Cell phone use at WDW

[CupidsKiss]

When I was shopping for the phones in person, the only phone that came with minutes was the Net10 phone. All of the other prepaid cellphones I saw at Target, Walmart, KMart etc. did not come with minutes included. Online deals may be different though...

Thanks Wazzo

 

[bluenosemickey]

My experience is with a virgin phone. We originally bought them last year at the DTD virgin store. They were 9.99 each and we bought $30 phone cards for each phone. They activated with very little trouble by phone. We used them for 2 trips because the minutes were valid for 90 days and we were just within the limits with the Dec and March vacations. Very pleased at that time and found the phones invaluable.

Now, we returned in august and because the virgin store is now closed (princess Di exibit) we tried to buy phone cards on line. Well that was an exercise in frustration, for some reason it wouldn't accept our am$ visa card. Kept saying to try another credit card. I suspect it had something with the matching of the address and the credit card. Anyway, we tried to call virgin with the phones, managed to get a new phone number assigned to the phone but still couldn't manage to get any minutes purchased to actually use the phones. I was extremely frustrated with their phone system, kept getting sent back to the start of the automated process

I really had counted on using these phones with my extended family along for the trip this time. I think for next trip I will try to stop somewhere across the border prior to pick up some of these other phones mentioned and start again. I'm scared to buy virgin prepaid cards for fear that we won't get them working for some reason and their system is so difficult to troubleshoot. Not ever was I able to talk to an actual living breathing human!!

If you can get phones, they are fantastic and well worth $50-75 for the benefit.

 

[peter-nf]

We're going to disney world in 3 weeks for a week and currently have 3 phones with bell. The lady on the phone said i could add a US roaming service to our plan that would give us 100min for $40, 200min for $70 or 400min for $100 on all 3 phones combined. Is there any reason i shouldn't add the service? Something i'm missing? My understanding is i will get 400 minutes total on the 3 phones combined for calls to each other in Florida, other phones in Florida and calls home to Canada with no extra charges (except for the $100) and most importantly can anyone confirm that my phones will actually get service? (no old phones).

 

[ont/ohana]

We purchased 3 NEt10 phones today in Buffalo and brought them home to Canada. If we activate them ahead of time here we know the time will start right away but will they pick up a signal as soon as we cross the border again a week later. Assuming they won't work here at all. Was going to use a Disney hotel zip code for activation

 

[petbren]

We purchased 3 NEt10 phones today in Buffalo and brought them home to Canada. If we activate them ahead of time here we know the time will start right away but will they pick up a signal as soon as we cross the border again a week later. Assuming they won't work here at all. Was going to use a Disney hotel zip code for activation

Not going for another month(28 days, actually, but who's counting)
Where in Buffalo did you buy them, and did they come with the 300 minutes?

 

[ont/ohana]

Not going for another month(28 days, actually, but who's counting)
Where in Buffalo did you buy them, and did they come with the 300 minutes?

Bought them at Target. When we got to Florida one phone quit working and Net10 offered to ship us another phone but would would take 5 business days to get it so didn't bother. The other 2 worked great the whole time.
Net 10 phones come loaded with 300 minutes and 60 days service.

 

[Ham Ham]

Picked up a couple of Net10 phones for a trip we were talking with a couple of other families this past August. Activation of the phones was a much longer process than with our Virgin Mobile phone bought last March. Net10 phones are a great price but the activation process and the inability for them to allow us to call back to Canada would have me looking for different options in the future.

I followed the supplied instructions on international calling by activating it on their website. Wait the instructed 24 hours still could not call back to Canada. Called customer support they said they would activate it and to wait 24 hours.
Played this game several more times during the trip all to no avail for calling the great white north was elusive.

No issues with using the Net10 phones in the US.

 

[DearDaisyinDurham]

Tried the Net10 on a trip to the States, great deal at Target, charged it up, called to activate & it was a customer service nightmare. On hold for an extended time then they said the store didn't activate the phone correctly - though the activation was noted on the receipt, etc., just a hassle. Went back to the store (now this is day 3 of the 5 day trip) and they checked it out & said it WAS activated correctly.

When I explained the customer service situation, the store felt bad & they took the phone back. Never again will we try Net10. Thank goodness Target is so easy to deal with ... I will always look for my phones at Target first.

HTH someone w/ a trip coming up!

 

[petbren]

Tried the Net10 on a trip to the States, great deal at Target, charged it up, called to activate & it was a customer service nightmare. On hold for an extended time then they said the store didn't activate the phone correctly - though the activation was noted on the receipt, etc., just a hassle. Went back to the store (now this is day 3 of the 5 day trip) and they checked it out & said it WAS activated correctly.

When I explained the customer service situation, the store felt bad & they took the phone back. Never again will we try Net10. Thank goodness Target is so easy to deal with ... I will always look for my phones at Target first.

HTH someone w/ a trip coming up!

Thanks for the tip, I think I'll stick with Trac pone, had good luck with them in the past.

 

[jasmom]

We got 2 net10 phones in sept and they worked great. Very easy to activate and we did it very late at night. I had no problem using them to call Canada even before the 24 hours had passed. The way they had you call canada was a little different and easier than calling other countries. The canada instruction was a couple of lines further down. My parents just took the phones with them when they went to New York city with out any problems calling back to Canada. My parents had problems calling Canada last year with a Trac phone. They said the net10 phone was much easier.

 

[mickeyfanatic09]

I go to the US alot, and I have a Virgin Mobile USA phone. Great way to keep cost down, and the phone card lasts for 3 months (just have to renew your card every 3 months). Plus I go to WDW twice a year, so it's definitely worth having a US Paygo Phone. Look into it, Walmart, Target and K Mart in the US are your friends

 

[roberthodgson]

We picked up 2 AT&T Phones last year $15.00 each we now keep them active all the time as they come in handy when traveling in the US and when I go on a ride that my wife does not want to go on she no longer is stuck waiting in one place.

 

[Honeystar120608]

We have been sitting here trying to figure out what to do. My dh has a cell phn and my sister has one. The theory we have is that we can txt one another when one group of us is off a ride to get ahold of the other half of the group so we can meet up.
I know the other option is the prepaid cell phones. So, if we did the cell phones, I get we order them and have them delivered to Disney World. I went to the At&t website, asks me for my local zip, would I enter Maine or Florida (as Im closest to Maine and will be flying out there).

DH's phn is through Rogers and Sis is through Telus. So Im wondering if we can do the txting without roaming charges???? Any help is great!!

 

[cslittle999]

We have been sitting here trying to figure out what to do. My dh has a cell phn and my sister has one. The theory we have is that we can txt one another when one group of us is off a ride to get ahold of the other half of the group so we can meet up.
I know the other option is the prepaid cell phones. So, if we did the cell phones, I get we order them and have them delivered to Disney World. I went to the At&t website, asks me for my local zip, would I enter Maine or Florida (as Im closest to Maine and will be flying out there).

DH's phn is through Rogers and Sis is through Telus. So Im wondering if we can do the txting without roaming charges???? Any help is great!!

Rogers charges 75 cents per text you send in the US. I'm not sure about Telus.

If you have a rental car it can be straight forward to pick up phones when you get to WDW. The gas station outside of the BW has Tracfone and Net10 phones. I'm assuming that the Car Care Center does too. I picked up our Tracfone's at the Target at 192.

The zip code you enter in the web sites determines where the phone number will be. We used the zip code for BW when we setup our phones.

 

[bluenosemickey]

Can you walk to the gas station outside BW? We picked up virgin phones when the virgin store was in DtD. But now it's gone and we tried to reactivate our virgin phones with no luck last trip. Would like to just buy new phones, but wouldn't have a car.

 

[cslittle999]

Can you walk to the gas station outside BW? We picked up virgin phones when the virgin store was in DtD. But now it's gone and we tried to reactivate our virgin phones with no luck last trip. Would like to just buy new phones, but wouldn't have a car.

It would be an easy walk from BW.

 

[YukiPhnx]

If you're with Virgin Mobile and subscribe to one of their plans, you can add $5 a month to get 500 texts to use between the US and Canada, or $3 a month to 30 texts to use.

Unlimited texts between US and Canada is $15 a month and 2500 texts is $10/month

I think the $5/month add-on is a great idea. 500 texts is more than enough to use during my vacation, and I'll have the rest of those texts for personal use.

If you only need to use texting to keep people posted, and you're only going on a week long trip, the $3/month add-on would be a better choice. If your vacation happens to be between two "plan" months, then you'll have 60 texts to use for your trip! For me, that's more than enough to keep in touch with my friends while in the World, and with my family here in Toronto.

 

[GrtWtNorth]

Bought the Net 10 at Walmart for a trip to Hawaii. It worked great for US calls, but I had the same difficulty as others with activating the international calling feature. I spent +$15 of airtime calling customer service 3 times, I finally was allowed to call and text Canada, six days into the trip.

One lesson learned for cross-border shoppers, the international calling feature cannot be activated during a brief stop-over in the US or on the day you fly. The phone should be inside the US and active for 24 hours to get international calling feature activated.

 

[dave 2]

What about BBerry Messenger? I know the roaming charges are expensive but if you just use Bberry Messenger, we are charged a set rate per MB on a data plan through Telus. Messenger texts do not use much bytes (we use around 1MB a month including emails as it is). I figure for 1 week the charges wouldn't be that bad?

 

[TreesyB]

I just investigated with Telus for my brand new iPhone.

- 60cents for text
- 50cents / minute for phone time (international roaming included)
- $3/Mb for data

I'm not happy! That's really expensive for the $57/month I already pay. And I really don't know how to control my iPhone to turn off data.

So I'm really glad to read about buying cheap phones in the US. But have questions, hopefully someone can help.

- will I be able to use it in Canada to call US with the Pay as You Go Cards(like TracPhone that has the same charge as local plans)? I have friends in US and that would be cool, since I don't call them that often but would love the option without the huge L/D charges.

- what happens if we don't top up minutes?

- do they take US Debit cards? I have a US debit, but not a US CC.

thanks! I never even noticed this thread before but necessity breeds needing to pay attention.