What does it actually cost to text home from a cruise ship in 2026?
Short answer: a lot, unless you keep WiFi off the whole trip.
Per-device daily prices right now: Royal Caribbean around $20/day booked ahead or $39/day bought aboard, Carnival $20.40-$25.50/day (four devices together runs about $105/day), Norwegian $29.99-$39.99/day, Princess $24.99/day, Disney $30-$49/day. A family of four texting home for a week-long sailing can land $80-160 a day just for data.
Crew pay for it too, out of their own pocket: Carnival crew WiFi runs about $120/month for daily social access, Royal Caribbean sells crew 1,800 minutes for $89.99 over 60 days.
We're building CruiseChattr because of that math: message your family the moment the ship leaves port, phone to phone, no package needed. It's not live yet, so this isn't a pitch to buy anything - just the numbers, since nobody seems to post them in one place.
If you've bought a ship WiFi package recently, what did you actually pay, and was it worth it for what you needed?
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