Cell phone reception?

[jenseib]

How is the reception at Disney? We have Nextel and Alltel. Usually the ynever get the same reception. It seems if one is bad the other gets it good. I just want to be sure we can get in touch with people at home, as we are dairy farmers and "emergencies" happen every day.

[Servants of Evan]

My inlaws used Alltel down at WDW with no issues. I can report we had not one issue with Verizon either.

[karibritt01]

We use Nextel. Our reception was good at CSR, but hit and miss in the parks.

[hmillerbarilla]

we have cingular/at&t and have had no problems at all anywhere at WDW. Have fun! :)

[Art&Kim]

We have sprint which is the same as nextel and I could talk to home (St Louis) from the queue inside rockn rollercoaster! Also my phone is one that has the antenna on the inside.

[PrincessV]

It's gotten MUCH better in the last year or two. I have T-Mobile and didn't use to have reception within most parks, but had no porblems anywhere on my last trip, Dec. 2006.

[storzo]

I used to have Nextel and it hardly worked anywhere. I couldn't even use it in my house. Now, I use Verizon and so far, so good...knock wood.

[mmessler]

I have Virgin Mobile, which from what I've read operates off of the Sprint network, and have never had any problems.

[minnierocks]

No problems with Alltel :thumbsup2

[DznyLvr2005]

I had AT&T (CINGULAR) the old Cingular which is the new AT&T :lmao: ... anyway.... Last year my sis loves the pooh ride so I called her and stuck the phone up so she could hear it from home the whole time and even in the building, it was fine. DIdn't have a problem with reception..
Course, now I switched to Verizon, so who knows what it will be like this year.

[diseyore]

T-mobile has great reception through out the parks, even inside the rides. I have lots of friends with Nextel that have a hit and miss problem all over Florida. I guess that is why you see the bumper stickers that say "Nextel Sucks"

[alyssa810]

I've always had Verizon, and the reception has gotten progressively better over the last 5-7 years. I would think that would be the same situation for most companies, but that's just an assumption.

[mericletwins]

I have never had a problem with Nextel.:confused3

[NC State]

We were just there Oct 28-Nov 4; both parties had Alltel and Nextel we had no problems calling back to North Carolina. My brother received a lot of business calls on his Nextel.

[jennifer03878]

If I remember correctly we had no issues with service through the majority of the parks last year. I had great service by the pool at the All Star Sports (especially at 6am when I called into one of my customes.. Bad Me :sad2: ) I think everywhere else we were fine.

[ms_mckenna]

Your Altell should be fine that is what DH's work phone is and noone had a problem getting a hold of him while we were there in November. sigh. Ours is Sprint which is supposed to be the same as Nextel and we had no problems with it as well.

[byoung]

we have cingular/at&t and have had no problems at all anywhere at WDW. Have fun! :)

I agree.

[jenseib]

We jsut got back. DH's Nextel had the best reception. He had a bit of a problem at DTD, as I tried to call him and his phone never rang. My reception there was hit or miss too. I could have full bars one spot and take to steps to no reception.
My Alltel had no reception at our room at the Pop, shihc was a bit of a problem, since DH tired calling me a few times too, and my phone wouldn't ting there. But for the most part they worked fine.

[kimis]

How is the reception at Disney? We have Nextel and Alltel. Usually the ynever get the same reception. It seems if one is bad the other gets it good. I just want to be sure we can get in touch with people at home, as we are dairy farmers and "emergencies" happen every day.
We use Sprint and never had any problems in the parks or at DTD. However we stay at POR and the cell phones won't work in the resort rooms. Don't ask me why but you always see people standing outside their rooms talking on their phones. The cell phones work better than the two way radios (at least I think they do)

[jenseib]

DH had good reception on his 2 way. He used that ALOT!

[mmessler]

Anyone use Virgin Mobile down there? I think they run off Sprint's network, but I'm not sure. And how about Cingular?

[jenseib]

Anyone use Virgin Mobile down there? I think they run off Sprint's network, but I'm not sure. And how about Cingular?

I don't think they run off a of Sprint/Nextel's network. In our areas that is the best reception, and my sone had virgin Moblie and has terrible reception at palces that Sprint/Nextel has good reception.

[kaboule101112]

We use Tracfone, the prepaid wireless: supposedly uses whosever towers are available. Has anyone tried these?

[mmessler]

I don't think they run off a of Sprint/Nextel's network. In our areas that is the best reception, and my sone had virgin Moblie and has terrible reception at palces that Sprint/Nextel has good reception.

I just read the back of the package of the new phone I bought. It says "under Virgin Mobile USA's arrangement with Sprint, VM USA customers have access to service on the Sprint Nationwide PCS Network reaching more than 250 million people". Maybe it depends on the phone? Mine has good reception pretty much everywhere around here, and I don't remember having any trouble with my old VM phone the few times I used it at WDW, but mostly from the resorts.

[mmessler]

We use Tracfone, the prepaid wireless: supposedly uses whosever towers are available. Has anyone tried these?

My mother used to have one of those, and hated it. She said she could never get a decent signal. But I don't remember her trying it at WDW. And it seemed a lot more expensive that Virgin as well as some other prepaids at the time.

[kaboule101112]

Thanks for the info. None of the cell phone services work great where we are (too many hills), so we just use them for basics. Hopefully they'll work at WDW.

[Faerie]

I have Sprint PCS, my BF has Nextel. While they are the same company, they run on different networks. He has better reception most times because Disney employees (Bus drivers etc.) have nextel phones. There are Nextel Towers on property because of this.

[jedijill]

Hi! I work for Sprint Nextel so I can tell you the following things:

Nextel is the official provider for WDW so there are a lot of towers on Disney property.

Sprint also has good coverage.

Virgin Mobile does indeed operate on the Sprint network. Virgin Mobile leases the service and resells to their customers.

The metal studs in the hotels cause interference with CDMA phone service. That is why you will see people outside their rooms using their phones.

HTH

Jill in KC

[NEVERENOUGHWDW]

We have At&t Cingular (whatever they are calling it this week) and we have always have great reception in the parks & bad reception in the resorts. We usually end up on the balcony to make calls.

[sdbirdsong]

I had AT&T (CINGULAR) the old Cingular which is the new AT&T :lmao: ... anyway.... Last year my sis loves the pooh ride so I called her and stuck the phone up so she could hear it from home the whole time and even in the building, it was fine. DIdn't have a problem with reception..
Course, now I switched to Verizon, so who knows what it will be like this year.


Way back when, I had WorldCom. They got bought out by AT&T who then got bought out by Cingular who is now AT&T again. You need a scorecard to keep up with the players.:confused3 We'll probably end up with only a coupe of phone companies just like back in the Dark Ages when the only phone company was AT&T.

BTW, I got fed up with Cingular shortly after the "merger" and switched to TMobile. They were treating the AT&T customers like step-children and were trying to force me to "upgrade" my GREAT plan of 19.99 a month that I had had forever.:cool1:

princess:

[exhumed616]

My service provider is Nextel and I usually get amazing reception. I guess that's what a lot of people are saying too ;).

[disney.nut]

We have Suncom and never have any problem at Disney or surrounding areas.