If you have taken a cruise before you know how hard it can be to communicate with your group. Using cell phone will cost you an arm and a leg and trying to use a good walkie talkie on a cruise ship can be hit or miss as well. Most cruisers just resort to setting meeting times with their friends and family so they can plan out their day and to keep in touch. But plans change and it’s not always practical to rely on random rendezvous points to keep in communication.
That’s why Disney has come up with an ingenious way to keep in touch with your group. Each cabin has 2 Philips G955 Wave phones with chargers. You can use these phones for free anywhere on the ship and even on Disney’s private island, Castaway Cay. That should save some minutes on your cell phone and some frustration with trying to get your walkie talkies to work.
If you need extra Wave phones it will cost you an extra $3.50 per day, which is really peanuts if you think about it. But you don’t want to lose the phone, and don’t even think about taking it home with you. A lost or stolen Wave phone will cost you a cool $250, so it’s a good idea to take care of your phones and treat them with care.
It’s pretty simple to make calls with the phones, and you simply dial the room numbers plus a 1 or 2 at the end to reach someone. But you can call more than just room numbers. You can also call any of the kids zones or service areas of the ship.
Some of the features of the phone are locked so you cannot use them. You can’t leave voicemails and you can’t change the ringtones or turn off the backlit display, which seems crazy since it just drains the battery more. This is why you MUST remember to charge these phones every night.
The clarity of calls is pretty good and most areas of the ship should get a decent signal, although there will always be a few spots where the signal is weak and you need to move around to hear the other person.
You can text with these phones too, but you will have to remember how we used to text in the “olden days” when you would have to use the numerical keypad to form words. It’s still a nice feature and comes in handy if you just have a quick message for someone.
Hopefully, you will begin to see these phones available on other cruise lines as well. Disney is known for coming up with innovative ideas to make their cruises fun and convenient, but this one just seems like a no-brainer. What do you think of the new Wave phones?
* Keep in mind that the phone’s charger is going to take up an outlet in the room, and they’re aren’t a lot of outlets to go around in those rooms.
Hi,
I know my daughter and grandson are having a wonderful time on the Disneycan Cruise, but it is still frustrating not being able to communicate with them. They left last Saturday from Port Canaveral and would have loved to have spoken to them. You would think in this day and age communication would be better on cruise ships. They are due back to tomorrow and I am sure everything is okay.
Madelyn Silverberg