The information packet you receive should list the ship’s satellite communications telephone number. You’ll want to leave this number with someone at home so they can get in touch with you in case of an emergency. You’ll need to leave them the Cruise Line’s name, the ship’s name and itinerary. You should probably reinforce the emergency part since the calls are expensive and the ship’s personnel will have to track you down. If you want to keep in close contact with home, you should schedule calls home. If the calls to home can be made while in port on a calling card, you’ll probably get a better connection at considerable savings.

Most cruise ships have newspapers waiting for them once they reach port. They also have radiophones and satellite communications available. Satellite communications are clearer, but are more expensive to use. You should also check into getting an email account with an Internet Service Provider that you can access anywhere in the world. You’ll want an email account that you can pull up from an Internet account by using its domain address on the World Wide Web. That way you can avoid the problem of having to call a particular phone number to connect you to your email account. You could then forward your more restrictive email accounts to a full access email account. Cyber cafes are starting to pop up all over the world and finding one of these can get you access to your email.

This site contains a searchable database with contact information and web links for over 4000 cybercafes, public Internet access points and kiosks in 135 countries. They also offer some premium information services for a fee.