First… What’s a SIM Card?
SIM is an acronym stands for Subscriber Identity Module. It’s small card that fits in select phones that’s basically the digital identification for the phone. You can theoretically quickly change phones by swapping out your physical SIM card.
What’s an eSIM Card?
Fast forward to eSIM cards. eSIM stands for Embedded Subscriber Identity Module. Instead of a physical SIM card an eSIM is a logical identity for select phones. No need for a physical SIM card.
The part where the magic comes in… Some phones also allow you to have multiple eSIM cards. So you can actually have multiple phone numbers on a single phone.
If you’re an avid reader you’ll have read my Airalo review. Airalo is an an app that allows international cell phone use throughout the world via their app and eSIM cards.
GigSky is in international coverage eSIM provider with a twist… keep reading.
Coupon Code!
Use coupon code cruisepacklist to save when you buy a GigSky eSIM package!
What makes GigSky revolutionary for cruise travelers?…
Most larger cruise ships have cellular capabilities. Ships have the equivalent of their own cell phone towers that provide service to people onboard and nearby. This is separate and different from Wi-Fi. See Wil my phone work onboard? for more on this subject
Cruise ships are considered countries when it comes to coverage from your cell phone company. If you look under international coverage at your carrier you’ll often time see cruise ship names listed in the mix.
Here’s the thing… to my knowledge no carrier provides favorable rates or packaged data deals for ANY cruise ship. Beyond that no eSIM provider (again to my knowledge) provides coverage on a cruise ship.
GigSky…. DOES offer coverage on over 200 cruise ships! That’s along with coverage in many foreign countries.
This means you can access the internet on ships in their network as part of their reasonable eSIM data bundles! They also offer tethering so you can use purchased data on your laptop with the aid of a compatible smart phone.
A compatible phone is required.
If you’re a light to moderate internet user when cruising a GigSky eSIM could save you a substantial amount of money compared to onboard internet. I’ll be trying this out on our next cruise. Some questions I’m going to get answered are what is the coverage like onboard and what internet speeds can we expect.
Coupon Code!
Use coupon code cruisepacklist to save when you buy a GigSky eSIM package!
Hands on Review GigSky World Mobile Data!
The first step to getting going with GigSky is to install the app on your iPhone or Android and purchase a plan. If you’re planning to use GigSky on a cruise make sure to choose a Cruise+ plan that fits your needs.
GigSky Smartphone Apps
Tip: your plan becomes active as soon as you activate your eSIM in a covered country. Since my plan included the US GigSky nicely reminded me that my 15 days would start right away when I activated the card. Wait until just before your trip to activate your eSIM.
I tapped continue to activate my eSIM
Whammo!
After installing the eSIM this is how my Cellular settings looked. Verizon is my primary US carrier. I can toggle additional carriers on and off. The Curacao and Aruba eSIMs are from my Airalo Review.
Using GigSky onboard a Cruise Ship!
Once onboard I activated the GigSky eSIM card in Cellular Settings. It’s very important that you disable your primary US carrier when you do this. If you don’t you could incur extra charges. See: Using Your Cell Phone Onboard with WiFi Calling for more about that.
Coverage onboard Celebrity Ascent
At times it took a few minutes to get GigSky coverage onboard. I’m going to theorize how this all works so if that sounds boring, just keep reading. Modern cruise ships have many WiFi access points. I can confidently say hundreds, potentially thousands of access points. Those constantly serve a WiFi signal. My theory is that these access points also have cell phone capabilities. They each can act as a mini cell phone tower. But cell phone use is much less common. What I think happens is that these access points periodically start the cell phone signal to see if any clients are looking for a signal. If one is, the cell phone signal stays on as long as it’s needed. That way, they ship isn’t one massive cell phone tower consuming energy and whatever else a cell phone signal does. It’s only on in select areas as needed. Again, a theory.
Yes… you can tether your laptop with GigSky!
GigSky allows you to use personal hotspot to tether your laptop and other devices to your GigSky connection! I just enabled Personal Hotspot on my iPhone and connected my laptop.
Connecting on the laptop
And whammo, I can get to one of my favorite websites. Take a second to realize what’s happening here… I am accessing the Internet onboard a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean with zero cost for WiFi from the cruise ship. This is amazing!
Speed Testing GigSky on a cruise ship
First a look at Celebrity’s WiFi. Celebrity and Royal Caribbean both use SpaceX Starlink to power their WiFi networks. Everyone raves about SpaceX and it is revolutionary. But here’s a fact… When you buy a WiFi package you’re subject to a bandwidth cap. I had the premium WiFi and that pretty regularly came in under 5 megabits per second. Here it’s showing 4.77 megabits per second.
This is a test tethered to my iPhone using the GigSky connection. I got… 10.61 megabits per second well over double what I got with the Starlink connection! That’s amazing.
Using GigSky vs Cruise Line WiFi
If you’re a light to moderate Internet user onboard, GigSky is a great option and could potentially save you a lot of money. If you’re a heavy user that needs to do a lot of video conferencing or streaming cruise ship WiFi may be a better option.
As of this option GigSky offers plans up to 30 days in length so could easily use one plan on back to back cruises.
Speed Testing in the Dominican Republic
GigSky World Data provides… world data, so it works in many foreign countries as well. This is based on which plan you choose. I chose Cruise+ Americas/Caribbean.
As of this writing the following countries are included in that plan (subject to change, check GigSky for current plans)…
- Anguilla
- Antigua and Barbuda
- Argentina
- Aruba
- Bahamas
- Barbados
- Belize
- Bermuda
- Bolivia
- Bonaire, Sint Eustatius, and Saba
- Brazil
- British Virgin Islands
- Canada
- Cayman Islands
- Chile
- Colombia
- Costa Rica
- Curaçao
- Dominica
- Dominican Republic
- Ecuador
- El Salvador
- French Guiana
- Grenada
- Guadeloupe
- Guatemala
- Haiti
- Honduras
- Jamaica
- Martinique
- Mexico
- Montserrat
- Nicaragua
- Panama
- Paraguay
- Peru
- Puerto Rico
- Saint Barthélemy
- Saint Kitts and Nevis
- Saint Lucia
- Saint Martin
- Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
- Sint Maarten
- Trinidad and Tobago
- Turks and Caicos Islands
- U.S. Virgin Islands
- United States of America
- Uruguay
All that to say, I had GigSky coverage on all of our ports for this particular cruise.
Here’s a speed test in Puerto Plato Dominican Republic. 53.8 megabits download speed. That’s pretty good!
As a backup for your primary provider
As of this writing my current primary cell phone plan is Verizon’s MyPlan Unlimited Ultimate. That plan includes international talk, text and data is 210+ countries. The list includes St Martin.
This screenshot was taken while I was in St Martin a country that is included in my Verizon plan and a country that should have coverage. I had no data coverage at all with my Verizon plan. I was supposed to, but I didn’t. That’s just how things work sometimes.
If international coverage is important to you, my recommendation is to have a backup eSIM plan. In my case, I just switched over to GigSky and I was up and going. We are planning to go to Europe this summer where Internet will be a necessity for walking directions and such. I’ll have a backup eSIM plan at the ready.
Conclusions
I am no stranger to eSIM plans. I’ve used multiple providers over the course of years. They are very helpful when it comes to international travel, giving you the capability to communicate at generally reasonable prices. GigSky takes this all to a whole new level by adding cruise ships to the mix. Using GigSky vs actually using a cruise ship cell connection could save you thousands of dollars. Using GigSky vs purchasing a Wi-Fi package could save you a considerable amount of money as well. Simply put… GigSky is revolutionary.
Use coupon code cruisepacklist to save when you buy a GigSky eSIM package!
Smartphone Apps
FREE Trial
GigSky also offers a free 100 MB plan so you can try out their services! Note that the free trial plans does not include cruise ship coverage. However, it’s a great chance to see how GigSky works and especially helpful if you’ve never used an eSIM plan on your phone.
Related: Hands on Review Airalo eSIM
My iPhone with Royal Caribbean Adventure of the Seas Royal Promenade int eh Background. See “VZW Wi-Fi”
Related: Waterproof Phone Case
Related: Pelican’s IP68 Waterproof Phone Case – affiliate link, note that multiple variations of this product may be available, as such a different version may appear at this link
Setting Up Your Own Wireless WiFi Hotspot on Your Next Cruise!
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All information provided is deemed accurate at time of publishing, but is not guaranteed and should be independently verified. top:gigskyreview tag:tpr
