chrisn Posted December 28, 2007 #1 Share Posted December 28, 2007 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! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colo Cruiser Posted December 28, 2007 #2 Share Posted December 28, 2007 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisn Posted December 28, 2007 Author #3 Share Posted December 28, 2007 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! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cruzfiend Posted December 28, 2007 #4 Share Posted December 28, 2007 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? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cusyl Posted December 28, 2007 #5 Share Posted December 28, 2007 You can instant message on AIM from the ship. We found this just as good as calling and much cheaper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisn Posted December 28, 2007 Author #6 Share Posted December 28, 2007 You can instant message on AIM from the ship. We found this just as good as calling and much cheaper. What is AIM? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HurricaneSally Posted December 28, 2007 #7 Share Posted December 28, 2007 What is AIM? Ask Honey. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beatriz22 Posted December 28, 2007 #8 Share Posted December 28, 2007 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 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Host CJSKIDS Posted December 28, 2007 #9 Share Posted December 28, 2007 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cusyl Posted December 28, 2007 #10 Share Posted December 28, 2007 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 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisn Posted December 28, 2007 Author #11 Share Posted December 28, 2007 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cusyl Posted December 28, 2007 #12 Share Posted December 28, 2007 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. . 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FredS Posted December 28, 2007 #13 Share Posted December 28, 2007 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swiss Posted December 28, 2007 #14 Share Posted December 28, 2007 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luv2travel2beaches Posted December 29, 2007 #15 Share Posted December 29, 2007 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 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pam in CA Posted December 29, 2007 #16 Share Posted December 29, 2007 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cusyl Posted December 29, 2007 #17 Share Posted December 29, 2007 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swiss Posted December 29, 2007 #18 Share Posted December 29, 2007 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! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2theship Posted December 29, 2007 #19 Share Posted December 29, 2007 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elationismyship Posted December 29, 2007 #20 Share Posted December 29, 2007 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Host CJSKIDS Posted December 29, 2007 #21 Share Posted December 29, 2007 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisn Posted December 31, 2007 Author #22 Share Posted December 31, 2007 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Host CJSKIDS Posted December 31, 2007 #23 Share Posted December 31, 2007 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! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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