atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information going on a cruise

I'm going on a cruise this week for ten days from NYC to the Caribbeans.
this is the first time in about ten years that i am probably going to be almost out of touch with my customers.
does anyone know if there is any sort of cell / satellite phone that i could rent while I'm on the cruise?

They have ship to shore telephones on the boat. But, you will not want to use them. They are around $9.50/per minute.

You may be able to use your cell phone in certain port of calls, but that may also be pricey. If the boat is cruise close enough to the shore of the states, you may also get a signal.

I know how you feel, but you need to let it go. Just go on the cruise and enjoy it. Don't worry about business. Have fun!

the one time that I went on a cruise you could rent a phone in your cabin that went through the ships satellite its not cheap but very convenient

anyone hear of these guys?
https://www.mobalrental.com/satellite.asp
they claim $9.00 per day plus 1.99 per minute. no roaming or hidden charges.
for the past couple of years i have gone up to the local mountains so in case i have an emergency i could be in my car and back in the city in under 2 hours.
not once did i ever have to cut my vacation short. i have a great crew, plus great local backup guys just in case. always been able to handle any situation over the phone.
I'm just worried about being out of touch in case something does come up.
hate to admit it but i treat my business like it's one of my kids.
god i need a new line of work.

Geeze, if you feel that way why don't you just buy the damn thing.

If you go up to the mountains every so often you could probably justify it. Not that expensive.

-Hal

The bigger islands have cell service. Went to Virgin Islands, St. Barts, St. Thomas, few others. Had coverage pretty much the entire time. I have Verizon wireless. Sure you can go to whatever cell provider you have to find out if they work down there. Verizon has that anyways.

I went to Cancun and my Verizon phone didn't work there. After returning and calling they said I needed to tell them before I left so they could enable it. I received calls periodically but whenever I would try to call out I would get an error message in Spanish.

As few times as I post here, I must jump in.

As you were told, "...you need to let it go."

You could do like I do, Hire one of your friends or sub contractors to fill in for the duration.

But with the other options mentioned above, you could be contacted in a pinch.

The FIRST THING I DO is send an email to all my clients telling them I AM OUT OF HERE for X number of days, and if I have hired that friend or sub, I set it up to where my 800 Number goes there.

Of course, like the two weeks around Xmas, there are always those few that don't bother to read their email.....

My wife took our son on a class trip to Paris last spring and she looked into the options. We also use Verizon Wireless. The did offer a plan that averaged about $20.00 per day but it required us to get a rental phone from them. She couldn't just simply take her existing phone and pay extra since it's an entirely different network there. Still, for a five day stay, we thought it might be worth it.

Their trip provider gave them calling cards that could be uploaded if necessary. That's the way we went. Of the handfull of calls we needed to make to each other, mostly just saying hello, we hardly used the $10.00 value of the original free card they got. Calls to/from Europe are cheap now.

Same thing applied for our trip to Cancun, but we found that some of the bandit payphones were cheaper. Being on a ship, you are pretty much going to have to escape. Isn't that what people who go on cruises are paying for anyway?

good idea, I'll call nextel and find out what they offer.
as for "letting go" i definitely will try.
i as most of you are am a workaholic. as much as i hate the late night/weekend calls i do love this business. nothing beats getting a call from someone saying they had three techs in and no one can find the trouble. then you come in and fix it in 5 minutes.