Filed under: Wireless, Odds and ends, iPhone
TUAW Tip: Using your iPhone on a cruise ship
If you're going on a cruise vacation, don't be concerned about being out of touch. Chances are excellent that you can use your cell phone.Reader Steven Madow reminded TUAW that many cruise lines use a service called Cellular At Sea to provide you with satellite-linked cellular service. Almost 100 ships currently use the service, which is a joint venture between AT&T Mobility and SeaMobile.
Madow said that with his iPhone, configuration was a simple matter of looking at the settings (right) for a carrier called "Cellular at Sea." The cost of the service varies depending on your home carrier, but for AT&T users it is about $0.79 per minute. While that's not exactly cheap, it's priceless if you need to keep in touch in case of an emergency.
Most cruise lines also provide Wi-Fi based onboard Internet service. Rates for these services usually range from $0.75 per minute down to $0.30 per minute. The more time you prepay, the lower the rate is.
To find out if your favorite cruise ship has Cellular At Sea or Internet service, click the Read link or visit the website for the cruise line.
Thanks for the tip, Steven!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
William said 11:23AM on 8-19-2008
I did this on Carnival Liberty in July and it worked flawlessly. The price on the website showed $2something a minute. Haven't seen it on my statement yet, so I can't confirm.
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Adam said 11:27AM on 8-19-2008
Good God, that's expensive (particularly for Internet).
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Hendrik said 11:34AM on 8-19-2008
I wonder how many TUAW readers are actually going on a cruise. Strange report.
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John said 11:57AM on 8-19-2008
I'm going on a European cruise in November. I'm really glad they reported on this. I was planning on unlocking my phone or getting a prepaid cell for over there.
Elam said 12:33PM on 8-19-2008
7 Day Western Caribbean cruise in December.
I know - there are always examples in or out of favor w/ any given premise...but you asked...so I figured - let's see how many folks we can get to reply! :-)
~elh
Ryan Trevisol said 1:32PM on 8-19-2008
More like how many TUAW writers are going on a cruise?
Brandon said 2:21PM on 8-19-2008
Actually, I am going on a cruise in 7 weeks, and had planned on researching this today. I was pleasantly surprised to see this on Tuaw, saving me a lot of time.
mountie31 said 11:37AM on 8-19-2008
.79 per minute? You sure about that? I have a 3g iPhone on AT&T USA, and it is showing me that on Royal Carribean (as well as other ships) it will be $2.49 per minute. I also researched my wife's phone, a hacked iphone on tmobile, and they charge a staggering $4.99 per minute on the same ship. I have to remember to turn off both our data services when we go on our cruise, or i'm gonna rack up one hell of a bill.
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AnthonyD said 1:41PM on 8-19-2008
.79/minute for internet. It's $2.49 for cellular service.
Doug Toombs said 11:37AM on 8-19-2008
If, by chance, your cruise ship ends up stopping in Bermuda - be very careful. There is a documented problem with one of the carriers in Bermuda using a MCC (Mobile Country Code) of the US - so your phone registers AT&T when you're there ... but you are racking up roaming charges in voice and data. That's the biggest problem, since the iPhone thinks it's on AT&T - the "Data Roaming" switch is useless to protect you against data charges.
More details here: http://dougtoombs.com/2008/07/23/bermuda-the-iphone-and-att-beware-the-data-roaming/
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pacer521 said 11:38AM on 8-19-2008
wowzers
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mountie31 said 11:38AM on 8-19-2008
Here is the link from AT&T USA regarding the rates on the Royal Carribean line.
http://www.wireless.att.com/travelguide/coverage/coverage_details.jsp?CIDL=1584&MNC=CING&DID1=347&DID2=&STEP=5
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Dave Wood said 11:39AM on 8-19-2008
I used my iPhone on a cruise and my roaming charge was $6.95 per minute, so be very very careful!
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Paul said 11:40AM on 8-19-2008
I did this on a Royal Caribbean cruise last year. I used 10 minutes of talk time, and enough data to send and receive about 15 normal sized e-mails.
When my bill came, it was about $60 higher than a normal monthly bill. YMMV, but I'll be using airplane mode from now on.
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oliver said 11:48AM on 8-19-2008
I'm not so sure about the $ .79 per minute rate. From what I understand, on Carnival and Royal Caribbean, AT&T list the rate as $2.49/minute on the cruise network.
Here's the link:
http://www.wireless.att.com/travelguide/coverage/coverage_details.jsp?CIDL=1578&MNC=CING&DID1=347&DID2=&STEP=5
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Kev Orng said 11:59AM on 8-19-2008
I used my iPod Touch on a cruise ship earlier this year. It was a Celebrity cruise and I had nothing but trouble. The problem is that their wifi login page required Internet Explorer, so sometimes it would let me log in with Mobile Safari, and sometimes it wouldn't. In the end I ended up stealing unprotected wifi from the pier at every port. I felt like a Wifi Pirate of the Caribbean. "Yaar, put out the antennas, boys, we be plundering some bandwidth".
You'd be amazed at how far those wifi signals travel over water, too. My email would start moving well before we docked.
And before people jump on me for not being able to disconnect while on vacation, I was actually working; it was a conference, I was part of the event staff, and I wasn't able to bring my wife, so I was keeping her up to date with all the adventures and funny behind the scenes stuff.
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Charles said 12:27PM on 8-19-2008
The ships wi-fi is not the same as Cellular at Sea!!! The only way I would use an iPhone on a cruise ship is to put it on Airplane mode with wi-fi on. Cellular at Seas is $2.49 a minute. Wi-Fi on a cruise ship is usually about .50 a minute. As far as you problem with Celebrity Wi-Fi that is unrelated to this tip!!! He is talking about the cell network. Steve may have a heart attack when he gets his bill!!!
Kev Orng said 9:56PM on 8-19-2008
@Charles: Thanks, Captain Obvious! I am well aware that they aren't the same.
The second last paragraph of the article was about ship wifi. My comment is relevant to that part, and my experience might be useful to someone going on a cruise with either an iPhone or an iPod touch.
emil said 12:18PM on 8-19-2008
Is the 'carrier' setting only a feature on 3G iPhones? My 2G doesn't even have that setting
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Kevin said 1:30PM on 8-19-2008
I think it's only available when one or more carriers is present. I saw the carrier setting when I was in Belgium (Mobi Star and maybe o2) in June on my 1st Gen iPhone.