Cell phone use at WDW

[Susan R]

pampam & glendalais: great ideas! I was wondering about the PC calling card...I'll be down there for 10 days and I don't intend to spend a lot of time chatting on the phone but I do want to spend a few minutes a day checking in with my parents. I have some family memebers who are going through some pretty tough health issues right now and I want to make sure they are okay...although there's not a darn thing I can do about it from Disney, it's still nice to keep in touch.

I think I will end up getting the calling card and then I can just turn off my Blackberry and not worry about roaming charges!

[bfost87]

Pay as you go if definatly the way to go. I was wondering the same thing about using my cell phone down there so I research it a bit and you can pick up a pre paid phone for under 8 bucks

[disneyred]

Originally Posted by bfost87

Pay as you go if definatly the way to go. I was wondering the same thing about using my cell phone down there so I research it a bit and you can pick up a pre paid phone for under 8 bucks

i have never seen one for under 8 bucks.can you tell me where ??
though i have seen several for 25-35 bucks..did not know if it was worth it.

[braddillman]

... unless you buy one of their text plans. I called to confirm, it's $0.75 per RECEIVED text (also $0.75 per text sent). DW and I both have rogers smartphones, so for one of us to text the other is $1.50/per text. Plus, if someone back home texts us it cost $0.75 each.

So the $12.50 for 25 SENT messages plus unlimited received messages is looking pretty good right now. Plus, it's a way to communicate to each other when there's no free wi-fi.

For calling back home, it's free wi-fi, e-mail, facebook and skype.

So, the total is $12.50 x 2 = $25. I think that's cheaper than 2 disposable phones. I don't think we'll use more than about 25 messages each while we're there, but if we do they're $0.50 each (since received would be free).

I expect the other carriers are similar.

So: be careful about paying for incoming texts while in the USA.

[pampam]

Originally Posted by Susan R

pampam & glendalais: great ideas! I was wondering about the PC calling card...I'll be down there for 10 days and I don't intend to spend a lot of time chatting on the phone but I do want to spend a few minutes a day checking in with my parents. I have some family memebers who are going through some pretty tough health issues right now and I want to make sure they are okay...although there's not a darn thing I can do about it from Disney, it's still nice to keep in touch.

I think I will end up getting the calling card and then I can just turn off my Blackberry and not worry about roaming charges!

We just got back from a 23 day trip at Pop. We had a $20 pc card, used it at least twice a day to phone home, and still have $3 left on it. Those minutes are good for 6 months, and can be used here or in USA.

[Hemlock]

Originally Posted by disneyred

i have never seen one for under 8 bucks.can you tell me where ??
though i have seen several for 25-35 bucks..did not know if it was worth it.

Walmart.com has them for $9.88. If you walk into any Walmart in Orlando you will find them. I have seen them for $7 and change.

[CindyCan]

Has anyone taken a Telus phone (on a plan) to WDW?

We've always gone the route of buying cheap US phones because we've always been on prepaid at home.

Now, 2 of us are on plans that include free unlimited texting. Telus has add-ons ($20 for the month for US/roaming texting) that make it worthwhile to use our own phones when we're down south. We only text each other as a group, so this is cheaper for us than setting up our US phones again.

I'm wondering 2 things:

Have you had experience with your Telus phone in the US?

What do you need in order to use the new line time app that everyone's talking about? Has anyone used this with their Canadian phone, and if so what kind of phone do you need?

Thanks!

[Kurby]

we're thinking of getting iphones and the guy at Bell told us not to put roaming on and when we travel down to the states we can pick up free wifi in most major cities

does anyone know bout this? is it like picking it up on the lap top when you go into starbucks?

i'm guessing disney does NOT have any free wifi anywhere near it so can you pick it up at the resorts if you have it?

[bankr63]

We bought a couple of Net10 phones this trip (March 12 2011) following the tips here. I bought them at Publix (they are at the customer service desk). I got the last $15 LG standard handset, and had to pay $20 for a Samsung flip phone; 2nd cheapest option. No free air time offered at this time, so add $30 for a 300 minute card. Apparently there is a $20 card, but we couldn't find them there or a couple of other stores we checked. Add 6% state tax for total purchase price.

Activation was relatively simple, but does require an Internet access. The salesperson had indicated that it could be done from the handset, but the instructions provided do not support this. Note that one advantage to 300 minutes is that the activation period is 2 months; less than 300 minutes only last 1 month. Note that Net10 merged with Tracphone - our LG turned out to have been repackaged. No problems related to the brand change however.

Service was marginal. In our resort (Vistana) we had no issues making or receiving calls. At the Disney Parks, we had a couple of non-connections, but most calls completed. At Universal Studios, service was horrendous. Over several hours both of our touring groups tried calling the other group several times (probably about 25 attempted calls) with no ability to connect. Note that you are charge 1 minute for each of these failed calls - only a dime each perhaps, but adds insult to injury. I think that this was a Net10 service issue, as many others around were talking on their cells without issues. Luckily we managed to run into the other party as we were making our way to the exit; no easy feat in the Universal complex!

International dialing was not as good as advertised. At activation, they indicate that international dialing should take about 3 days to start. You need to dial *1 (send) 1 for English, then enter the long distance number. We activated on Sunday, and finally got our first international connection on the following Saturday evening at the airport as we were leaving. Prior to Saturday, international calls gave us a fast busy, but did actually ring the receiving phone. SIL had her Rogers phone with her, so if she got a strange ring, she knew to call us back.

Overall, I give Net10 about about a 50% grade - barely passing. I still like the idea, but would probably spring a bit more for phone with a major carrier. I may also consider jailbreaking my Android phone next time and getting an ATT SIM card for it instead.

[LYNNEL2003]

Sorry if this has been asked before but there are sooooo many posts to go thru!!

I am looking for a phone for texting, not necessarily calling. We have free international long distance from our villa off site so we really only need the phones for texting to each other at the parks (sometimes we split up so dh and ds can go on rides that do not interest dd).

Suggestions? Pay as you go...do they have texting plans? We have iPhones but I do not plan on using mine (it will be sooooo hard! LOL!) so I need a phone to be able to communicate with dh.

We will be in Buffalo early that day for our 5pm flight so please give me suggestions of where to go/what to buy!

Thanks everyone!
Lynne

[Pumba's Truth]

Originally Posted by LYNNEL2003

Sorry if this has been asked before but there are sooooo many posts to go thru!!

I am looking for a phone for texting, not necessarily calling. We have free international long distance from our villa off site so we really only need the phones for texting to each other at the parks (sometimes we split up so dh and ds can go on rides that do not interest dd).

Suggestions? Pay as you go...do they have texting plans? We have iPhones but I do not plan on using mine (it will be sooooo hard! LOL!) so I need a phone to be able to communicate with dh.

We will be in Buffalo early that day for our 5pm flight so please give me suggestions of where to go/what to buy!

Thanks everyone!
Lynne

Personally we picked up a CommonCents phone and had no problem with signal or use in WDW in November. Infact I still have the phone - minutes have expired but I am topping it up in May when we go back.

I think it was something like $0.07 per text/min if I recall correctly.

The phone it self was pretty inexpensive as well. We picked up at Wal-mart. It was an LG.

[ABCanada]

Originally Posted by LYNNEL2003

I am looking for a phone for texting, not necessarily calling. We have free international long distance from our villa off site so we really only need the phones for texting to each other at the parks (sometimes we split up so dh and ds can go on rides that do not interest dd).

Suggestions? Pay as you go...do they have texting plans? We have iPhones but I do not plan on using mine (it will be sooooo hard! LOL!) so I need a phone to be able to communicate with dh.

We just take our iPhones and add a "Travel Pack", there are a variety of options. Find this is much simpler than trying to pick up a disposable and adding minutes. This way you have your regular number and can get calls and texts from home at any time. We turn off the data roaming and pick up our email with free internet.

We are not big on texting so we get the $25 for 40 minutes. For $40 you can get 40 minutes plus 100 texts and reduced rates for anything beyond that. A 25 text package is $12.50 and $.50 for each additional text.

[LYNNEL2003]

Originally Posted by ABCanada

We just take our iPhones and add a "Travel Pack", there are a variety of options. Find this is much simpler than trying to pick up a disposable and adding minutes. This way you have your regular number and can get calls and texts from home at any time. We turn off the data roaming and pick up our email with free internet.

We are not big on texting so we get the $25 for 40 minutes. For $40 you can get 40 minutes plus 100 texts and reduced rates for anything beyond that. A 25 text package is $12.50 and $.50 for each additional text.

I will have to check with Rogers but I found their packages very expensive. I also thought I saw it mentioned on the website that the package had to be purchased for 3 months but I could have misunderstood. I will have dh check with them just in case. I need to be able to text him while in the parks so I need to find my best option without going overboard on price since we have 2 phones to purchase these add ons for.

A friend of mine just got a $1600 phone bill from Rogers for her trip to Florida so I want to be sure to avoid that!!!

Thanks!

[petbren]

We just came back from March break trip
Have bought Tracphone before, so this trip were thinking about picking up 2 so we could mostly text-same situation as you DH and DS could seperate but we could keep in touch through texting. After looking at the phones and plans in Buffalo before we left-crappy phone, old flip type to text on, we decided against it.
We are with Bell, so for $10 each/month we added on the US textiing plan. gives you unlimited text-free sent, and 25 cent received(or could be vice versa) Like the other poster, I turned off the data on my BB, and could make a call for some rediculous fee of $1.45/minute if necessary--never did though.
This worked great for us, we used it a lot but haven't got the bill yet
Didn't add any plan when we went for a long weekend last summer to see JB in Syracuse, and it cost us almost $200 Gotta be better than that

[LYNNEL2003]

I am going to have dh call Rogers and will have him mention the price for Bell add on for texting! I would prefer to use my baby (my iPhone! LOL) for texting so I am hoping we can get something decent...

Thanks!