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Can we use wifi in the cruise terminal?


levib2

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I'm not clear on what charges you are trying to avoid. 

Some cruise terminals have their own wifi and in many cases it is free.

Ship wifi tends to be very weak in the terminal.  Sometimes you can connect to it but many times you can not.  This also varies by port.  When a ship turns around the wifi system resets usually between 10am - 11am as they load the next manifest in the system but this varies.  I wouldn't rely on having ship paid internet plans working in the terminal. 

If you are talking about avoiding cellular roaming charges when at sea, the cell tower on the ship doesn't activate until the ship is well away from land so that it doesn't interfere with land cell towers.  If this is what you are trying to avoid you don't have to activate airplane mode until the ship is pulling away from the terminal at sail away.    

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4 hours ago, twangster said:

the cell tower on the ship doesn't activate until the ship is well away from land so that it doesn't interfere with land cell towers

Is this also the case in port? Our next cruise has a heavy USVI itinerary and I may need to take a call or two, which will be free for me as long as I'm not hitting the ship tower.

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17 minutes ago, joshvc said:

Is this also the case in port? Our next cruise has a heavy USVI itinerary and I may need to take a call or two, which will be free for me as long as I'm not hitting the ship tower.

On land every cell tower has designated frequencies that tower can use.  This allows cell towers to overlap and not interfere with each other.  It's carefully coordinated by the FCC in the US and other agencies in other countries.  

When a ship pulls up with a cell tower on board the potential to interfere with land based cellular networks is very real and significant.  

Consequently the on board cell tower is programmed to operate only at sea where it can't interfere with land networks and if it detects a land based tower signal it shuts down automatically.  

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29 minutes ago, joshvc said:

Is this also the case in port? Our next cruise has a heavy USVI itinerary and I may need to take a call or two, which will be free for me as long as I'm not hitting the ship tower.

I made calls using AT&T service from St Thomas on two of my recent cruises.  I've had no issues with the signal/reception and the billing.

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