Internet access on Holiday

[jdblakeslee]

Hubby and I are scheduled to take the four-night cruise from Mobile this week and mother-in-law is not well at home. We may need to check with other family members regarding her health while we're gone. Can anyone tell us if there is internet access on the Holiday? Also, how far out does your cell phone work? I have a Blackberry that also allows me to check emails but I hear the charges are horrendous...

 

Any words of advice?

 

Thanks,

Jennifer

[Traveler353]

You will be able to use both the internet and your phone on the Holiday. But be prepared, you will pay dearly for their use.

[jdblakeslee]

Thanks, traveler353, we normally don't monitor our emails too much while on a short vacation but under these circumstances, I think we'd both feel better just checking in...

 

May be worth a few bucks for peace of mind...

 

:)

 

Jennifer

[bryinga]

We just got back from the Holiday last week....we also have a blackberry...we had them add the international data plan. Prorated for the week was only about $15.00....unlimited used of email and internet. BUT, once we got so far out to sea, we couldn't send or receive emails. Not sure why. Texts and phone calls still worked fine, but no email. We got woke up at about 3AM the day we got into Cozumel because we were close enough to land that all our emails starting coming through. About 60 of them. :eek: So anyway, it's not too expensive to add the international data plan, but it didn't work for us like they said it would.

[Traveler353]

Thanks, traveler353, we normally don't monitor our emails too much while on a short vacation but under these circumstances, I think we'd both feel better just checking in...

 

May be worth a few bucks for peace of mind...

 

:)

 

Jennifer

 

I fully understand. You can also give your family the Carnival 1-800 number. Carnival will at no cost to you relay emergency messages to you and in some cases will even let you call home for free using the ship to shore network. Good Luck and I hope everthing works out OK for your family.

[jdblakeslee]

We've debated back and forth about even going on the cruise, but with sitters round the clock and family nearby, they are insisting that we go!

Frankly, we could use the "down time" after spending the past two weeks at the hospital.

 

I've given our family the contact info for Carnival and for our TA, locally, and hopefully all will be fine until we get home. For these little four-night cruises, it's almost not worth worrying about it! If something DID happen, we'd cruise home before we could get a flight from Cozumel to Miami to Gulfport, or such!

 

Life goes on and this event only serves to underscore to us all - make those memories while you can!

 

Thanks for the help and advice,

Jennifer

[sbcatcher1]

The internet service on the Holiday was great (last Sept) I bought a plan the first day & got additional minutes, they have a few promotions on the ship to get free minutes. We were traveling with a Hurrricane so I wanted to check NOAA often, it was worth the peace of mind. I don't think I spent more than about $20.

[jdblakeslee]

Glad to hear of the reliability of internet service aboard the Holiday. I noticed that you're from the Panama City, FL area, and I chuckled to myself when I read your post about using it for hurricane updates. All of us along the Gulf Coast have a different perspective of monitoring storms and such! I hope this is a year when none of us has to be concerned about hurricanes.

 

Jennifer