Most cruise ships I’ve been on the last 5 years have had “cellular at sea”. If you wanted to, you could use your phone as normal when at sea, and just pay international roaming charges. They always turn it off in port, so you’re stuck on other country’s service.
That was probably knocked out in this ship fire, not a priority to power from emergency engines like toilets and lights.
Didn’t know that. :-) I can’t even imagine what international roaming charges would be; the ones in the states are bad enough.