So if I plan on using this Navigator app...

[2bluesandapink]

Be careful if anyone in your party is using iCloud with their iPhones. It cost me $3-400 before I figured out that my iPhone quietly was using all our data to upload each of my vacation photos to iCloud. I had even tried to disable it with help from the internet help desk onboard, but I didn't because I'd lose all pictures on the phone.

During our most recent cruise, we made sure everyone had iCloud disabled. My internet costs ended up less than half of what they had been in the past. They would have been even lower, except that Apple made a software update available the first day of our cruise and I wasted 500 Mb (=$45) in 13 minutes as my phone downloaded it late in the evening (argh!). It used to be easy to disable automatic updates, but I couldn't find the option after they changed the user interface.

In short, iCloud and cruising don't mix at all!!! Make sure no one in your party has it disabled ahead of time or tell them they won't have internet access. Speaking from experience, it is no fun being stuck in your stateroom, backing up all the photos from 3 iPhones to your laptop, while everyone else is attending the sailing away party .

Thank you for this, I just enabled the cloud on my iphone...I will make sure to disable it before we leave!

 

[Anchors Away 2016]

So to make sure I understand, if I don't sign up for the 50 B free wifi, I can safely put my iPhone in airplane mode, reenable wifi only, connect to the DCL_Guest wifi, use the Navigator app, and not need to worry about disabling iCloud and all that, correct?

That was my experience. Those in our party who only wanted to use the Disney navigator app, didn't have to do anything other than put their phone in Airplane mode and then enable WiFi and connect to DCL_GUEST. I've seen some reports here of phones getting overzealous and using data anyway, but it may have been user error. Do this: While you are still safely in port, and in US territory, and thus have free data on your regular plan, do the above steps, take a few pictures or try to access the web, and see what happens. If your phone goes onto the cellular network and starts using data, then you'll know you have an issue with your phone, if nothing happens you are all set. Either way it won't cost you anything because you are still in port and on the US network. For us, no texts, phone calls, web access or cloud backups happened as long as we were in Airplane mode and only connected to the DLC_GUEST but logged out of our data accounts (even the free 50 MB).

 

[starbird]

That was my experience. Those in our party who only wanted to use the Disney navigator app, didn't have to do anything other than put their phone in Airplane mode and then enable WiFi and connect to DCL_GUEST. I've seen some reports here of phones getting overzealous and using data anyway, but it may have been user error. Do this: While you are still safely in port, and in US territory, and thus have free data on your regular plan, do the above steps, take a few pictures or try to access the web, and see what happens. If your phone goes onto the cellular network and starts using data, then you'll know you have an issue with your phone, if nothing happens you are all set. Either way it won't cost you anything because you are still in port and on the US network. For us, no texts, phone calls, web access or cloud backups happened as long as we were in Airplane mode and only connected to the DLC_GUEST but logged out of our data accounts (even the free 50 MB).

Excellent! Thanks for this.

Another thing I will be doing is to keep my iPhone in Low Power Mode. When this is enabled, "Low Power Mode temporarily reduces power consumption until you can fully charge your iPhone. When this is on, mail fetch, Hey Siri, background app refresh, automatic downloads, and some visual effects are reduced or turned off." - So this will also help prevent any "oops" app downloads, etc.

 

[Cackyschmackers]

Another thing I will be doing is to keep my iPhone in Low Power Mode. When this is enabled, "Low Power Mode temporarily reduces power consumption until you can fully charge your iPhone. When this is on, mail fetch, Hey Siri, background app refresh, automatic downloads, and some visual effects are reduced or turned off." - So this will also help prevent any "oops" app downloads, etc.

Great tip!