Multiple wireless service providers offer add ons to your coverage to be able to continue using your phone on a cruise. Verizon is perhaps the American wireless service provider that has more options in this realm. To be honest though, coverage on a cruise is typically expensive, and not necessarily of the highest quality. For the simple reason that in the middle of the ocean you’re typically very far from the nearest cell tower. Even though satellite technology has improved actual proximity to a tower is still a major factor to determine coverage quality. Also in figuring out how to avoid roaming charges on a cruise, there are other things that you’re going to have to keep in mind.
It’s not just going to be your phone company that you’re going to have to keep an eye on. The cruise line may also offer additional wifi services. Some cruises are going to include that service with your ticket. You have to make sure though, that you read the fine print. The last thing that you want is to see massive charges on your credit card at the end of your trip because apparently the Wifi wasn’t free after all. There are typically limitations to this “fee wifi”. Also, you have to contend with the coverage that you use when the ship makes land. Roaming fees can also catch up on you if you use your phone without a care on that caribbean island.
- How To Avoid Roaming Charges On A Cruise – Plans & Wifi Options
- How Much Could Roaming Really Cost?
- Plan Your Coverage Options Ahead of Time
- Why Keeping Your Phone Off May Be The Best Bet
- Getting Coverage When You Make Land On Your Trip
- How To Avoid Roaming Charges On A Cruise – Coverage Quality
How To Avoid Roaming Charges On A Cruise – Plans & Wifi Options
One of the quickest ways to be able to avoid roaming fees is to make sure that you’re on a plan that has you covered. Now, that being said, when you’re on a cruise getting a plan that gets you coverage on board, or accessing wifi on board may not be cheap. There are different ways that you can go about this. Verizon makes it really simple offering a 20 dollar add-on to regular unlimited plans. With that addon you’ll be able to access 50MB of coverage while you’re on the cruise. If you go over those 50MB, you can pay another 20 dollars for an extra 50 MB as an overage fee. This isn’t the worst deal out there. With 50MB on one line you can share your internet with other devices.
The issue with this plan, and quite frankly any other plan that wireless service providers can offer as a way of how to avoid roaming charges on a cruise, is that the plan will only be valid on certain ships. Verizon does have a list of popular cruise ships where it claims that the plan is set to be valid. In any case, the final word lies with the cruise ship companies themselves. Increasingly these liners are offering free Wifi with the price of your ticket. At least, you’ll be able to access wifi within your cabin. Again though, these options will vary depending on the ship that you board.
How Much Could Roaming Really Cost?
Is roaming really something that you want to avoid at all cost? The short answer is yes! There are certain situations when maybe having to pay roaming fees isn’t the worst thing in the world. An emergency call back home or something like this will be the only scenario where it’s really going to make sense. Sticking with Verizon as an example, you could see yourself paying around $2.05 for every MB that you spend when you’re on the roaming rates! Calls on the same network can also go over the 2 dollar per minute rate in some countries. While there are countries where calling will be cheaper you can rack up a nasty bill rather quickly on these roaming rates.
Just to put things into a better perspective, data usage on roaming would cost you 100 dollars for the same 50MB that you’d get for 20 on the plan. On some devices the device itself will give you heads up when you board the cruise that you can in fact use the cruise ship plan that Verizon offers. If you did not activate the plan, or get a warning to do so you should always assume that your data, and minutes are being charged under the relevant roaming rates. As we’ve mentioned it’s rather easy to rack up quite the bill on these rates. We would definitely recommend avoiding these roaming rates altogether. There are different ways to be able to do just that.
Plan Your Coverage Options Ahead of Time
As we mentioned before there’s a chance that your phone is going to send you a message where it lets you know that addons are available. To ensure that you’re able to get coverage on your trip. That being said, ideally you’ll want to make sure that you plan things out ahead. Particularly if you have doubts about what you have to do to activate the plan for example. You’re going to be able to activate the cruise ship plan Verizon offers directly through their app. You need to have a phone that is compatible with at least their 4G network to have access to that plan. If you have a prepaid plan with the company you may need to buy this add on in advance. While some devices won’t even have the ability to make the purchase.
If you have any doubts about your device’s eligibility for these plans you may be better off just calling Verizon directly. Heading over to your Verizon or other service provider’s store to check on the limits of your current plan is another option that you’re going to have. You should be able to quickly access this information through your service provider’s app. We’re just making these recommendations for people who may not feel so confident about their ability to make these online purchases. You can get help directly from your service provider to make sure that you’ll have coverage on your cruise ship, and potentially avoid roaming fees.
Why Keeping Your Phone Off May Be The Best Bet
We’d recommend that you keep your phone off if you’re not aware of how you can get coverage. Naturally, this is the last ditch option of how to avoid roaming charges on a cruise. That’s the problem though, if you don’t know how you’re getting coverage, and you are getting coverage then you can assume that you’re going to have to pay roaming fees for that coverage. Unless you’re near the coast on an American city or island. Which is actually another one of the main topics to consider that we’re going to talk about here shortly. The thing with phones though is that if you have your data on then the phone is going to be looking for coverage. If the phone is then able to get you coverage then you may be getting hit with roaming fees for that coverage and not even realizing it.
Maybe it’s a bit too extreme to say turn off your phone. If you can’t trace the source of your coverage though this may very well be what you want to do. For example if you’re on the cruise, and you have ship wifi then you may want to turn off your regular data. Just stay on the ship wifi. Yes, that’s going to make it hard to send regular texts, and make phone calls. At least though, you know you won’t be hit with roaming fees, and you’re going to be able to communicate through apps with other people. That seems to be a much better idea overall.
Getting Coverage When You Make Land On Your Trip
This can be a more problematic situation than getting coverage on the cruise itself. More specifically, with finding ways of how to avoid roaming charges on a cruise. So, for the most part, cruises are going to take you to different islands, and beaches where you are going to be allowed to go ashore. With certain Caribbean cruises getting coverage may be rather easy. Since some of these islands just happen to be property of the United States. When you arrive in Puerto Rico you’ll be able to use your phone as you would locally. If you go out to the US Virgin Islands, it’s the same thing. Yet, if you’re on the British Virgin islands you can get hit with roaming fees.
Most service providers are going to let the user know that they are entering international territory, or at least territory outside of their coverage area. Even if the phone doesn’t explicitly send you a message the display on the phone could change how the signal lines appear on the phone could change to indicate that you’re outside of your coverage area. Instead of 4G or 5G next to those converge bars you’ll have a letter E. That can be a clear indicator that you’re in roaming territory. Make sure that you know and understand where you’re traveling to figure out what you’re going to be able to do to get coverage.
How To Avoid Roaming Charges On A Cruise – Coverage Quality
Coverage on cruise ships, and on airplanes was usually expensive, and overall bad. Over the years we’d have to say that the quality of the coverage that you can get in these vessels has certainly improved. As satellite Wifi options have also extended in popularity. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you can expect great coverage across the board. Let’s be clear on another thing, it’s not like coverage has gotten exponentially cheaper either! At the end of the day one of the biggest problems is that you really don’t have a ton of options to choose from. You’re limited by the coverage options that the ship itself is able to provide.
The cruise line that you travel on, the route that you’re taking as well as the weather all play a major role in the quality of coverage that you’re going to have access to. We’re usually not this negative, but it’s one of those things where you want to expect the worst, and hope for the best. There’s no question that in the olden days wifi coverage on cruise ships was widely unreliable. As we mentioned before it does seem like things have taken a step forward in this department. We still feel though that it’s rather unrealistic to come in with plenty of expectations for high quality coverage.
How To Avoid Roaming Charges On A Cruise – Conclusion
Avoiding roaming charges on a cruise can be a little thicker than doing so on a regular trip. The basics though, are still the same you need to know where you’re getting coverage from. If you turn on your phone and you have coverage you need to know where you’re connected to and what that connection is going to cost. These days, most ships are going to offer coverage options. It could be a good idea to go ahead and explore the options that you’re going to have on board to compare them with whatever your wireless service provider may be able to offer. At the very least you’ll know what you have to pay at the end of the month, and you’ll get a chance to agree to those charges. Roaming charges are a mess, and you never really know how things are going to land.
When you make land on a cruise know that you may have landed in an entirely different country even if the trip didn’t seem that long. This is where it can get really weird because for example US users can get local coverage on US owned islands, but will then get hit with massive roaming fees in what seems like right next door. That’s just the way things go, make sure that you’re on top of things and aware of where you are when you go on land.
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