Roaming Rip-off

[AZ_Jim]

We recently went on a 2-week cruise and I had previously checked on the phone access roaming charges while on-board.  Decided that I wanted no part of their highly inflated charges so I put my Incredible in Airplane mode and used the phone for mp3s and as a night-table clock for the two weeks.  When going into Airplane mode, I checked that WiFi was off, and that connect to Mobile Network was off.  Supposedly no radios in the phone should be working.  Imagine my surprise when I got a $42.73 addition on my bill for "Global Roam - Cruise Ship" under data charges.  So, yesterday I called our friendly VZW support rep and was told that even though the phone was in Airplane Mode, some WiFi remains on and that the only way to turn this off is to "put the phone in Airplane mode and remove the battery".    Is this true, communications remain active even in Airplane mode?  So do I understand correctly that instead of an mp3 player I have a brick with no battery while cruising???

Unhappy in AZ

[budone]

I know even in Airplane mode WirFi works if you have WiFi on.

That being said, the best thing to insure you are not charged for roaming data is to remove the checkmark from ALLOW DATA ROAMING.

At what point did you turn Airplane mode on and off. You could have hit the ship and not be physically on it.

[AZ_Jim]

I believe I made a call or two before the ship left San Diego - but did check and saw that the WiFi checkbox was clear.  I didn't realize that there was an "allow data roaming" checkbox so am not aware what state that was in when in Airplane Mode.  Thanks for the input - will be more careful on the next cruise

[budone]

On the Incredible

From one of the main screens

MENU>SETTINGS>WIRELESS&NETWORKS>MOBILE NETWORKS  The top option you can trigger for data roaming or not.

Also the WiFi box is different than the option for Mobile Network which could connect to the cruise ships network also.

At least you had a 'small' charge compared to some that have beenn posted here.