Hi all! im not a frequent traveler by any means, and have never done extended trips out of the country, however this summer ill be doing a study abroad program through semester at sea, which has me flying to Nova Scotia, then sailing to spain, Italy, Croatia, Greece, turkey, Egypt, morocco, then back to Norfolk over 66 days. according to their info packets, students on board are able to use the ships internet for limited email (text ONLY) and have limited internet surfing abilities (like 10 megs, and stuff liek youtube/facebook/twitter/skype are blocked) you can buy access to upto 500 megs for about $300.

Phone usage is available for $3.95 a min through them as well.

That all being said...im a major computer geek, so i love my internet and will want to send my family constant updates about what im doing, so id like to find a way to stay connected (web +phone) thats not gonna cost thousands of bucks. i have an iPhone through ATT who i know offer international talk plans for something liek $200 a month which is fine, but im not sure how their international data works....

Anyone got any ideas? Thanks!

Internet cafe's at the port stops will probably be the easiest way to go, they usually are very inexpensive.

If you have your own laptop you can compose everything off line and just transmit it to save some time too.

See if you find some good tips from these threads in our Cruises Forum:

Wireless Internet Usage on Board

Queen Mary 2 Internet Access

Put it all on a memory stick and go to an Internet cafe in each port. Cost should be about 1 Euro / 1 Pound an hour. Do NOT pay Semester at Sea's exhorbitant rates for connectivity.

Since you have an ATT iPhone, see if you are eligible for a foundation account (using through your school, parents, relative, etc). There is an iPhone International plan (one year commitment) that gives you unlimited 3g in most countries. This is only available on certain FAN accounts and folks on the retail side of ATT don't know about it. Check out this thread:

http://forums.wireless.att.com/cng/b...hread.id=87133

Many iPhone VOIP apps will now work over 3g. When you get a solid 3g signal in your port of call, find a place to sit, and call home. VOIP over 3g works best when you are stationary.

Now, get a cheap quadband GSM phone and get an Ekit Prepaid Passport SIM:

http://www.telestial.com/view_produc...T_ID=MSIM-PP02

It gives you cheap prepaid in many ports of call. You can beat the $0.19 a minute inbound rate to their US number if you find a cheap calling card for UK mobile numbers. Inbound calls to the UK number are free in many of your ports of call.

Lastly, get a Google Voice number and hard (unconditionally) forward your cell to it. You'll get visual voicemail over the net, free SMS to/from the US. You'll also get a so-so transcription of the voicemail message.

It will take some fighting, but you should be able to get it. If this doesn't work, early terminate and go to Verizon. They have a Blackberry International plan for about the same that includes cruise ship roaming.

Keep your usage low, but look at tether.com. I might also consider a web compression scheme such as http://www.propel.com/technology/index.html.

I'll second all of Dubai Stu's suggestions.

One thing to add: assuming you can get a reasonably-priced data package (the one-year one is $64.99/mo for unlimited data, versus the other option of $200/mo for 200MB [and yes, I chewed through a touch more than 200MB/mo when in Asia and Australia in 2008 because, like you, I am a major computer geek and love my Internet ), now that many VoIP apps work over 3G and not just wifi, check into perhaps signing up for a full, paid account with incoming call capabilities. With push notification, some of the apps actually make for acceptable (though far from perfect!) telephone replacement solutions.

I did a review in October of the four major VoIP apps (this was before any of them enabled calling over 3G):

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...t12619797.html

Some things may have changed since then, but perhaps that will help you look into this option.

Edit: according to http://forums.wireless.att.com/cng/b...hread.id=87133 and other reports here, note that one restriction of the $64.99/mo unlimited data plan is that the phone must register activity in the U.S. at least once a month (it is not intended for people living/traveling full-time overseas). Therefore, that option may not be right for you (if you could even get access to it), so you might need to go for something else instead.

The month abroad restriction is not strictly enforced, but I would definitely rig it so I had a month or two before I left. I'm forever stuck with Blackberry because I have the old international roaming plan and don't have that restriction.

I looked online at the semester at sea program at issue. The poster has more than 20 days at sea. This includes 10 days crossing the Atlantic each way.

It may be time to sign up for Internet-holics Anonymous, e.g.: "My name is Stuart. It has been thirty seconds since I've last been on the net."

Also see if you can buy the GSM cards they sell the crew. It is no bargain, but it is cheaper than the GSM roaming rate. With ATT's discounted international discounted roaming rate, the per minute for a phone call is $2.49:

http://www.wireless.att.com/travelgu...=1580&MNC=CING

Why not consider an Iridium phone?

What's an Iridium phone? And what does it cost?

WIYF (Wikipedia Is Your Friend):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_Satellite_LLC

Iridium is a company that runs communications satellites and provides satellite phone service. Since they run a constellation of LEO satellites in a non-equatorial plane, they provide seamless worldwide coverage.

The downside? Cost. Phones are expensive, calls from the handsets are expensive, and calls to the handsets are expensive--often more expensive than even non-disounted international roaming to most countries.

It's designed for people who want or need to be reachable anywhere on earth--executives flying to remote hunting/fishing lodges in Alaska where there is no cell service, people hiking remote mountains, people sailing across the ocean, etc. And it's mostly for voice: while they do provide transparent TCP/IP data connectivity, it's at speeds slower than dialup modems (and with nearly two full seconds of latency).

For voice, it appears slightly cheaper ($1.39/minute) than what the cruise line wants to make calls from their ship, but data connectivity is worthless, and once you're on land, even international roaming is the better option (with the $5/mo voice roaming package, calls to/from most major countries are about a buck a minute).

Still, it is an option...