Coverage on Royal Caribbean Cruse

cjake wrote:

Once the ship is out of range of land based cellular towers signals will be transmitted via satellite, which is one reason for the expensive charges.

That … and because they can.  Ship’s WiFi also comes from satellite (same ones, most likely), and should have usable service.  Part of the reason that it is expensive….there’s no competition, and they need to set up as a cellular provider (vs. WiFi) and keep in compliance with all the local country requirements. I.e. frequencies in US are different than those in EU and AP.  Similarly, there are restrictions in some countries to their operation within local country maritime borders (5 miles from coast?).

https://www.cellularatsea.com

Ironically .. Cellular at sea page has items for AT&T and Verizon … but doesn’t like T-Mobile

In a similar note:  Cellular at Sea (at least from US?) is not expected to work until 12 nautical miles from land.  This doesn’t mean that you might not pick it up or get registered!    

Just as a secondary note:  WiFi is often recommended on the ships because the ships run their own shipwide wifi with ship based services available that do not require ‘Internet’ (walled garden).  Much like using Airplane WiFi, you can use ‘local’ services, and pay for full Internet access.  Ironically, many moons ago, using Princess from LA → Hawaii, on WiFi only, many Google services still worked w/o paying for actual Internet service.

See Royal Caribbean’s site for WiFi access - data and streaming, if you sign up for access prior to departure a bit of a discount but last I checked was between $20 and $25 per day depending on cruise and ship. It’s slow. But yeah, avoid using cellular at sea or maritime services as noted. Better still leave the phone at home or turn it off and enjoy the cruise.

Once the ship is out of range of land based cellular towers signals will be transmitted via satellite, which is one reason for the expensive charges.

Even if you're doing the Mexican Rivera (Cabo/Mazatlan/Puerto Vallarta/Ensenada), you won't reach land, and will end up with ship service.   If anything,  as mentioned above, go to airplane mode while.you are connected to TMobile.  You can enable wifi if needed.  Safest method… pull your SIM card.

You do not want to use the onboard cellular system which is generally $6/min. If it’s that important to you, buy an onboard WiFi package and put your phone in airplane mode while onboard then turn WiFi back on to use WiFi Calling.

We are leaving from Long Beach. I know that TMobile allows for free data at 256/kbps internationally, is that something that I can use on the ship?  In case it matters, I have the Magenta plan.  I’m not really interested in making any calls, just having data is fine.

Depending on where you leave from, you could also deal with PetroCom roaming in the Gulf ($$$)