It’s easy to spend money on cruise ships, and many parents make mistakes when it comes to stopping their kids from running up large bills.
One common error is not placing a limit on your child’s purchasing ability. That’s easy to do and can often be done before your cruise or with a visit to guest services.
If you don’t limit what your child can spend, they may come back to the room with $25 worth of candy or run up a massive bill in the arcade. Arcades are a massive spending trap as you have to scan your room card, but the cost isn’t listed, and charges pile up fast.
Related: Royal Caribbean makes its new beverage policy very clear
Another key area where people run up massive bills is with their smartphones. If you don’t put your phone on “Airplane Mode,” it will download things in the background.
Even if you don’t make any calls or actively use your phone, charges will pile up. That means that a charged phone locked in the safe will still end up costing you money.
Kids, however, do not understand the difference between charges on land and charges at sea. That means that you have to be. very careful with their access to phones as one family learned.
Popular YouTube personality Jayson Judson had the full story in a recent post.
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Royal Caribbean passengers make a phone mistake
Transcript:
A passenger is upset with Royal Caribbean (RCL) as they got home from their cruise and received a $1,300 cell phone bill even though they purchased Royal Caribbean’s WiFi package.
They called the cruise line demanding they pay the bill, and Royal Caribbean refused as the passenger admitted they never put the phone in airplane mode and their child used their phone all week to watch videos.
Who do you think is to blame?
More cruise line phone mistakes to avoid
Dan’s note: On multiple occasions, I have had my phone on Airplane Mode and still come home to a large T-Mobile bill. Fortunately, in each case, the carrier worked with me to eliminate the charges.
In one case, I made a long phone call from Mexico, which I thought was included in my plan. In reality, I could call Mexico from the United States, but not vice versa.
Adding global calling was like a $10 charge, and T-Mobile dropped the original bill and retroactively charged me for the global add-on.
In a second incident, I turned off Airplane Mode in Key West, Fla. — a U.S. port, and forgot to turn it back on until I got a text from T-Mobile the next morning. That night, while I was sleeping, I incurred over $100 in charges.
T-Mobile dropped those too, after a phone call.
I have not experienced this, but have been told that AT&T (T) and Verizon (VZ) are not as forgiving.
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