Going on a Caribbean Cruise - need advice on mobile use.

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My mum is going on a Caribbean cruise in a couple of weeks and has asked about using her mobile phone. Apparently data access whilst on-board will be mucho ££, so I said I'd look into roaming on a UK SIM when she's on shore. She's currently on Tesco PAYG and could easily swap to another provider to get better roaming rates.

I've come across this - https://www.airalo.com/caribbean-islands-esim/island-hopper-7days-1gb - which I think could be an option.

Anyone been on a Caribbean cruise with their mobile and can offer some advice? Thanks.
 
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No Jamaica, but a friend of mine was able to order a Japanese sim card online, delivered to her house before she jetted off to Japan. Mobal if memory serves. Worth investigating.
 
Pawnless Endgame said:
No Jamaica, but a friend of mine was able to order a Japanese sim card online, delivered to her house before she jetted off to Japan. Mobal if memory serves. Worth investigating.
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I done this for Japan, ordered it to the hotel though. Can't remember who though now.

Most companies now offer packages if you want to upgrade for a month, I'm pretty sure Vodafone do.

Yeah, vodafone does even on PAYG - not cheap though! https://www.vodafone.co.uk/mobile/extras

But then, I think it might work out better than the sim in the OP.
 
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Just be careful, the phone might connect to the 'cellular at sea' connection of the ship when out of range of any land based coverage, and that is even more expensive than the wifi packages.
 
A friend has just come back from a Caribbean cruise, he ended up using wifi whenever they were in port.

He's now isolating at home with a nasty case of Covid picked up on the cruise...
 
krooton said:
Just be careful, the phone might connect to the 'cellular at sea' connection of the ship when out of range of any land based coverage, and that is even more expensive than the wifi packages.
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Was going to say this. Be sure not to accidentally connect.

Wife and I did a Caribbean cruise early this year and decided to do the odd day of mobile data when on land turning off soon after we left port to avoid connecting to the cellular at sea network.

We're both with O2 so she paid for the day pass or whatever it's known as which I believe was £6. She then WiFi hotspotted her phone for me to piggyback on if I needed. Couple of things to note though:

1) Activation of these day pass arrangements can take something like 'up to 24hrs' (not sure how that works on a day pass but hey) so bare in mind. O2 said they'd let us know when it was activated but never did in our case. They then tried to bill her incorrectly on a few days so she had to argue with online chat for a bit to get it sorted. Worth warning your mum to keep an eye on her next bill once she's back just in case and have a bit of evidence of when she's opted in etc on hand to smooth things over. Generally though she should be fine.

2) Depending on how regular a cruiser your mum is she might get the odd perk thrown in such as a day or two of onboard WiFi. Goes without saying but you can save a day or two of phone data if you're able to use that.

3) Loads of in port WiFi available, best bet is to look for where the crew are heading as they'll all want to connect for free.
 
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