Phone calls onboard

[KLJW1]

How did you do this? Did you take a calling card to use on the ship?

[CRUISELOVER94]

WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! : Do not call on the ship instead of for emergency! It could cost up to $10 a call then a $1 per min. rate.


Hope ya found me helpful,
Cruiser

[Raoul Fiebig]

KLJW1,

CRUISELOVER94 is correct that calling someone from the ship is usually extremely expensive, sometimes even more than US$ 10 per minute. Calling cards don't work onboard, as you must pay for the satellite connection from the ship.

If you would like to stay in touch with somebody, your probably cheapest option would be to take your cell phone and make calls during the time the ship is in port. If you have a tri-band cell phone, it will work in virtually every port (unless you are traveling to Antarctica or other remote regions of the world).

[Dirkid]

it is possible to make a call over voip on board?

[Raoul Fiebig]

Dirkid,

welcome aboard.

I'm not sure about VoIP, but "old-fashioned" calls via the internet (i.e. through a web service) are possible. But then the onboard internet costs are often also fairly high (though usually not nearly as costly as phone calls), and the connection can be very slow.

Too bad Tom Ogg is currently not at home - he's a true expert on "communication at sea".

For me a cell phone has always been the least costly option - and some ships now even offer the possibility of using cell phones while at sea (which are cheaper than calls from your cabin phone, but still expensive). However, I'm not really a fan of cell phones constantly ringing everywhere.

[Lana537]

Dirkid~~~

Voip is not an option because the latency over the satellite is too high.



Lana

[kandl]

From what I know, Raoul is pretty on target with what I learned last year. The rates on the ship phones are the most expensive. The other options I considered: 1) Check with your cell phone carrier to determine if your phone has technology to work there. Then ask specific rates per port of call (varies per port if not mistaken and may not even work on some ports). Then if interested, ask carrier to add you to the "international plan". 2) Calling card - ask the Information" or "Service" to let you know the rates for International calls, per port. Some ports take the phone card (from specific type phones). They will tell you the minutes/port ratio. For instance, at one port, they may charge 3 minutes per one minute talked, or 9 minutes/one minute talking time. 3) Some ports have phones marked for international calls. If you cannot wait for Tom Ogg to return, search historical Q & A's posted - Tom addressed this last year approx. Dec./January 2005 when I was asking, and he said to run in the opposite direction if you saw a certain type phone, because the rates were so high!! 4) Some stores @ ports sell calling cards (in the event your calling card does not work there, or if you don't own one). 5) Some ports have internet cafe access, and charge a specific rate/30 minutes ($5??)or 1 hr. use and are very reasonable and DSL, compared to ships slow rate and charges. I believe Tom has recommended the weekly rental rate on the ship, if you're going to use e-mail or the internet a lot, something like $100/cruise?? Hope this helps.