Cell phone use at WDW

[wannago2disney]

just ordered 2 virgin mobile phones off their website - $40 plus taxes got us 2 free phones & $ 20 of talk/text time per phone . $0.10 per min between the phones or $0.10 per text . Should do us for the week we are there.

and free delivery to the resort. They'll be waiting for us when we arrive next weekend !

Seemed better than the paying our two cel providers ( dw's phone is work on another carrier) either roaming or the packaged programs.

Hi!, Just wondering how this worked out for you?... and if you would do it again? Thanks for any info you have.

Tosh

 

[PrincessNED]

Hi!, Just wondering how this worked out for you?... and if you would do it again? Thanks for any info you have.

Tosh

Worked really good - only problem was the special pricing program changed and they shorted me $10 a phone - not really an issue - at 10 cents per minute we still had tons of minutes left on each phone - we used them to find the inlaws through the day

Only took about 30 minutes to activate both phones etc once we got them.

Use paypal to pay for the phones - and put your address when signing up as the resort you are staying at.

now if I could only convince my MIL to keep the phone on ( she still had the idea there was roaming with an Orlando phone #)

 

[PrincessNED]

ps,. I'd do this again in a heartbeat, real easy

 

[wannago2disney]

ps,. I'd do this again in a heartbeat, real easy

thanks for the info. I have put the idea in my husbands head and he is very interested. I will let him roll with it now as he is the gadget guru of our family and again thanks it is a great money saving idea...was having them shipped to the resort easy? any issues claiming them? how long ahead of time did you order them?

Tosh

 

[CindyCan]

I've looked at the websites for our cellphones, and this is what I *think* for our trip (leaving in 3 days!!):

-Our Telus pay-as-you-go phone won't work.
-Our Fido pay-as-you-go phone WILL work at $2.50 Cdn per minute.

I'm hoping there's a DIS'er here that can confirm for me that the Fido phone will work: we are NOT on a monthly plan.

I'd hate to get to the US & find out it doesn't work if we have an emergency. I have the option of taking my mom's Bell Mobility WITH a monthly plan if my Fido won't work.

Thanks!!

 

[myasmum]

Fido pay as you go will NOT work, before I called about this and I had to change to a monthly plan just to go to the US BUT still it was too expensive to use, we went into Wal*Mart and bought a TracePhone I think it was less then $20 and you can buy pay as you go calling cards to use for emergency which we did and even to call Canada we used it and it was great, plus we have it for when ever we go to the US again

 

[CindyCan]

How long ago did you check? I'm just wondering because on the Fido website it says "Automatic access to U.S Roaming with prepaid service", and it does seem to be new.

Thanks for the idea of picking up a US phone. I think that's a great plan if the Fido won't work. How do you set it up once you buy it, and how long can you keep it without putting prepaid cards on it before they cut it off completely?

 

[polyhm83]

My daughter has a pay as you go phone from rogers, it did not work from the states, but her text messaging did work from West virginia and pennsylvania.
I also believe that 911 will work for emergencies.

 

[jtdl]

I have Solo pay as you go and must add a credit card to my acc't for automatic top-up before they will enable roaming, which will allow it to work in the US. It will cost up to $2.99/minute. My plan with Solo includes free text messaging throughout North America and they tell me that the texting will still be free - no charge for roaming unless I make/answer a voice call - but a credit card has to be on the acc't.

 

[OntFamily]

We bought two Tracphones @ Wal-Mart for $19 each (though, now I see the cost has dropped to between $10 and $15 for each phone).


The per minute cost is $0.15 (which includes calling most countries in the world).

It's a great way to keep in contact @ WDW (especially if one person goes for fast passes @ Splash Mountain, while the other person is in tomorrowland).

 

[CanadianGuy]

Bumping this up for the benefit of new posters.

 

[CanadianGuy]

Also bumping this one up for new members.

 

[CanadianGuy]

Bumping up.. ... we really need a cell phone sticky..

 

[CanadianGuy]

I bumped up a bunch of previous threads about cell phone solutions while travelling in Florida..

We really need a sticky for these things.

Thanks,

Knox

 

[CindyCan]

Okay, so this is the FIFTH thread on cells. We really do need a sticky. Now I'm interested in the US prepaid phones, but no one really answered how to do it exactly when you're down there. Does it matter what phone # you get if you buy 2 & want to call back & forth to each other (we don't need to call Canada). For instance, do we need to ask for an Orlando phone #?

I will buy the phones on the road to Florida & have internet with my laptop the night before we hit Orlando.

(Another sticky we need is "flying out of Buffalo or Detroit"; even though we don't fly!)

 

[CanadianGuy]

For simplicity sake.. Get 2 x tracfones with Orlando numbers.. that will make it nice and easy.

You can activate them on the internet thru the Tracfone website.. or you can call a special number to activate them..

More information available here..
http://www.tracfone.com/index.jsp

 

[wee-haggis]

Does anyone know whether there is a Walmart near the airport in Buffalo? Do Tracfones have to be purchased at Walmart, or are they available elsewhere?

We were planning to travel cellphone-less because of how ridiculously expensive the roaming fees are on our cellphone plan (upwards of $3 per minute). If we can get a Tracfone for under $25, I'd love to go that route, just for the peace of mind of having a cell phone in case of emergency.

There is a Walmart about 10-15 mnnutes from the airport (not far from Walden Galleria).

As far as cellphones are concerned,if they are used to call folk back home .....(in my humble opinion)it makes no sense to use a cell phone. A $10 phone card bought in Loblaws got me over 400 minutes of calls to Canada. As previously mentioned the lobby's are the best (non chargeable-on-site)locations to call from to avoid the toll fee.If you staying offsite,the majority of hotels (at least the ones I've been in) are free calls.

 

[OntFamily]

If you get a TracPhone, there is no price difference between local or long distance calls. Each costs the exact same.


We've bought 2 phones. One with a Buffalo number, and the other a Orlando number. This make it easy to call the phone from either a Buffalo or Orlando hotel - useful for both WDW and those cross border shopping trips.

 

[myasmum]

How long ago did you check? I'm just wondering because on the Fido website it says "Automatic access to U.S Roaming with prepaid service", and it does seem to be new.

Thanks for the idea of picking up a US phone. I think that's a great plan if the Fido won't work. How do you set it up once you buy it, and how long can you keep it without putting prepaid cards on it before they cut it off completely?

Well its been awhile since I checked as since then I have had monthly plan and wasnt worth using it in the US (so not sure about this new pay as you go thing maybe call them up to make sure)

The TracePhone is great the calling cards I think expire every 6 months IF you dont use it as we bought one in July/Aug and it was to expire in Dec so I think thats better then the Canadian ones LoL and as others said no difference calling locally or long distance I just used up more mintues when we left Florida as I had activated it with a Florida # and we were driving so one we left it was like a tiny bit more per min but not a HUGE difference, we picked it up in Georgia as finally wanted to stop at a Wal*Mart just to take a look and didnt activate it til we got there.

Here is thier web page http://www.tracfone.com/index.jsp I bought and activated my phone in July and it will deactivate Feb 2008 so when I go to the US I will have to reacivate it and I havent bought any prepaid cards since Aug

If anything else just e-mail me myasmum@hotmail.com
Robyn

 

[PrincessNED]

thanks for the info. I have put the idea in my husbands head and he is very interested. I will let him roll with it now as he is the gadget guru of our family and again thanks it is a great money saving idea...was having them shipped to the resort easy? any issues claiming them? how long ahead of time did you order them?

Tosh

I ordered about a week in advance - They were delivered in 2 business days and I received a Fed ex tracking # from virgin.

Only problem with picking them up was we were at CSR - They got delivered to the business centre and unfortunately they closed before we arrived at the resort at 9:00pm. had to wait til the next morning to pick up - no hassle at all.