We are taking a 7 day Caribbean Cruise, including stops in Puerto Rico and St Thomas, which are included in my US calling plan. How can I be sure that I am connecting to a cell tower at the port and not to the cruise ship, so I can avoid the Pay-As-You-Go rates of $2.99/minute on the ship? Do I need to be off the ship and well away from the ship to connect to land based cell towers and how will I know I'm connected to the land based cell tower and not the ship?
FAM531, have a great time on that Caribbean cruise! I've watched a few YouTube vids on cursing and not sure if it's something I'd do, but it's interesting to watch people talk about the quirks of it. For your trip, generally the Pay as You Go rates are caused by using international towers, owned by a international carrier. The cruise ship itself does not have an internal cellular network (though many do offer Wi-Fi packages). When you're in port, you would be connecting with the local towers. If you want to be extra sure you can avoid this by setting your phone to Airplane Mode (which just uses Wi-Fi) or disable roaming.
Apple has details on Roaming settings here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201643
Samsung covers Android here: https://www.samsung.com/uk/support/mobile-devices/how-do-i-turn-international-data-roaming-on-or-off...
You can also review our International Travel FAQ to review other details: https://www.verizon.com/support/international-travel-faqs/
Have a great trip! 🛳️
-John
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