Home phone forwarded to cell phone; however, cannot access voice mail while out of country

[CynthiaMRyan]

So I was recently on a cruise and I had my home phone forwarded to my cell phone, as I was expecting important calls concerning medical appointments.  While on the cruise, I would get a red dot indicating I had a voice mail; however, I could not access the messages.  I had a wifi package with the ship so I had access to the internet.  Phone would call voice mail, then just cut off.  Could not retrieve my 10 messages until I returned home.  Is this normal?

**Added Labels**

[RogersCorey]

Greetings @CynthiaMRyan!

It sounds to me like you may have had your voicemail forwarded via MMS. Please let me know if you had it forwarded by another means.

Please note that data and MMS roaming services are not available on cruise ships, airplanes and with satellite networks.

We’ve made this change to provide the best customer experience possible for those who travel around the world.

The cost for data and MMS charged by international carriers can be much higher aboard cruise ships, which can come as a shock to customers upon their return home.

Regards,

RogersCorey

[CynthiaMRyan]

When you ask if my voice mail was forwarded via MMS, I have no clue what you mean.  I just used the codes I got from Rogers to forward phone calls from my home phone to my cell number.  I had purchased a wifi package from the cruise ship, I could get email and text messages no problem, just not my voice mails.

[RogersCorey · Accepted solution]

Ah, I see. Thank you for clarifying @CynthiaMRyan.

If you subscribe to voicemail and you forward all calls to an alternate number through Home & Away, your Rogers Home Phone voicemail won’t receive messages. 

I am sorry. Your options to receive voicemails from your home phone while on a cruise is limited.

Please keep in mind that you can access your Home Phone voicemail from anywhere with an Internet connection by going to https://www.rogers.com/onlinevoicemail without forwarding your calls. You could also forward your voicemails to email which would send an audio file of the voicemail which you could then access via WiFi.

Regards,

RogersCorey

[57]

As indicated by @RogersCorey above, had you left your home phone alone, you would have been able to get your voicemails on the home phone, either via online voicemail - see link below, or via an audio file forwarded to your e-mail if you set that up in your home phone settings.  I use this all the time when travelling and is one of the few benefits left of having a home phone.

https://onlinevoicemail.rogers.com/

However, if you forward your calls to your cell phone, then the cell phone is what is collecting the voicemails and you were able to retrieve those once you got home via your cell phone.   I'm not sure what cell phone plan you have, but if you had called your cell phone voicemail number, you would have been able to retrieve those messages, but only by incurring large long distance or roam like home charges and only if you had access to a cell phone tower, which I assume is not available on a cruise.  Depending on the cruise itinerary, it may have stopovers in areas where there is cell phone service and you would have been able to pick up your voicemails there, but again at significant cost.

[CynthiaMRyan]

Thank you so much for all your advice and help.  I will definitely do it different next time I travel.  Merry Christmas.

[Barbara11]

Hello All,

Pick up your Voicemail Messages from your Landline Telephone Using your Cell Phone (I don't know if this will work long-distance, but you can try):  1. From your cell phone, call your landline telephone. 2. When your landline voicemail greeting starts, dial *98, then enter your landline passcode. 3. This should take you to your landline voicemail messages. Hope this works!

[CynthiaMRyan]

Thanks for your suggestion.