Esim recommendation for sea days only on a cruise

[DeltaAlphaDelta79]

Hi all

Has anyone used an Esim for sea days only on a cruise. I can find two that seem to offer this, Gigsky and Redbull and wondered if anyone had any experience or other recommendations please?

I have EU roaming on my phone, so being ashore is covered, but want coverage for the sea days without relying on ships wifi, which can be hit or miss.

Thanks

Will you be close enough to land for an eSIM to work on sea days?
Why won’t your roaming work?

If you go near a country that isn't covered by roaming you get charged - eg in the med, your nearest country could be Africa, or Montenegro. When I went on a cruise (pre esims) the ship WiFi was fine.
Airolo do a worldwide esim which would presumably be ok?

You are probably best finding a forum for the actual ship you are sailing on for factual answers as you have already got two inaccurate replies to your post.

Gigsky worked fairly well for me, hit and miss for DP and barely at all for DD on a med cruise last year. I caved and bought dd the WiFi to stop the complaining. Be very careful switching sims and using your data etc as I'm sure you know already.

To use Redbull maritime eSIM you must be 12 miles offshore. I’ve used it recently on a transatlantic and it continued to work in the Mediterranean on sea days. Switch it off when not using, and turn off background refresh on all apps otherwise it will eat data. Fine for just keeping in touch.

I found there was so much to do that the lack of WiFi really didn't bother me on sea days. By the time I had got up, been and done some yoga in the gy,m had brunch/a big breakfast, done whatever activities were on, read my book, listened to some music, got ready for dinner, had drinks, been to the theatre and dinner it was bedtime and I hadn't missed the WiFi at all tbh.

Obviously you may have a particular reason you want it but if not, it might be worth considering if it might just be fine without?

That's not going to work. E-sim works by connecting you to the local provider, and if you're at sea, you might be out of range of a mast. That obviously depends where you are and what the route is for the ship. If you are too far to connect to a mast on land, then you will need something like Starlink or satellite wifi.

Gigsky has a cruise sim which connects to satellite.

Ah I see. You;d need to crunch the numbers - I was on a cruise around the UK and that particular cruise line were charging £12.50 per day for internet, the conenction was strong enough for email, whatsapp, general browsing, but not downloading or streaming.

Thanks all.

Gigsky and Redbull do specific Esims that work at sea, but do have a roaming option for land too.

I'll be heading to spain and portugal, so the land roaming should be fine, it was actual experience of the being at sea roaming I wondered if people had. I was aware of the 12m from shore boundary.

I have joined the facebook group for the specific cruise I am on, and no replies on there despite a couple of posts asking.

Its not my first cruise so I know there will be plenty to do, but we have 6 sea days and I need to keep in touch with family while away, so it'll be mainly whatsapp for messaging that I want it for.

I know to limit data for background apps, but thank you for the reminder.

The redbull Esim is 1gb for €15 for cruise only, and €18 for 1gb for cruise and land roaming, and I should need 2gb max. Gigsky is more than double the price, so will take a punt on redbull I think and see how it goes.

DPs phone data comes with EU roaming so I can use that, via hotspot, when on land, but for €3 extra I might just include that with the esim anyway.

Our cruise line want £20 per day for wifi, if you want pay as you go. I only want it for the 6 sea days, so £120 is far too much.

I’ve never used the at Sea eSIM but I am on a lot of cruise forums, whenever the question gets asked they seem to get a lot of mixed reviews. Like someone above mentioned, they seem to work perfectly for some and not well for others with no rhyme or reason. I think if it’s just to keep in touch via messaging then I’d risk it. If you need to work / make calls etc then I’d reluctantly pay for the ship WiFi (much cheaper before sailing with the cruise line we’ve used).

Red bull marine is pretty much the only one that will work at sea. Works for some, not didn’t work for me so I ended up buying WiFi at £240 😭

It's worth trying the cheapest E-sim and see how you get on, it worked fine for me so a bit pot luck IME.

I’m on a FB forum for a cruise I’m on, people
posting in the group are recommending Airolo.

For Spain and Portugal your usual home from home plan should be fine in port. Do you absolutely have to be in contact at sea on all of your sea days? In an emergency the ship can be contacted via Guest Services and they will get a message to you. Otherwise I would buy a single day’s Ship WiFi and arrange to speak to everyone then.

@Ohpleeeease airolo doesn't do at sea, only on land.

I do need to keep in touch, so as long as the signal is decent enough for whatsapp messaging, then I'll be happy. If anything else works, that will be a bonus.

@DeltaAlphaDelta79I’m on a cruise next year with a long periods of sea days so I’m interested in options too.

If you need to speak to your family on sea days can I respectfully put in a plea that you do it privately and not in the public areas? It’s really intrusive for other passengers when people hold family catch ups and conduct ship tours on speaker, they forget how far their excited voices travel!

I absolutely agree with you! I won't be doing ship tours etc and it is more of a needing to keep in touch, rather than show off. People who made loudspeaker calls in public will be imprisoned when I am prime minister!

It looks like redbull is the favourite option at the moment, and it uses the ships Telenor Maritime network, so I will be happy to leave my own review here when back.

That would be so helpful @DeltaAlphaDelta79, thank you!

No problem @Ohpleeeease

Ok, MN won’t post my link, so just to say that the Red Bull maritime doesn’t work on all cruise lines or all phones, but the app lets you check compatibility before purchase.

@FourForksSake ah ok. Ive checked online and my ship does appear to be compatible. But thank you, thats the one I'm looking at.

I got off a cruise yesterday, I tried Gigsky for the first time, it did not work and they refunded what I paid.

Thats useful to know, especially that they refunded you.