Cruise Advice re Wise and Phones

Forums › Travel (planes, train, cruise) › Cruise Advice re Wise and Phones

Eva888

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#315803 17-Aug-2024 14:34

Booked a cruise and had the worst experience trying to understand a super polite Asian lady with a strong accent who connected all the words so you couldn’t make out a thing. Put her on speaker phone and everyone in the room looked aghast. Felt too sorry for her to say give me someone else and so gave up asking questions. Tried again later and got one slightly better but still difficult to understand.

Going with P and O and planning to use the Wise card to add onboard credit as rather not use bank cards in foreign countries. Am totally confused on how to manage this as two of us will want to use from one account. Any advice appreciated. Can’t get my head around it and are there any pitfalls to watch for. The ship uses Australian dollars. Do I add NZ dollars from a bank account here and just leave in Wise in NZ dollars or is there another way of doing it so the money is Aus$

Also wondering how to organise the phone while at sea. Will roaming work. Am with Skinny. Apparently you have to leave the phone in airplane mode. How will that work.

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#3272915 17-Aug-2024 15:31

Can you make and receive calls in NZ with your phone in NZ with Skinny + airplane on and wifi on?

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Eva888

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#3272927 17-Aug-2024 16:02

gzt: Can you make and receive calls in NZ with your phone in NZ with Skinny + airplane on and wifi on?

Yes I can. Just tried it. So does that mean if I have wifi on the ship I can receive calls even in the middle of the ocean?

Eva888

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#3272928 17-Aug-2024 16:05

I noticed the mobile data button got greyed out when I turned on airplane mode. Does that mean I don’t need to have a roaming package when away?

Linux

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#3272930 17-Aug-2024 16:10

@Eva888 Google ' maritime roaming on Skinny ' and the first thing you see is this

" Roaming is not available over sea or in-flight with Skinny "

They might block Wi-Fi calling when using Wi-Fi on the ship

lxsw20

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#3272934 17-Aug-2024 16:27

Wi-fi is very expensive on the cruise ships usually. You're better off forgetting about data while at sea and just using roaming when at port.

My folks got a wise card. So they both have access mum uses it with Apple Pay and dad uses the physical card.

Eva888

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#3272935 17-Aug-2024 16:31

Thanks @Linux. Now what? Life in NZ is attached to a phone. Am always worried the bank decides to stop a card even though they will be told we are away.

So I should only get a roaming package for before and after the cruise while on land. We will be 6 days at sea.

Another option is to get a One NZ prepaid plus roaming which appears to work at sea. But that will have a different phone number. Am not familiar with call forwarding, but would I be able to have calls from NZ to the skinny phone forwarded to another One NZ phone with a prepay and roaming? This is so complicated.

Eva888

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#3272936 17-Aug-2024 16:35

lxsw20:

Wi-fi is very expensive on the cruise ships usually. You're better off forgetting about data while at sea and just using roaming when at port.

My folks got a wise card. So they both have access mum uses it with Apple Pay and dad uses the physical card.

Yes that’s what we normally do with Wise. You’re not allowed to use cards on the ship, you have to load their ship card with funds.

Wifi package is $60 per day for three people. Crazy.

larknz

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#3272937 17-Aug-2024 16:39

Wise will only give one card per account. So if you both want cards you will have to have 2 accounts.

Oblivian

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#3272939 17-Aug-2024 16:44

Unless you are following the coast of Australia. Forget calls working. (You're on holiday, make the most of it!). And won't have signal far from the coast.

The wifi onboard is via satellite. They seem to block calling etc for both the Ship advantage and potential stupid high provider switching/roaming rates.

The only time wifi calling worked was when at port hanging off wifi at foodie places within range. Or if the data they used was suddenly via the port agency p2p.

Best you can hope for is Facebook or other app over IP calling if you get the data package.

The card charging is always with the ship, not external operators if you book stuff through them. Haven't had an issue yet. It's like any hotel that imprints your card for post charging. And comes back to your room... Or your fob in this case. Normally totalled at the end of each day

And if its like princess, all obtainable on the app or stateroom acct via tv.

Last time I did p&o your cruise card has no value. Swiping it charged your room, and as such the held CC. Which is why they want one per person.

https://www.pocruises.co.nz/plan/know-before-you-go/onboard-spending-money

Asteros

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#3273014 17-Aug-2024 19:00

4) You must be located in NZ to utilise Skinny Wifi Calling Services

https://www.skinny.co.nz/help/vowifi-calling/

Linux

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#3273015 17-Aug-2024 19:02

2degrees & OneNZ do not enforce that stupid requirement

Eva888

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#3273242 18-Aug-2024 15:18

Will resurrect an old iphone and put a One NZ prepaid sim in it and get some roaming on that. Battery not the best but will do for the ship as apparently One NZ does maritime $5.76 a minute. Just want it for some backup.

gzt

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#3273244 18-Aug-2024 15:32

Wifi package is $60 per day for three people. Crazy.

Do they have a better price on Ethernet? 😂

Eva888

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#3273262 18-Aug-2024 16:43

gzt:
Wifi package is $60 per day for three people. Crazy.

Do they have a better price on Ethernet? 😂

Will take a 40 meter cable with me in case I can hang it from the top deck where the twirly satellite thingy is 😁

I was trying to manage the booking after paying a $zillion but it kept thanking me for the deposit and requesting I finish paying. Even had a receipt for the zillion so was about ready to call them. I had forgotten to add 70cents.

Grr I paid for it by credit card, they can charge me 1.5% on the 70cents.

johno1234

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#3273269 18-Aug-2024 17:05

Eva888:

Booked a cruise and had the worst experience trying to understand a super polite Asian lady with a strong accent who connected all the words so you couldn’t make out a thing. Put her on speaker phone and everyone in the room looked aghast. Felt too sorry for her to say give me someone else and so gave up asking questions. Tried again later and got one slightly better but still difficult to understand.

Going with P and O and planning to use the Wise card to add onboard credit as rather not use bank cards in foreign countries. Am totally confused on how to manage this as two of us will want to use from one account. Any advice appreciated. Can’t get my head around it and are there any pitfalls to watch for. The ship uses Australian dollars. Do I add NZ dollars from a bank account here and just leave in Wise in NZ dollars or is there another way of doing it so the money is Aus$

Also wondering how to organise the phone while at sea. Will roaming work. Am with Skinny. Apparently you have to leave the phone in airplane mode. How will that work.

At sea you need to use the ship's data and phone service which is generally quite expensive. If your fare includes "free" add-ons you can select phone/internet along with the mandatory (for me) drinks package then it's kind of free (effectively pre-paid and can be forgotten).

Naturally when at a port you can just use regular international roaming.

As far as card is concerned there shouldn't be anything to spend on board, until you pay your one bill at the end. For that you can use a regular credit card but with Wise you will get a slightly better exchange rate - but of course you need to transfer some money to it first which can a day or two to show up as available credit.

Personally I would always pay the extra up front to get the drinks package (and internet if I needed it). That way I don't dull the holiday buzz worrying about how much stuff is costing.

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