Brittany Ferries - Disable your data roaming

[spanky3]

Apologies if you all already know this - just found out that although data roaming is usually free in France now, it's £6 a MB on Brittany Ferries. Reason being they have a private mobile phone network on board.

If you get on the boat with data roaming enabled expect a big bill...So big even Brittany Ferries advise you disable it.

[chrisbeck]

Good tip. Also beware on Stena Line, my phone logged on to their Inmarsat network when I was on the car deck leaving the ship in Holland, it cost me £60 from memory, could have been a lot more. I had a navigation app running and these will use data without asking first.

[fatboy18]

ouch!

[wsn03]

Unbelievable.
Thanks for the heads up

[Mountain Man]

On the flip side they do have wi-fi and it was pretty usable

[ukcobra]

Worth having a chat with your Cellular provider, as I had some Phantom Data bills from Argentina a few weeks, despite NOT getting a Welcome to Argentina SMS. I also had not left Chile.

As I understand it, the Service Provider has to notify you of the charges, so therefore if there was no message saying it's £6 per MB (as it is in India and Argentina on Three) they cannot effectively charge you.

I managed to obtain a refund for my 'extra' charges.

[xemmaxsx]

Thanks for this. Luckily I got away with it, but you did prompt me to check my phone bill. Where I found I had been charge £38 for dialling in to a fking work conference call. Unbelievable.

[majordad]

It applies to most Ferries and Ships.

[Trevor555]

Thanks for the heads up.

I've finally given in and got my first smartphone.

If I'd have got stung for £60 like this it'd get thrown into the sea.