I had read about RSSC setting up cell phone use from the ships and my carrier, Cingular, is one that is available. I didn't look into the details for my Alaska trip in May because I could call for free in US ports. I made several calls from deck 12 when we were docked in various ports assuming I was connected to the local cell system. WRONG!! Calls from onboard, even at dock, went through the RSSC setup and I was hit with roaming charges and the cost wasn't low. It connects through the ship automatically. Calls from in town were free. I don't know how far away from the ship you need to be to to connect through the local system.

For those of you going to Alaska or embarking / debarking in a US port, think about waiting until you're on land to use your cell phone unless you don't mind the roaming charges.

Wow jbittle, that is very interesting!! I guess that would be great while in a overseas port but kind of annoying in an American port!

Here is an article talking about the cell phone switchover.

I took my Cingular cellphone with me on our Panama Canal cruise. Although I didn't use it, I kept the phone on so that I could see who was leaving messages from the phone numbers listed in missed or incoming calls. Never listened to the voicemails though. Imagine my surprise when I returned home, viewed the bill and discovered roaming charges on the voicemails simply for having the phone turned on. A call to Cingular and my bill was corrected but let this be a warning to others!

Please learn from my experience!!! My husband, son and myself were on the May 14th to May 24th cruise to Alaska. I used my cell phone perhaps 90 minutes but my son spoke alot to his fiancee during that time. we both have cingular. I just received my phone bill, $1,200.00!!!

This is so confusing!! Barbara, did Cingular refund you? I can't imagine them charging you when you were in a US port! (Assuming that you have no roaming in the US)

That's alarming! The last time we were on an Alaskan cruise, I called my mom from the deck of our suite on Mariner. We chatted for quite a while, and there was NO roaming charge! I wouldn't have thought anything would change; that sucks bilgewater.

I'll be checking with Cingular to see what can be done up front, to prevent this outrageous nonsense.

I am onboard and I have Tmobile and Verizon phones with me. I left my Tmobile on so I hope that I won't have a huge bill for roaming. I have a telephone that no one (except the house sitter and our office assistant) knows the number of so that when I am traveling that I will not get unwanted telephone calls where I have to pay roaming yet people can still reach me. With phone plans so cheap, you can do a shared minutes plan and have second telephone numbers for an additional $10 per month

Karen; my son is able to check our bill online. however he can only see the total amount and not the individual charges yet. we should be receiving the bill anyday now. my son and I hope to be able to get some type of refund before I have to give the bill to my husband. I'm afraid he wouldn't survive the shock and I need him to be able to go on more Regent cruises!

Kathy at this point, you should be using the free hour of phone on the Voyager (because of status) ;)

This was the first cruise I DID not use my cell phone to call home to check in on the girls...we used our free hour of phone (that we get for being silver) and boy, did I ever love it! That being said, I don't recall getting such a high cell phone bill when I have used it (very sparingly, I may add) on the Mariner. Cingular, as far as I could tell DID NOT have coverage, the network that showed up on my cell phone when I looked at it in alaska was either Cellular one (in the cities) or R-108 (the roaming).

Barbara....I hope you don't have to show Viktor that bill - good luck!

I wanted to bump this thread to see if anyone else has had any experience using their mobile phones on board.. Kathy, were you ever charged for roaming? What if someone called but you didn't answer?

I have an unlocked GSM phone with an international SIM (free incoming calls in Europe, 30-60cents per minute calling back to US). I don't want to end up using the ship's signal if I can get a cheap signal from shore or while in port.

I did turn my phone off when I boarded. On CC read that some got a HUGE phone bill with roaming on it. I figured if they needed me, then they could call me on board. I never even used up my hour of free calling. I ended up using my T-mobile from land. My whole cellphone bill was $85.00 including my monthly fee.

Spoke with Verizon last week and they told me only in Vancouver will I pay for roaming charges, All of Alaska is Us ports and even if it switches networks I would not be charged

FV

we ended up having to pay the full $1,200.00 for our cingular cell phone bill from our may 14th cruise. the vast majority of the bill was radisson charges for roaming and it was totally our fault for not paying attention to details! the next time i even touch my cell phone on board, my husband will throw me overboard so i better have a lifejacket on at all times!

Hasn't anyone taken advantage of the free phone usage on the RSSC tier program? Barbara, I can imagine how upset your husband was...mine would have killed me too!

We used our Tmobile several times for short calls on the New Year's Voyager sailing through the panama canal. The charges included the Radisson roaming charge and were around $300. Thank goodness we saved the longer calls for while we were off the ship in ports! It would have been nearly as cheap (since we are not Cingular customers) to use the ship-to-shore phone.

The tier programs were not yet up and running and we didn't get a "roaming" notice on our phone during its use. I will be using the room phone from here on out! John, be sure to get into town and away from the RSSC routing system before you use your phone. Give my best to Tonya, please. Cheers, Anne

I did...used every single minute...LOOOOVVVEEDDD it and it was great to hear the girls live for 5 mins every night....

I did use the phone onboard the Voyager during WAVE - I Called Ngaire about needing an onboard booking!! I also called home several times but did not use up my hour

Thanks for all the reports. I guess the key is to make sure the phone is not picking up RSSC's signal, but rather the signal from shore/port.

I'll report back how the international SIM card works. It looks like it will be a nice inexpensive alternative while in port.

I forget... how much phone time do we get for free?
I've never made a phone call from the ship phone before but now that it's free I'll give it a try!

Since I'm on the Rome to Nice cruise in October, this is topic is very important to me. I certainly don't want to pay the RSSC roaming rates.

Is the cellular roaming setup on all RSSC ships?

Does anyone know the network code and/or frequency band RSSC is using?

If so, one can usually set up roaming preferences to avoid using RSSC even when on board, if another signal is available.

The code is in the form of CCC-NNN (USA) or CCC-NN (elsewhere) where the C's represent the country and the N's represent the network operator. For example in the US Cingular's network code is 310-410 and I believe T-mobil's code is 310-480.

On my Motorola phone under the Settings/Network menu I can see all available networks by the CCC-NNN code and select the one to register and use.

Under the Settings/Network Setup menu I can select the frequency bands to use, Automatic, 850/1900 (USA) or 900/1800 (Europe).

Most handsets should have similar features.

*update*

Cingular has an agreement with all RSSC ships except the PG. The per minute charges are $2.49.
The ship's cellular repeater operates on the 1900MHz band. If you are in Europe you should be able to set your phone to operate on the 900/1800 band to avoid connecting to the ship's cellular repeater.

The Cingular knowledgebase contains a list of ships, rates and frequencies. The rates and frequencies seem to be the same for all ships.

Link to Cingular article.

Last year I was on Voyager Rome To Monte Carlo and made several calls on the ship, I had the cingular international plan for 99 Cents per minute, with my Razr phone, thats all I paid, and it really worked well.

FV

Does anyone know about making calls home from the ship? How much "free" time do we receive with the new tier program?

Marcie, My nieces had no problem using their cell phones in Alaska. As 3 Gold members in a suite, we had two hours of free phone time. We received a letter in our suite explaining the tiered system on embarkation.

Following up on ua549's post above, does anyone know how, in US (specifically AK), to get a Cingular phone to connect via the free connections in town versus using Radisson's service?

Marc, I'm not sure how Cingular works, but while I was on the Navigator in Europe, my phone would always go to the local coverage while close to port or even close to shore. While it was getting the ships signal, the network would be something like CC 139 XX. Does your phone display what network you're on? If not, you may be able to program it to display the network.

Even while on the ship, my rate was $1.15 per minute outgoing. When picking up the local signal, my rate varied from $.35 in the U.K. $.60 in most other locations, to $.69 while picking up a Moracco signal while sailing through the straights of Gibralter.

I used the Telestial Passport SIM in my GSM phone.

According to the article that I read over the weekend, the satillite is supposed to shut down the cell tower on board within a mile of the ports to avoid any local license issues and avoid roaming charges while in port.

Kathy, Cingular told us the same thing when we called to ask about this. Hopefully it will work!

Thanks all.

Hopefully one day there will be WiFi in the rooms. I have been using Skype to call around the world for free. You can even call out to hard lines and cell numbers.

Has anyone tried taking their Internet phone adaptor onboard? We have Vonage phone service at home and were planning on bringing the router with us to see if we could plug it into our laptop and make calls that way.

However, I just went to Vonage's website and for $40, they sell a keychain size phone that plugs into latops and PCs:
http://www.vonage.com/device.php?type=VPHONE

This may be ideal for our September 20th Mariner cruise that hits Alaska, Russia, and Japan.

With our monthly Vonage phone plan, we get free calls to the US, Puerto Rico, Italy, France, Spain, UK, and Ireland. Calls to Japan are .06 to .19 depending on the network area and calls to Russia are .07 to .13 per minute.

I think I'll call Vonage tomorrow and see if I can find out if this will work on a cruise ship. I'll report back with my findings.

Andrea

Hi John,

When you used Skype onboard were you crusing in the US or international? Were you able to use plain old Skype or did you need the SkypeOut international paid plan? That's looking like another good option.

Andrea

I never used it onboard. I was wondering. I used it the last time I was in Rome from the hotel with wireless access. I used both Skype and SkypeOut.

Skype and SkypeOut both worked on the ship - all over the world, including in the middle of the ocean.

Peggy

Does anyone know for sure that RSSC shuts down the tower so you can use your cell phone without roaming charges while in port? Recent experience with how this is working?

Sue, we had no problem using our Verizon phone on the ship while in San Juan a few weeks ago. I just got my bill and there are no unusual charges on it.

I had both my T-Mobile and my Verizon phones - no problem.

Kathy, have you received your bills for both of those phones yet?

Yes, both bills have come without any extra charges on them - no roaming either!

Don't mean to diverge from the topic, but I have a couple of questions regarding the use of ship's phone service. Exactly how do you place a call and is it from your stateroom only? How much of a delay is there? Can you hold a two way conversation, or is it you talk and then I talk? Inquiring minds want to know.