This is a post from our old forums. We were able to migrate the posts with the switch, but here's what was said:
Jason
Thanks for putting up this site, it's been a great source of information while I've been investigiating the cruise ship biz. I was recently offered a 6 month contract, and as I was starting to get my affairs in order I was stumped on what to do with my cell phone. Do many people keep their phones, or do they just bring phone cards? I have no idea what kind of service you can get on a ship, much less on the open ocean, and I don't want to keep paying phone bills if its going to be a paperweight for the whole time. Just curious to see what is common with cruise ship travellers, thanks for all your help.
Dave
Hi Jason -
Where is your cruise headed? Will you be in the US much? (I guess I'm assuming you're American.) If you are in the U.S. weekly it might be worth it to bump down to the lowest plan for minutes and keep the phone active, otherwise there are ways of suspending your account for 3-6 months at a time (at least with Verizon).
Jason
I was looking over my intenerary, it's actually a pretty interesting tour: I spend the first couple months in the Mediterranean, then spend the rest of my contract going between the Panama canal and the Caribbean islands (not a bad tour for a first contract trombone player!). During the last part of my contract we port in Miami every 2 weeks, other than that I'm out of the US. I was considering dropping my cell phone, but my family's giving me grief, saying they won't be able to get ahold of me. Is this a common problem among crew ship members? Thanks for your quick response.
p.s. congrats on getting published in International Musician!
Dave
Wow man, thanks. Did you read that? That's pretty cool.
If I were you I'd suspend your cell phone until you either get to the Miami run or get off the contract. Most cruise ship musicians use international calling cards and call from the pay phones in port. It's an expense, but of course everybody likes to keep in touch with home.
You might find that crew overseas have come up with something new now (international cell phones? Something?), but when I was over there it was just hard to keep in touch. Bring a computer will help a lot if you can.
fiddlerpig
Hi Dave and Jason,
For the last year or so, I've been using grandcentral.com. It is a service that Google bought up, and is gradually switching over to voice.google.com. They give you an actual phone number (you pick the area code) and you can route it to call all of your various phones when your contacts call the Google number. In addition to the number routing, you can check your voicemail messages by logging into the website or by dialing your number and entering your password. The service is all free, but I think it's still in beta.
Anyhow, to tie this all in… While I was on my last contract, I had my friends and family use the grand central number, so I could check voicemails wherever I was. Works on your phone in US ports or over the internet wherever you are.
Hope this helps,
-Paul
Dave
Wow. That is brilliant. I might check that out just for everyday life, but that’s be great for ships. Do you think it’ll stay free?
fiddlerpig
Yeah, it is great. I was using it before I got the cruise gig, but it happened to work well for that situation.
As far as I know, everything that google offers is free and they plan to keep it that way.
