I am travelling soon to the Mediterranean to do a cruise with my wife. I want to get an eSIM card for use in the multiple countries that I will visit rather than paying outrageous internet fees on the cruise ship. I was wondering if anyone has recommendations based on experience for which companies to deal with.
Thanks.
I used Revolut’s eSIMs when I was in the UK, after my phone died and I couldn’t enable my own number eSIM. It worked pretty well and I have no complaints. AFAIK they have an “Europe” option, this would serve you well if you are traveling through multiple countries, although there may be better options. And of course you would need a Revolut account, which is already a plus for traveling abroad in my opinion.
I think any European SIM should work. AFAIK they’re all required to roam within Europe without any additional fees (UK and Switzerland possibly excluded).
Friends told me good things about Revolut, though I haven’t tried it myself. If you already have Revolut, you should check their pricing.
Other options may be tricky to purchase in advance, because you have to verify your identity, usually you do that in person. I would go with Revolut rather than waste time on it.
I guess you already know this, but you will only have coverage when you are near the shore, not while at sea.
Anecdotal but my portuguese SIM’s roaming works fine in the UK
but not at no extra costs 
No, it works with no extra costs 
In the EU I keep the unlimited data plan and outside in a few select countries like the UK I get around 10-15GB per month
I will check out Revolut. Has anyone experience of Holafly
There is a “fair use” limit, your provider has the details. Eg your unlimited data plan may be limited to a cap when you are roaming, or if you have a limited plan you can use 20–30% roaming.
I never been on a cruise ship (I think it’s the worst possible way to travel, everywhere they stop and disgorge passengers the locals hate you), but on a daily basis I use so little data that a prepaid 5Gb plan lasts me months. I just check email or browse the web, not watch videos. So I would feel that 30Gb/30 days or similar plans are plenty.
My German contract has no roaming limit within Europe. T-Mobile, if that helps.
They do, you are just unlikely to run into them unless you travel a lot, and they have to decide to enforce it, which they rarely would if you are otherwise a valuable custőmer to them. See page 26 of your frame contract (if you are a corporate cűstomer, they have a similar one).
This is standard EU regulation, about the 4 month window, the fair use limits, etc. The purpose is to prevent people from getting a SIM card in Country X and then using it in the rest of the EU predominantly.
Short-term no-contract eSIM plans are different.
Single-country no-roaming eSIMs are much cheaper than all-Europe eSIMs
I’ve been very happy with Airalo myself as far as getting eSIMs for travel. This year is the first I’ll be paying for the full-Europe-roaming version as my upcoming trip is to both Belgium and the Netherlands.
BNEsim gives you a lot of options by country, region and duration (eg 7days). I use it for my kids cellphones when we do family trips.
In our travel to USA, we were using Holafly. It worked well as far as I recall and it has good pricing.
I use TravelSim. It works okay. I’ve used it a few times in Brazil but it works worldwide.
you might want to try here for info on phone service.
I have used Saily (from the same folks as NordVPN) a number of times in Europe and the service has always been very good. Not sure how they compare in terms of pricing.