Cruise Ship Roaming
 

I have a question about cruise ship roaming. This is not for me, I'd never pay the larcenous rates that it would cost.

Does anyone know of any prepaid that works with Celluar at Sea or Sea Phone? Most contract SIMs do, but not even Mobal or Roadpost SIMs appear to. I have a number of questions about this because Cingular is in a p--sing match with Sea Phone and people can't use their Cingular Phones on Holland America ships because of it.

Thanks.

Ekit sims claim to work with some cruise ships.

Coverage is only on the 1900 band.

On a cruise with Royal Caribbean in August last year, every sim I had with me worked. These are the old IOM 447624 from freeGlobalsim, UM, UM+, Virgin UK (Used this for data only) and of course my cingular sim.

Did you use any of the global sims? What were the rates for UM?

I only used the IOM for calls. Actually, my cingular sim was forwarded to IOM via voicestick. They charged whatever the rates listed for roaming in the US. The on ship service is provided by a company called Wireless Maritime service. Our cingular phones showed "Cellular At Sea" on the screen. All other sim showed the nwtwork code of 901-18 or so. It's actually a joint service with cingular (see below) so may be that's why they charge the rates for roaming in the US.

http://www.wirelessatsea.com/corpinfo.htm

I know the rates for ekit sim. I do not know those for UM.

Using +423 UM on Superfast Ferries (Patra-Ancona) I never pay anything :D

the rates are always like in the USA. those services are handeled by USA providers.

Not always. Some services are handled nby European providers (e.g. Iceland Simmin, or vodafone Malta)

or Jersey or Manx or Telenor or ...

Another alternative would be to rent a satphone (Iridium, Globalstar, Thuraya, or Inmarsat). Particually useful for cruise ships that don't have cellular at sea uplink service yet. Have loaned my father my Iridium handset occassionally for shipboard use. Cost per minute usually $1.50 or less per minute including international long distance. If renting a satphone, most vendors include express shipping in both directions.

What I've done on a cruise ship is to forward all calls to voicemail and asked the caller to send me a text message or short e-mail. Considering the cost of delivering communications services at sea, a SMS is a real bargan.

well, italian carries want 50 ct. / 1 € for single SMS... it's better to switch off the phone :D

I used a Passport SIM from EKIT on a Med cruise last fall. It worked fine and cost me $2.49 a minute. But a few times we cruised close to the Italian and Greek coast and I was able to make calls off the local carrier for about 69 cents a minute. With the Passport SIM they tell you about how many minutes of air time you have left before the call starts. I was also able to recharge for free from the cruise ship.

With T-Mobile (US) it's 35c for outgoing and I still have free incoming SMS. I assume that GPRS roaming is the same as everywhere else, so smsBug would be a good value too.

Yesterday I returned from a cruise with MSC. Allthough MSC published some nuts roaming rates for the onboard GSM network ("On-waves", MCC 284 MNC 08 ) with outgoing calls for € 4.40 + VAT and SMS for € 0.70 + VAT, my British Vodafone PAYG SIM did roam at EU-rates. So outgoing SMS were charged with GBP 0.12 and due to the activated Passport Option incoming calls were absolutely free, whereas German O2 customers paid € 1.59/min for incoming calls. Unfortunatley outgoing calls were blocked for my British Vodafone PAYG SIM.
Anyway with Callbacks through poivy.com I could call Germany for € 0.09 (landlines) or 0.17 (mobiles) from aboard the vessel, while others were charged some € 5.00/min. :-D

On a cruise to the Med last year I used both my U.S. Verizon CDMA phone and a Passport SIM in an unlocked gsm phone. Verizon charged $2.49 a minute. Occasionally the Passport charged at under 99 cents a minute even way out to sea. Usually they charged must more. Many days while on the ship, (but not too far from land) the Passport SIM could pull in Greek, Italian and French cell providers. So calls came in for free and cost about 49 cents out.

Inquisitor, you were getting free incoming on the shipboard network? Cool! I'm on a Baltic cruise in August (Denmark, Sweden (2), Finland, Estonia, and Russia. I was counting on grabbing land signals most of the time, but this may even be better. Now, I just need to decide whether I pop for a Russian SIM for three days.

Yes, I got free incoming calls onboard on the "On-waves" network and outgoing SMS costed € 0.14. Btw I was on a Baltic cruise, too. Actually a big part of the Baltic sea is covered by land networks, but often you'll have to go outdoors on the coast-facing side of the ship to get a clear connection. As I spent only half a day in St. Petersburg, I didn't buy a Russian SIM, but the funny thing was, that a German prepaid SIM I used provided me free calls from Russia, as they obviously had some billing problem and so not a single cent was charged to my credit for an hour of calling home.

Once I made some calls in France where a billing error meant I was not charged either. However as it was a contract phone I was eventually charged around 3 months later! I suppose that cannot happen on a prepaid though.

Interesting about your cruise ship incoming being free though with voda passport. I wonder if the crew on that ship know that too? I have a friend who is a ships engineer who is constantly complaining how expensive ships-side voice communication is for him.

As for me, when I was on a cruise a while ago, my phone was deliberately off and I was actually quite happy that I felt cut off from the world. People couldn't even get me an "emergency"! Bliss! Pity that is no longer the case!

Stu:

I did a Baltic cruise a few years ago. The only way you get free incoming calls if if you can get a land based signal and not via the ships equipment. Once the ship is too far from land, you may have no choices. You can tell when you roam between a land based carrier and the ship.

I'll report back in late August on this one.