LATIMES.COM, August 27th, 2006 - FOR better or worse, your boss now can reach you on your cellphone or BlackBerry, even when you are vacationing on a cruise ship in the middle of the Caribbean Sea.

There's no need for a special satellite phone or calling plan because most ships are being equipped to accommodate late-model wireless devices. When you call the boss or check in with the kids at home, the call on your cellphone will cost you less — sometimes much less — than dialing from the satellite phone in your cabin.

About a dozen lines now have wireless service on some ships.

Notable holdouts: Cunard, Princess Cruises and Seabourn. Cunard and Princess are considering it. Seabourn has not had "a hue and cry from our guests requesting this service," says Bruce Good, director of public relations.

But other cruise lines are promoting cellular service as an amenity that many of today's travelers expect. A July survey of 1,071 adults age 18 and older by International Communications Research for Cingular Wireless showed that a quarter of the respondents used their cellphone when traveling outside the United States. They averaged 10 calls per trip, most of them personal.

But not everyone welcomes the idea of hearing those ring tones and the one-way conversations of cellphone users.

"I don't think [cellphones] belong on cruise ships," says Cheryl Tokarski of Philadelphia, a member of Cruise Critic, an online network of cruise enthusiasts. "I fear we'll be in the dining room, and everyone's on cells talking, but they have nothing to say: 'Yep, we're on a cruise. We're eating dinner,' " she says. "Once I go on vacation, I'm on vacation."

Anne Goyer, a Cruise Critic follower in Sarasota, Fla., says she's drawn to sea travel "to totally escape the hectic pace and constant contact of the real world." She resists using computers aboard ship. "The advent of cellphones on cruise ships, in my opinion, will significantly impact cruising as we know it and certainly not for the better," she said.

Cruise lines walk a fine line between passengers who want to disconnect from the real world and those who won't go on a vacation unless they can stay connected to it.

"Travelers should have the option of choosing just how connected they'd like to be with the outside world while on vacation," Terry L. Dale, president of the Cruise Lines International Assn., said in a statement. CLIA is a marketing organization for 19 North American lines.

"There's clearly an unmet demand," says Leighton Carroll, vice president of Cingular Wireless, which has teamed up with Maritime Telecommunications Network to form Wireless Maritime Services. WMS is equipping the ships of several cruise lines with cellular service technology.

Carroll says he often fields questions from people who want to be sure they can use their wireless devices on a specific ship before they book it.

WMS and SeaMobile are two major providers of the wireless technology on cruise ships. The service works with most late-model wireless devices.

Guests can make and receive calls — and send pictures or text messages — as they do on land. But the service works only when a ship is offshore, Carroll says, because the provider companies don't want to interfere with local laws or compete with local shore service. The required distance from a port varies from about a mile in some places in Europe to 20 miles from many ports, Carroll says.

Passengers are billed by their home cellular service carrier at international roaming rates and don't have to pay extra to use the phone on board. (Cruise lines share in the revenue with the cellular-service providers.)

Costs are $1.99 to $4.99 a minute, according to an association survey. Carroll says Cingular charges $2.49 a minute from anywhere at sea to a U.S. city. Data transmission, such as text messaging, usually is 50 cents a minute. Using a stateroom phone for a ship-to-shore satellite call runs $5 to $25 per minute, CLIA reports.

Most major cellular service carriers — Cingular, T-Mobile U.S., Sprint Wireless and Nextel — are linked with at-sea service companies, such as WMS and SeaMobile. WMS has agreements with 340 providers, but Verizon is not among them yet. But on ships using SeaMobile, Verizon customers can use their phones.

Although some cruise lines, such as Royal Caribbean and Carnival, have no rules about where passengers may use cellphones, other lines have set some guidelines or are considering them.

At Regent Seven Seas Cruises, "We do request that guests set their ringers to vibrate, avoid loud conversations and do not use their cellphones in any of the ships' restaurants, bars or lounges," says spokesman Andrew Poulton.

Silversea Cruises asks guests not to use their cellphones in public areas, such as the restaurant, spa, shops, library, Internet center, show lounge, bar, casino and outdoor grill, says Brad Ball, director of corporate communications. "We understand that there is a need for some guests to be fully connected at all times, but they must respect the rights of fellow passengers," he says.

Norwegian Cruise Line asks people to avoid using cellphones in theaters and restaurants, and Holland America Line restricts use in all entertainment venues.