Texting??

luvthebeach

Earning My Ears
Joined
Nov 18, 2010
Does anyone know if free texting/I message is still offered on the Fantasy? I’m talking about from your phone and not the App. I know it was a trial basis earlier but I thought it is now offered on all the ships?🤷‍♀️
 
It is offered on all the ships according to recent reports here and elsewhere. However, most report the availability was not consistant. Note that it is specifically Apple iMessage that is offered, not regular texting, and it does not support multimedia messages. They are in trials with other applications, like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.
 
We were on the Dream last week and the iMessaging was not working...May have been isolated to our phones, but it worked really well in August on the Fantasy.
 
We used iMessage on the Fantasy in November nd on the Magic earlier this month. No problems either time.
 


Just a quick question on the free Imessage texting. We were on the Dream in December and my daughters Imessage worked and we didn't have any connect at sea package on the ship.... but when I got my bill from Verizon it cost me $138.46 for international messages.... Is this happening for anyone else?
 
Just a quick question on the free Imessage texting. We were on the Dream in December and my daughters Imessage worked and we didn't have any connect at sea package on the ship.... but when I got my bill from Verizon it cost me $138.46 for international messages.... Is this happening for anyone else?
Was the phone not in airplane mode?
 


Just a quick question on the free Imessage texting. We were on the Dream in December and my daughters Imessage worked and we didn't have any connect at sea package on the ship.... but when I got my bill from Verizon it cost me $138.46 for international messages.... Is this happening for anyone else?

We iMessaged all week in October. Our phones were on airplane mode. No additional charges from AT&T. The iMessage system did go down ship wide on our last day though. We loved being able to keep up with our boys back home without having to purchase the WiFi package on the fantasy.
 
I really don't know for a fact but I'm guessing it was not 😡
Unfortunately that was the problem. To get the free iMessage you need to put the phone on airplane mode and then go to wifi and select the ships wifi.

I'm sorry that this happened to you. For those that are uncomfortable that they may not set it up correctly you can go to the ships wifi guru and have him review your settings. Its the desk where they will try to sell you wifi but the tech will also just help anyone.
 
I really don't know for a fact but I'm guessing it was not 😡

You need to make sure that Airplane Mode is turned on before the ship casts off. Otherwise, your phone will be constantly looking for a cellular connection, and when it catches a signal - any signal, including an international/roaming one - it’ll start trying to transmit data to check for emails, texts, etc.
 
You need to make sure that Airplane Mode is turned on before the ship casts off. Otherwise, your phone will be constantly looking for a cellular connection, and when it catches a signal - any signal, including an international/roaming one - it’ll start trying to transmit data to check for emails, texts, etc.
I would take the extra step to turn off cellular data just to be safe as well.
 
I would take the extra step to turn off cellular data just to be safe as well.

Agreed. I guess Airplane Mode is your first line of defense for issues like this. If you don’t know (or forget) to turn it on, odds are you don’t know (or will forget) to drill down through Settings and find the “cellular data” toggle either.
 
I would take the extra step to turn off cellular data just to be safe as well.

This is what we do.

First turn off things like background app updating, auto saving to icloud, and the like.

Then turn off cellular roaming.

Then turn off cellular data.

Then put the phone in airplane mode.

That way if the phone accidentally gets out of airplane mode, cellular data and roaming are NOT already on.

SW
 
We used it in September on the Fantasy, November on the Dream and January on the Fantasy with no problem during any of the trips. We texted to each other on the ship and back to home to check with family and fur babies. .
 
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They really need to add Whatsapp. Delta has it free on their flights, along with iMessage. Otherwise, they are blocking out 87% of the marketplace from using texting and Disney's own app is pretty bad at delivering messages timely. I can't figure out why 13% market share takes precedence, unless it is somehow technically much easier to offer free iMessage than Whatsapp. But if Delta can do it, Disney should be able to figure it out.
 
Any more news from recent guests?
I saw someone within the last week comment that it worked on her sailing very recently. She was updating a thread she had started. Sorry i dont recall details beyond that.
They really need to add Whatsapp. Delta has it free on their flights, along with iMessage. Otherwise, they are blocking out 87% of the marketplace from using texting and Disney's own app is pretty bad at delivering messages timely. I can't figure out why 13% market share takes precedence, unless it is somehow technically much easier to offer free iMessage than Whatsapp. But if Delta can do it, Disney should be able to figure it out.

I dont know where you are getting your figures but everything Ive seen has Apple at much higher than 13% of the market, some figures near 50% of the market.
 
I dont know where you are getting your figures but everything Ive seen has Apple at much higher than 13% of the market, some figures near 50% of the market.

"Smartphones running the Android operating system hold an 87 percent share of the global market in 2019 and this is expected to increase over the forthcoming years. The mobile operating system developed by Apple (iOS) has a 13 percent share of the market."

https://www.statista.com/statistics/272307/market-share-forecast-for-smartphone-operating-systems/
Even in the U.S., Apple only has 39%.
 

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