I'm currently on a cruise ship and in airplane mode, but I've been using Wi-Fi calling and text messaging without any issues before. I recently received a notification that Samsung Messages is being discontinued, so I decided to give Google Messages a try on my Samsung Galaxy S25. My girlfriend has an iPhone 17. At first, I couldn't send any texts or pictures to her. I managed to get the text messages working by turning off RCS, but I'm not sure if that was what fixed it. She still has RCS turned on. However, both of us can't send pictures to each other. Samsung Messages always worked perfectly while on the cruise, so I'm wondering why Google Messages is acting up. Is there a specific setting I need to change?
1 Answer
It sounds like it could be a network issue while you're on the cruise. Google Messages might need a proper connection to a cell tower to fully set everything up, especially since you had RCS messaging turned on. Sometimes cruise ships limit services to reduce network load, meaning anything besides basic SMS might get blocked. I'd recommend checking with the cruise's customer service. You might need to buy an upgraded data plan for things to work correctly. In the meantime, you could try using messaging apps like WhatsApp or Signal that work over data networks, as long as they aren't blocked by the cruise.
You might be right about the network issues. I should've switched to Google Messages when I was on land. Now that I switched back to Samsung, I can’t send pictures either. And yes, I already have the premium plan with Celebrity.