Public phones at Atlantis?

[natt]

We are going on the Discover Atlantis excursion and am wondering about the phone service? Is there cellular signal around there and if not, are there public payphones anywhere that we could use to call home? Thanks for any info. Natt

 

[Michelle]

I'm not sure, Natt, but I'll bump this for you to see if anyone else does. I think you would need an international calling card to use a pay phone.

 

[goofygal1975]

I was there in 9/01 and in Atlantis, right near the casino, across from the "big chair" there were about 5 pay phones there. We purchased calling cards and used them in the phone to pay for the calls. (i think they cards were right near the phone to puchase? i can't remember). I HAD to call back home, cause a tropical storm was hitting my county in florida, and i had to check on my son!!!!

 

[nyloc]

Natt ...

Cellphones work ... at least there's an excellent signal, though the only stateside phoneco with reciprocity here at the moment is Verizon.

NOBODY gives us poor Bahamians reciprocity Stateside. But the phoneco's going private, so depending on who buys 'em, we might have a brighter future for all.

And as you've already been advised, there are public phones around Atlantis and you can either use AT&T direct or buy the phone cards.

Hope that helps.

 

[natt]

Thank you so much for the info. It will make my kids & mother (caregiving) feel better if they can expect a phone call from us! Thanks!

 

[SusanU]

Be aware that you cannot use any prepaid cards other than the ones they sell right there. They are $10 ea and only take a ten or twenty (2 cards) & give no change. The call was $1.00 per minute for me so it didn't take long to use up a card.

 

[sandee]

Thank you for cell phone info. Luckily we all have Verizon so I'm hoping we can use our cell phones to call home from Nassau.

 

[MarkRG]

And for anyone else- there are payphones everywhere, including right on the dock, but be warned as the above poster said, most of them do not accept prepaid cards and are not cheap to make calls back to the states. You'd probably be cheaper using the internet cafe shipboard and email.

 

[nyloc]

For those of you who might be interested:

AT&T
===

www.att.com/traveler

Gives info on the numbers you have to use from various countries. I can't find details of pricing ... they just give an 800 # to call for current pricing info.

At any rate, the number from the Bahamas is:

1-800-872-2881 - valid from any working phone. (The same number is also valid for Cayman, but only from select phones).

St. Maarten's the same number but with an 001- prefix (only select phones).

From Mexico (Cozumel) it's 01-800-288-2872 (you may need a coin to get a payphone to work, though).

Of course other points on the DCL itineraries like Key West and the US VI grant roaming privileges to virtually every US "mainland" provider.

Hope this is useful. It does work, just a bit expensive. But convenient if you don't have alot of cash but have an AT&T calling card or a credit card.

LOCAL CALLING CARDS
================

The machines only accept cash, and I think only $10 and $20 denominations (correspond directly to the value of the cards themselves). Of cours if you're at Atlantis and don't have the cash, just pop down to one of the ATMs in the casino. They work fine.

OTHER SERVICES
============

I understand that most other Stateside Long Distance providers like Sprint, Worldcom, etc. have similar systems to AT&T but I don't have the details and I'm not sure that they're quite as pervasive. Same is true of some local providers. In short, if you have a phoneco calling card (as opposed to some of the cheapies available) try it on the AT&T access numbers.