers will also have you get an international calling plan for a charge of $4.99 per month, AT&T does but Sprint does not.

[cusyl]

You can instant message on AIM from the ship. We found this just as good as calling and much cheaper.

Most ships have AOL which is now free. Set up an account at home and then use it on the ship. AIM is not just AOL, my grandson has his account on MSN and I can talk to him on AIM

[chrisn]

Thanks, I actually googled it. I came here to ask what I consider to be a very important question. I just want to make sure my family is ok when we are away. I have never used AOL nor do I IM from my cell. Texting, yes, IM'ing never from my cell so I had no idea.

 

I will figure out how to utilize this feature, just needed advice on a starting point. I'm glad that I have better things to do with my time besides answering questions I have no answer for...

 

If anyone has any other "good" advice or experiences they would like to share their knowlege of regarding this matter, I would be grateful to hear them.

[cusyl]

I have never used AOL nor do I IM from my cell. Texting, yes, IM'ing never from my cell so I had no idea.

 

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This is done from the internet cafe on the ship, don't know if you can do it from a cell phone. I usually purchase a "block" of internet minutes.

[FredS]

Check with your cell carries to see if they cover the area and what the cost is. Then when you get on ship, check with crew members as to where they go to so they can call home. Remember the crew keeps in touch with home often by calling from ports when they can go off the ship. They are probably the best ones to ask where is the best place to find a phone and cheap.

[swiss]

We have found a great way to keep in contact with our kids while cruising is text messaging. It cost .50 per message which is much cheaper than phone calls, so we feel like we can keep in contact with them more often. We try to type in long messages to cut down on per message charges. We have also found that we have been able to receive text messages on sea days when cell reception was low.

[luv2travel2beaches]

Swiss: Which cell phone service do you have? You do mean text messaging from your cell phone don't you? I'm asking because I have 2 daughters due to deliver babies in 7 weeks and we are leaving on our cruise in 2-1/2 weeks. This mom is a bit anxious as one daughter is having some difficulties! :p

[Pam in CA]

Most ships have AOL which is now free.

Huh? I've never heard of using AOL on a cruise ship for free -- you pay the regular Internet fees to use AOL. Unless you mean that there is no additional charge by AOL to use AOL e-mail. Is that what you meant?

 

I have an AT&T phone and for $5.99/month (which you can add or remove at any time), you can sign up for International roaming which allows you to call the U.S. from anywhere in the world for reasonable prices. I've called home from China, Russia, Israel, Greece, etc. and almost never had a problem. You can check the International roaming rates on the AT&T website.

[cusyl]

What I meant to say is that you do not have to pay a monthly fee to have AOL now. On the ship, of course, you pay for internet minutes.

[swiss]

Swiss: Which cell phone service do you have? You do mean text messaging from your cell phone don't you? I'm asking because I have 2 daughters due to deliver babies in 7 weeks and we are leaving on our cruise in 2-1/2 weeks. This mom is a bit anxious as one daughter is having some difficulties! :p

I have AT&T. Text messaging kept us in contact without feeling like we were going to spend a fortune on phone calls. Good luck with the new arrivals!

[2theship]

We used an AT&T calling card throughout England last year. The only challenge is knowing the access number to call from each area but you can get that ahead of time on-line.

 

We have Verizon cell phones and I was able to send my daughters text messages through the Verizon website. Since we have unlimited text messaging included in our plan, there was no additional charge for them from Verizon. Of course, I was paying for internet access.

[Elationismyship]

I told my kids that I would talk for about 1-2 minutes to them to keep it short but I did call each night (one of the ports we actually had cell phone reception). The calls from my room were $4.95/minute and over the course of a 7 day cruise I spent about $100 on calls. It was great to touch base each night (for me and the kids) and the $100 was reasonable for the assurance it gave me that I could talk to them each night.

[Host CJSKIDS]

Thanks, I actually googled it. I came here to ask what I consider to be a very important question. I just want to make sure my family is ok when we are away. I have never used AOL nor do I IM from my cell. Texting, yes, IM'ing never from my cell so I had no idea.

 

I will figure out how to utilize this feature, just needed advice on a starting point. I'm glad that I have better things to do with my time besides answering questions I have no answer for...

 

If anyone has any other "good" advice or experiences they would like to share their knowlege of regarding this matter, I would be grateful to hear them.

 

Am I understanding this post correctly? You're slamming those of us who took the time to give you some kind of answer by stating that you have better things to do with your time besides answering questions that you have no answer for???

Seems to be that every one who took the time to try and help you were very nice about it. Guess since I don't have any "good" advice to give you I will be nice enough to leave you to your own to figure it out.

[chrisn]

Am I understanding this post correctly?

 

cjskids, I apologize if you or anyone who offered me the good advice I read misunderstood my reply. I was in no way referring to you or anyone else that offered their knowlegable information.

 

There was however one posting that I felt was sarcastically unecessary and that was the post I was addressing. It was not yours and again, I am sorry if it seemed aimed at you or anyone else undeserving of it.

 

I appreciate everyone's input on this matter as I am concerned and would like to be well informed before departure.

[Host CJSKIDS]

cjskids, I apologize if you or anyone who offered me the good advice I read misunderstood my reply. I was in no way referring to you or anyone else that offered their knowlegable information.

 

There was however one posting that I felt was sarcastically unecessary and that was the post I was addressing. It was not yours and again, I am sorry if it seemed aimed at you or anyone else undeserving of it.

 

I appreciate everyone's input on this matter as I am concerned and would like to be well informed before departure.

 

Thanks for clarifying this and I'm sorry if my post came off too harsh.

 

It's fairly easy to keep in touch with your kids, I do it when we cruise or travel on our own. I will email them as well as call them. You'll find that the calling cards don't always work on some of the islands, don't know why but I guess they want you to use their calling cards. Your cell phone is one of the best ways and only your provider can tell you exactly what you have to do and how much it will cost. Islands like St. Thomas and Puerto Rico for instance won't cost anything additional as they're part of the US.

You can call from the ship as well, but that will be very costly.

Hopefully you'll find a mixture of what works well for you and can rest easy knowing that you'll be able to keep in touch.

 

Enjoy your cruise!