Cell Phones in Europe - Any ideas

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ben ward

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Any ideas for tempory use of cell phones while on a mediteranian cruise or just use email and skype over the internet?

Thanks,
Ben
 
Most have service with your current cell service provider and they go with ATT on the ship to provide roaming access to make calls.
 
You can rent cell phones in the airport that you're arriving at & leaving out of. It's pretty simple to do & you can buy plans with a certain amount of minutes.
 
we bought the the $99 phone from mobal, good little phone but last yr we got $99/ minutes free. so we're set for this yr, have enough min. left. we rented a car in corfu & liked the security of having the phone. the yr before we lost someone in our party in london, was really scary, had to scramble to get change for the pay phone!!! no more lol!
 
My BlackBerry Curve/AT&T is quad band with international service. I've used it from Europe to Hong Kong, at sea, in Canada, Mexico, Central/South America. And it's my everyday cell phone.
 
ALL CRUISE LINES now have cell phone access, EXCEPT PRINCESS. It's been reported in all the cruise news.

Celebrity, RCCL, Carnival, HAL...all now have cell phone access. It doesn't matter how great your phone is, if the ship isn't anywhere near a tower, you need to be on a ship that has it's own cell tower. Most do. For some reason, Princess doesn't.

However, unless you have some pressing reason to need to communicate while on vacation, stick with e-mail. Cheaper. I vacation to NOT COMMUNICATE and escape. Oh well.
 
Update, I had a signal 24/7 on my Med cruise...I had to return two business calls and put out a couple of fires back home. Since the ship "hugged" the countries pretty close (you almost always saw land), I'm sure the provider I was getting (different each day) was land based.
 
Conniemc said:
Update, I had a signal 24/7 on my Med cruise...I had to return two business calls and put out a couple of fires back home. Since the ship "hugged" the countries pretty close (you almost always saw land), I'm sure the provider I was getting (different each day) was land based.
Click to expand...
What was the charge for these calls?
 
ben ward said:
Any ideas for tempory use of cell phones while on a mediteranian cruise or just use email and skype over the internet?

Thanks,
Ben
Click to expand...

The last couple of cruises we rented a cell phone from Range Rover. It allowed our children to contact us for no cost to them and the fees for using the phone were only about 12 to 17cents per minute depending on the country. It did not cost alot and it was very convenient.
 
Do not relie on skype, except in port at a internet cafe, If i'm not mistaken, the cruise ships block skype on board.

Using your world phone in Europe, might make you take out a new mortgage on your house.
 
It's not as expensive as one might think if you remember to TURN OFF YOUR DATA WHILE ROAMING!! I have used my cell phone from Europe to the East to Hong Kong and Australia/New Zealand to the West without astronomical bills. I also use my cell phone at sea daily where service is available.
 
On one of my recent business trips to Asia, I picked up an inexpensive phone that uses SIM cards. I made sure it was a quad-band. I check online and order SIM cards for the destinations we are visiting. I just flip in the new SIM and my phone becomes a local phone for the area.

We enjoy having the local number so we can call guides, restaurants, and phone numbers we run across on our journeys. I think the last SIM card we bought for cruise was around $10 and included 100 minutes of talk time. The phone does have Skype and Google Voice, which is what we use for calling back to the states using WiFi, when we can get it.
 


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