Cell Phone Use on Hawaii Cruise

[Gazelle2]

I hope that this is not a repeat post but I searched and could not find this subject.

My wife and I are cruising on Spirit of America on May 7th. I am pretty sure that I have read somewhere that the ship provides subscription wireless service like all cruise ships but does not have cellular service since a large portion of the cruise is within range of U.S. cellular towers. If that is true, passengers should be able to make cellular connections without ship, overseas, or roaming charges any time they can get a signal.

Can any.one confirm just how cellular service is handled on these Hawaiian cruises?

Thanks in advance....Gazelle2

[Skipper's Mom]

On our cruise to HI in 2008, we had no problem using our pay as you go cellphones.

[Mike M]

If your plan includes "Nationwide" service that includes Hawaii you will be fine. Just watch out when you are at sea. I'm not positive that the ship turns off their cell service when they are traveling between islands. There are areas between the islands that do not have cell service and the ship's system could switch on at that point.

I would set your phone to "No Roaming" or "Disable Roaming" to assure you do not pick up the ship's cell service while you are between islands.

Take care,
Mike

[Kuki]

You have to be careful. On our last Hawaii cruise, people faced large roaming charges from both their providers and celluar at sea, without even using their cell phones. They had just left them on in their cabin.

[Gazelle2]

Thanks for all of the replies. I am still a bit confused because it sounds as though Spirit of America does have a cellular link when at sea.

Even though I have a "nationwide" plan with no roaming charges from any US cellular tower, it looks like I will have to wait until I am ashore to guarantee no extra charges from NCL.

[Wando]

I assume you mean Pride of America and not Spirit as the Norweigan Spirit doesn't go to Hawaii?

[Gazelle2]

Originally Posted by Wando

I assume you mean Pride of America and not Spirit as the Norweigan Spirit doesn't go to Hawaii?

You are correct, Wando. The ship, of course, is Pride of America. Thanks for keeping me straight.

[DCLFAN]

HI Gazelle2,

How was your Pride of America cruise in Hawaii? We are leaving July 2. any tips. Our major concern is excursions. Any deals on the islands without doing the ships excursions. Currently we are renting a car in Oahu and Maui. Should we rent in Kona, Kauai or Hilo? Any other helpful hints would be appreciated.

[Dhill]

Originally Posted by DCLFAN

HI Gazelle2,

How was your Pride of America cruise in Hawaii? We are leaving July 2. any tips. Our major concern is excursions. Any deals on the islands without doing the ships excursions. Currently we are renting a car in Oahu and Maui. Should we rent in Kona, Kauai or Hilo? Any other helpful hints would be appreciated.

My wife and I just returned last April from a 14 day Hawaiin Cruise altho it was on tha Sapphire Prince. In my opion I would not rent a car in Kona everything is within walking distance of where the boat lets you off and there is a nice beach right there. I also think you would have to go to the airport to rent a car and thats a $30 cab ride.As far as Kauai theres a few shops buy the Pier we just went on a bus tour of the Island there was an
office just up the street Kauai was are least favorite Island not alot there. And in Hilo its is a pretty good walk from the pier to get anywhere but theres plenty of busses and cabs at the pier .We found pleny to do in Maui within walkind distance but it all depends on what you want.Make sure you get some Hawaiin shaved ice with ice cream in it its pretty good And in Maui if you need coffe or ice cream the Badass coffe company is just up the steet from the pier. Have fun on your cruise we had the time of are lives wish we were going take care.

[Gazelle2]

Originally Posted by DCLFAN

HI Gazelle2,

How was your Pride of America cruise in Hawaii? We are leaving July 2. any tips. Our major concern is excursions. Any deals on the islands without doing the ships excursions. Currently we are renting a car in Oahu and Maui. Should we rent in Kona, Kauai or Hilo? Any other helpful hints would be appreciated.

Sorry it has taken so long to reply to your questions but we are pretty bad about posting after our cruises.

I am also sorry that I can't be of much help concerning your questions about rental cars because we pretty much restrict ourselves to doing ships' excursions for our journeys ashore.

One of the main problems with our cruise was that early May is the very end of the rainy season in Hawaii and we had rain on every one of our eleven days in the islands.

We enjoyed our cruise very much and found that, despite all of the horror stories we have read on this forum concerning the poor service on the American-crewed Norwegian ship in Hawaii, our service was absolutely faultless. The ship was beautiful and tasteful. Our only real onboard complaint came from the fact that there in no showroom band and no dance troupe. We are primarily Carnival cruisers and enjoy their professional musical and dance shows in the evening.

We enjoyed the islands of Hawaii and Kauai much more than either Oahu or Maui. The only other disapointment on the cruise was due to something over which Norwegian had absolutely no control. We were very proud of the fact that, through a lot of research, we decided to book an oversize balcony high up on the starboard side of the ship. That was to assure that we had the maximum possibility of viewing the lava flow from Kilauea during the scheduled night passage of the south coast of Hawaii as the ships sails between Hilo and Kona. Unfortunately, at the same moment that the disastrous quake hit Japan on March 11, 2011, Kilauea stopped erupting. Therefore, despite our anticipation of the viewing of the glowing lava flow, the flow has stopped and Norwegian cancelled the night time sail by.

[trevorjones]

It depends upon which cruise line you choose cause not all cruise liner provide on-board cellular services. Some provide this service and the shipboard services gets automatically activated when the cruise drifts away from the range of land based cellular tower while some cruise restricts usuage of mobile phones onboard.

Well i am not sure about Hawaiian cruises but i do know about WMS network which provides very cheap roaming services on all major cruise to wireless carriers worldwide like Roger wireless, T-Mobile, 3, Vodafone etc. Please make sure your carrier has an agreement with your ship or else your usage will be charged as per their proposed international roaming rates. Hope this helps you.

[konglong]

On our cruise to HI in 2008, we had no problem using our pay as you go cellphones.

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