AT&T Revamps Cruise Ship Connectivity Options

Today, AT&T rolled out changes to the connectivity options for customers on cruise ships and retired the previously available options.

AT&T incorporated cruise ship connectivity access into its existing International Day Pass, but with different pricing and terms for at-sea usage. Cruise terms apply when at sea or when at sea and on land during the same day (24 hour period):

• $20/day for 0.5 GB of high-speed data, followed by unlimited data at a maximum of 512 kbps. The fine print says the unlimited throttled data is only available on certain ships.
• AT&T states this option is only available on the latest postpaid smartphone plans: AT&T Unlimited Premium PL, Unlimited Extra EL, or Unlimited Elite.
• AT&T lists supported cruise ships on its International Day Pass page.

Customers who are fully on land for an entire 24-hour period will instead get the normal International Day Pass that is $12/day, assuming they are in a supported country. The $12/day land pass allows customers to use their plan's talk, text, and data with largely the same terms as usage in the US. 

AT&T states that "at sea" is considered to generally be six or more nautical miles from land while on a supported cruise ship. While at sea, the ship's maritime network will be turned on, but it won’t be available when the ship gets closer to land or is docked in port. At that point, your device will connect to the local wireless network. However, the terms of a day pass bought at sea remain in effect for the full 24 hours that the pass is active, even after going on land.

Therefore, if you are on a cruise ship, you may want to disable the day pass so that it expires before the ship gets into port. This way, you can take advantage of the cheaper and much more generous land-only day pass terms and pricing.

With this change, the Cruise Basic, Cruise Plus, and Cruise Day Pass options have all been retired as of April 16th, 2025.