Well, I hope you’re cruising solo … because if you’re packing all those electronic devices, your spouse may send you cruisin' for a bruisin'.

The short answer to your question is yes, but costs vary between cruise lines, and service levels vary both between and within cruise lines depending on the age of the particular ship. Suffice it to say, your cruise vacation will become much more costly if you truly need to be “wired”.

Most ships have an Internet café with laptops available for your use. If you don’t mind greasy keys, just leave your laptop at home. That will free up some room in your luggage for those must-have souvenirs you’ll be bringing home. Response time will be a little slow, but what do you expect … you’re on a cruise ship.

Most of the cruise lines I’ve sailed charge an initial Internet account set-up fee of around $4, and that’s about the best bargain you will find. Once you actually start sending emails and surfing the web, the clock is ticking and your wallet is shrinking.

Both Carnival (www.carnival.com) and Norwegian (www.ncl.com) charge a base rate of 75 cents per minute. Royal Caribbean (www.royalcaribbean.com) is considerably cheaper with a base rate of 55 cents per minute. In each case you can cut the cost a bit by purchasing a pre-paid plan.

Depending on the time plan you purchase, you can get a rate as low as 40 cents per minute with both Carnival and NCL. Again, Royal Caribbean has the lowest rate at 37 cents per minute for a 150-minute plan.

I know what you’re thinking … a 150-minute plan on a 7-day cruise. How many of those babies will you be stacking up? Hope you’re fast at typing.

There are a few tricks to reducing your time online. For example, log on and download all of your email, then log off. If you use Outlook or a similar mail program, you can read your mail at your leisure, write your replies, and the program will send them when you log back in. For other email programs, you can craft your responses with whatever word processor you use, and then be ready to paste your replies in quickly once you log back in.

Logging in will eat up some of your time. Try to be happy checking email only once per day. Aunt Bertha will likely still be breathing when you get back, and nobody really needs you that badly. You’re on vacation you know!

Now for your cell phone … your monthly minute allowance is the least of your worries. The NCL ship I sailed on recently boasts cellular service throughout the ship. They charge $4.95 per minute. With that astronomical fee, I’d want you to be able to call from anywhere on the ship too.

You will be paying that hefty fee to the cruise line as well as using up minutes from your cellular provider. Try making your calls while in port, but be sure your account will accommodate international calling before you head out. Just remember, even checking voice mail will likely incur roaming fees.

Some cruise lines also have phones within your cabin, which allow ship to shore calling. But even E.T. wouldn’t want to phone home at a rate of nearly 7 bucks a minute. Take a deep breath and be ready to spew that message at warp speed.

My advice is to remember that this is a cruise VACATION. Let the one-armed bandit take all your cash and leave the electronics at home.  Bon voyage!