5 Phone Settings To Change On a Cruise Ship
Going on the Atlantis Harmony 2023 cruise? Check out my complete guide to Harmony 2023 for all the advice you need!
1) Manually Set Your Phone’s Time
Smartphones rely on the cellular network to keep its date and time accurate, but while you’re out at sea, you phone won’t have the bars needed for this to work, so its clock won’t update itself automatically or sync to the ship’s time.
This might not be a problem if ship’s time doesn’t change throughout the cruise (i.e. it stays the same as the time from wherever it set sail), but cruise ships often sail through different time zones. Many cruisers, even seasoned ones, frequently get caught out by this, as we’re all so used to glancing at our phones and smartwatches for the time, but we never give any thought that the phone might fail to have the correct time.
Tip: Before you go to bed each night, check what the ship time is for the next day, and manually set it on your smartphone. As a reminder to myself, I put something, like my daily multivitamins, on the phone charger that’s on my nightstand, so that I always remember to check and set the time on my clock (as well as take my vitamins!)
To set the clock on your phone, you’ll need to know what the ship time is. The ship time is always shown in these places:
TV in your stateroom (the main menu will usually show the ship’s time)
Desk phone by your bed or on the desk (if it has a display with a clock)
The cruise line’s mobile app (as long as your phone is connected to the ship’s Wi-Fi network - more below)
If there are any upcoming changes to the ship time, as often happens when the ship sails between different regions and time zones, an announcement is usually made in the daily newsletter and by the cruise director as certain times, such as at the start of the headliner shows at the theater.
How to set the time manually:
2) Turn on Airplane Mode
Like I mentioned above, there are no bars while out at sea, so turn on airplane mode to stop it searching for bars. This will prevent any nasty roaming charges, help your phone reduce its battery usage by turning off the radios needed to connect to a cellular network, and let certain apps on your phone know that a cellular network is not available, so that they don’t suck up even more energy trying to access one.
3) Connect to the ship’s Wi-Fi
Many ships and cruise lines are increasingly moving more cruise essentials online and making them electronic, especially due to Covid-19. For example, Royal Caribbean has moved the mandatory safety briefing to their mobile app, and their daily Cruise Compass newsletters are now in electronic form by default and accessed by a QR code, instead of the printed copies that used to be automatically distributed to every stateroom.
To get the most our of your cruise, make sure you download the cruise line’s mobile app, then keep your phone connected to the ship’s Wi-Fi network while onboard. You don’t need to purchase any Internet packages to do this, and it allows you access to the various onboard features of the cruise line’s mobile app, as well as anything else onboard that has gone electronic.
4) Enable Low Data Mode
(if you have Internet access onboard)
While some cruise lines are upgrading to faster Internet connections, cruise ships must all rely on some form of satellite Internet connection, and those are just nowhere near as fast as what you can get on land. When you have thousands of people on a ship sharing that connection, every bit of data conservation really helps!
An easy and painless way to reduce your device’s data usage is to enable Low Data Mode for the ship’s Wi-Fi network. This lets the phone and some apps reduce their data usage, such as by reducing how much automatic or background downloads happen. This won’t have an effect on time-sensitive notifications - you will still get notified of new messages, for example.
iOS: Low Data Mode
Connect to the ship’s Wi-Fi network.
Go to Settings and tap Wi-Fi.
Tap the Info icon (blue “i” in a circle) next to the Wi-Fi network that you're connected to.
Turn on Low Data Mode.
Android: Metered Wi-Fi
Connect to the ship’s Wi-Fi network.
Go to Settings > Network & internet > Internet.
Tap the Wi-Fi network you're connected to.
Tap Network usage > Treat as metered.
5) Check Auto-Download Settings in Apps
(if you have Internet access onboard)
While many apps will recognize that Low Data Mode is enabled for a Wi-Fi network and change their behavior to reduce data usage, some apps do not. Telegram on iOS (at least as of January 2023) is such an example, and it’s a popular chat app for Atlantis cruisers. In contrast, WhatApp automatically disables automatic media downloads when you turn on Low Data Mode.
A prime example is a large Telegram group chat in which photos and videos are frequently sent. By default, Telegram will try to to download all the pics and vids sent to the group chat, which can use up a lot of data.
You may want to check any apps you use often that serves or download media, like chat, music, video, podcast, or social media apps. Below I have instructions on how to check Telegram’s auto-download settings:
Telegram
Go to Settings > Data and Storage
Disable Background Download to stop the app downloading media in the background (i.e. when you’re not actively using the app).
Tap Using Wi-Fi in the “Automatic Media Download” section.
I recommend turning off “Auto-Download Media” completely, or setting the “Data Usage” slider to Low so that only photos (and not videos and other files) auto-download. You can also set custom auto-download settings here. For anything that isn’t auto-downloaded, you just have to tap on it in the chat for it to download.