Cruising out of US with iPad .

[yawnyj]

I 'm trying to get information about ideas to get wireless while cruising for 40 days ( New Zealand , Australia , Pacific Islands etc . My iPad is the AT&T 3G and wireless but using the ships service is really expensive . You can roam on the ships tower , but that is also pretty expensive . I just need to be able to check email and do some occasional browsing . What would be the best plan? ( get a sim card from overseas , and if so which company would serve these areas? Would it be better to just roam on the ships tower with AT&T ? Thanks for any information you can give.

 

[miles01110]

The ship's tower is going to be your only option if you're not close to port. There aren't many cell towers in the middle of the ocean...

 

[yawnyj]

I was referring to the ships tower to roam through a service, which you can do. I did it on a recent cruise but it was not in international waters so no international fee, which I was trying to afford . I am thinking I would use it more when we are in port , but this will be in international ports so my question was to find out if there is a cell company which you can get a sim card for that will work internationally while doing this .Then I could avoid outrageous fees too use AT&T global roaming. And , yes , I realize there are no towers at sea, but there are on the ship !

 

[darngooddesign]

Doesn't the ship have wifi?

 

[seeharrison]

Whenever I roam abroad I buy the 120MB of international data for $30. It's more than enough for syncing up my e-mails and a bit of web surfing. This should work to roam on any network while at port, but I'm not sure if it applies to roaming at sea. You may give AT&T a call and see what they say. I've also only added this to an iPhone plan, so I'm not sure how it works with the iPad.

http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/international/roaming/affordable-world-packages.jsp

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Doesn't the ship have wifi?

Some ships do, but it's usually expensive. I think the last cruise I took, internet access on the boat was $.25 a minute and there was a minimum number of minutes you had to use each session.

 

[yawnyj]

Thanks, for the responses . My post above should have said avoid roaming , not afford roaming . For some reason the iPad always wants to change your words. Yes the ship has wifi, but the fees are outrageous. I actually roamed on the ships tower, turning off data, so phone only in order to be available for family emergencies, and most of the time I had a signal from the ships tower. I,ll see what an international data plan would be for the iPad . I have seen people post about using sim cards for local services abroad which was cheaper. That is why I was asking.

 

[dchao]

When you're out in the middle of the sea, you are pretty much screwed by the cruise company. The ship doesn't have the regular landline cell towers,which are relayed by microwaves. The ship uses special micro-cells that are relayed via satellites. Installed by the cruise company, so they get a cut of the roaming fee from your cellphone provider.

If you want to go cheap on cruise, don't communicate with the outside world, don't sign up for excursions.