BBM while at Disney

[roxysmum123]

Anyone have an idea of what kind of charges I can expect if I use BBM while at Disney? I"m with Koodo on a plan that has just unlimited text, x number of minutes Canada wide and unlimited BBM. I know the texting will cost me an arm and a leg but wondering if I'd be dinged for roaming with BBM as bad?

 

[ccudmore]

http://koodomobile.com/en/on/travelling.shtml

BBM is just regular data roaming so you're looking at about $.50/kB.

 

[roxysmum123]

Wonderful, thanks so much! Stupid question, but do you know how much data a bbm message takes, or does it depend on how long it is?

 

[tinytink22]

I'm with Koodo as well with a Blackberry, and I went and spoke with a representative from Koodo about using my BBM in the states, and he told to shut my roaming off completely because you will be charged an insane amount for roaming, so I wasn't able to bbm.

 

[ccudmore]

Yes, it depends on how long it is, whether you attach pictures, etc. So there's no straight-forward answer.

 

[pigletto]

I'm with Koodo as well with a Blackberry, and I went and spoke with a representative from Koodo about using my BBM in the states, and he told to shut my roaming off completely because you will be charged an insane amount for roaming, so I wasn't able to bbm.

I used my bbm while in Scotland to talk to my husband. You can use it with wifi so you won't get all those roaming charges. There's instructions for it on the web somewhere that I just found through google.
Basically you need to have the Blackberry Enterprise server and then shut off your data roaming and just use the wifi. Won't work everywhere but was great in the evening when I was back at the hotel.

As far as using it in the States, we're with Virgin and we'd only want it to communicate if we split up in the parks. The American data plan was ridiculous. I can't remember what it was exactly but I think it was something like 40 or 45 per phone for 3 phones. And that only gave us a limited amount of use.
Not worth it with Virgin Mobile.

Admittedly I find this all really confusing so I could have parts of it wrong.

 

[roxysmum123]

There really has to be an easier way to communicate cross border. I've been dinged pretty bad being in Niagara Falls on the CDN side and charged as though I was using on the US side....so frustrating. Maybe a tin can an a really long string will be my best option.

 

[MikeyNS]

Just got back and here's our data usage.

Kept the BB on, used BBM a little bit, weather-app, lots of emailing and a lot of FBing. Used the m.touingplans.com website to check on wait times and such as well. Some web browsing to the telus site (non-mobile) to send a text home to the folks instead of using roaming texts.

Spent most of it on Wifi at the resort. This is our report from Telus ($1/Mb).
Again, one of BB's advantage is the low amount of data they use.

6-Mar-2012 Data Usage 1017 Kilobytes $0.99
5-Mar-2012 Data Usage 464 Kilobytes $0.46
4-Mar-2012 Data Usage 4 Kilobytes $0.00
3-Mar-2012 Data Usage 564 Kilobytes $0.55
29-Feb-2012 Data Usage 680 Kilobytes $0.66
25-Feb-2012 Data Usage 686 Kilobytes $0.67
24-Feb-2012 Data Usage 81 Kilobytes $0.07
22-Feb-2012 Data Usage 379 Kilobytes $0.38

If we just stuck to BBM and email it would have been a lot less.

 

[pigletto]

There really has to be an easier way to communicate cross border. I've been dinged pretty bad being in Niagara Falls on the CDN side and charged as though I was using on the US side....so frustrating. Maybe a tin can an a really long string will be my best option.

YES! My sister works really close to the border. Any time she is at work Rogers switches over to AT&T even though she's on the Canadian side. Drives her nuts!

 

[sjerrott]

For some reason, I'm not the smartest when it comes to understanding my cell phone - - so tell me if I've got this correct:

If I turn off roaming on my Blackberry when in the States (how do I do that?) I can use it wherever they have Wifi (like in the lobby of the Royal Pacific) and I won't have any charges when I get back?

Susan

 

[Feckless]

For some reason, I'm not the smartest when it comes to understanding my cell phone - - so tell me if I've got this correct:

If I turn off roaming on my Blackberry when in the States (how do I do that?) I can use it wherever they have Wifi (like in the lobby of the Royal Pacific) and I won't have any charges when I get back?

Susan

It's in your settings (the wrench icon). I turned off data and had international texting last time i was there but am totally using Lines this time. If you turn it off, no data will go through, roaming or not, until you turn it back on. Make sure you have WiFi turned on - I have it off to conserve battery life since I've never gone over on my data plan while at home.

Thanks to the poster who included their data usage! My friend kept posting pics to FB from her phone and sending pics on BBM and had a $1000 data roaming bill when she came home (Bell) so you did awesome! I'm buying a data roaming plan to be sure...

 

[Tiger926]

Just got back and here's our data usage.

Kept the BB on, used BBM a little bit, weather-app, lots of emailing and a lot of FBing. Used the m.touingplans.com website to check on wait times and such as well. Some web browsing to the telus site (non-mobile) to send a text home to the folks instead of using roaming texts.

Spent most of it on Wifi at the resort. This is our report from Telus ($1/Mb).
Again, one of BB's advantage is the low amount of data they use.

6-Mar-2012 Data Usage 1017 Kilobytes $0.99
5-Mar-2012 Data Usage 464 Kilobytes $0.46
4-Mar-2012 Data Usage 4 Kilobytes $0.00
3-Mar-2012 Data Usage 564 Kilobytes $0.55
29-Feb-2012 Data Usage 680 Kilobytes $0.66
25-Feb-2012 Data Usage 686 Kilobytes $0.67
24-Feb-2012 Data Usage 81 Kilobytes $0.07
22-Feb-2012 Data Usage 379 Kilobytes $0.38

If we just stuck to BBM and email it would have been a lot less.

These rates seem to be reduced data rates, so you have a very reasonable or special rate plan on your phone specifically for data or maybe you purchased a travel pack add on?

As OP asked just for BBM which is uses a little bit of data, but I am going to include some other info here, as you can also add photos to BBMs, as mentioned, and this is where the data rates will climb.

Rogers is known to have the best travel pack add-ons and here is an example of one of my data charges at full price of $6.00/MB:

424kbs $2.54

Here is what can be added for a week data pass through Rogers for those who might need this info. You have to pay this add on price, plus the per price MB as listed, depending upon how much data you use:

Week Passes (168 Hour Duration)

$25(one time fee) 15(data) $1.67/MB(rate)

$50 60 $.083/MB

$100 250 $0.40/MB

It seems like you might have a special data plan or reduced rate on your phone, so I don't want others to get their hopes up that they will pay what you paid. The only way to pay that on Rogers is to purchase a special add on package which range in price from per day to per month of usage or do the monthly One Rate that I do. My cousin also has Telus and her data rates are pretty good, but she has a special rate built into her plan.

Hubby and I have added on with Rogers for $10.00/month per phone where our roaming data comes out of our regular data. It is great since as already mentioned, Blackberries are very good with data.

Just spent 2 weeks in Disney, and at regular data rates our bill would have been $602.00. We used Internet, BBM, sent photos, email and various Disney apps and it only cost $20.00! So we made up our money for the year just from this trip, and we will be in Disney and a Disney Cruise in August, so again, we'll have that as well.

It's in your settings (the wrench icon). I turned off data and had international texting last time i was there but am totally using Lines this time. If you turn it off, no data will go through, roaming or not, until you turn it back on. Make sure you have WiFi turned on - I have it off to conserve battery life since I've never gone over on my data plan while at home.

Thanks to the poster who included their data usage! My friend kept posting pics to FB from her phone and sending pics on BBM and had a $1000 data roaming bill when she came home (Bell) so you did awesome! I'm buying a data roaming plan to be sure...

Commented on the data example posted above as it seems to be a very reasonable rate, whereas I know that Rogers and Bell regular data are much higher. Bell is known to have the worst data plans. The example above is at a reduced data rate of $1.00/mb, whereas Rogers charges us $6.00/mb without any add on pack. To get that price quoted above, we have to add on a very expensive one time fee which is plus the data charges as well, or you can do the One Rate plan that we do.

Texting - has nothing to do with data, which is why you need an additional texting plan if using in the US, or you will pay higher US texting roaming fees per text message.

We are in Michigan at least 2-3x per month, as well as Disney several weeks per year, so we are very well versed in data roaming and US text plans over here!

Good thing though if you turn off data and just use BBM with free wi-fi (it won't work otherwise), then your charges will be pretty reasonable as BBM uses little data. But if attaching photos to BBM, then it will climb higher.

Hope this helps, Tiger

 

[maggieb9975]

Just spent 2 weeks in Disney, and at regular data rates our bill would have been $602.00. We used Internet, BBM, sent photos, email and various Disney apps and it only cost $20.00! So we made up our money for the year just from this trip, and we will be in Disney and a Disney Cruise in August, so again, we'll have that as well.


Hope this helps, Tiger

H there, You seem to be very well versed in this whole data roaming issue.We are planning a trip to Disneyland in July. We are with Bell and plan on getting an extra plan for our iphone for data. It is expensive but gives us 60 mb of roaming data.

We want to use the mousewait app or DLR LInes app while at Disneyland. We will be there for 4 days. Do you think that will be enough data?

Thanks for any help you can offer me.

 

[Tiger926]

H there, You seem to be very well versed in this whole data roaming issue.We are planning a trip to Disneyland in July. We are with Bell and plan on getting an extra plan for our iphone for data. It is expensive but gives us 60 mb of roaming data.

We want to use the mousewait app or DLR LInes app while at Disneyland. We will be there for 4 days. Do you think that will be enough data?

Thanks for any help you can offer me.

I can't say for sure as we don't have iPhones. Our friends and family who do though, comment that their iPhones use so much more data than their Blackberries used to.

You are only going for 4 days, so it might be enough, but iPhones don't compress data like Blackberries do, so you will use a lot more data than those of us with Blackberries. I really don't know if it will be enough?

We were gone almost 2 weeks, and used 100gbs (both phones combined) and this was for daily phone use: BBM, photos, Internet, email and Disney apps. Blackberries compress data much better than iphones do, so I know that if we had iphones, it would have been way higher.

What you can do is compare to your regular data usage, and see how much you normally use in a 4 day period, and then call your carrier and see what they suggest in regards to how your iPhone normally consumes data.

I wish you luck as iPhones are known to make for huge data roaming bills!

Have a great trip, Tiger

 

[maggieb9975]

I can't say for sure as we don't have iPhones. Our friends and family who do though, comment that their iPhones use so much more data than their Blackberries used to.

You are only going for 4 days, so it might be enough, but iPhones don't compress data like Blackberries do, so you will use a lot more data than those of us with Blackberries. I really don't know if it will be enough?

We were gone almost 2 weeks, and used 100gbs (both phones combined) and this was for daily phone use: BBM, photos, Internet, email and Disney apps. Blackberries compress data much better than iphones do, so I know that if we had iphones, it would have been way higher.

What you can do is compare to your regular data usage, and see how much you normally use in a 4 day period, and then call your carrier and see what they suggest in regards to how your iPhone normally consumes data.

I wish you luck as iPhones are known to make for huge data roaming bills!

Have a great trip, Tiger

Thanks Tiger! I appreciate the help! It is scary not knowing but I will compare what we use daily and go from there....

Can you tell me which Disney apps you used and what you thought of them. We want to try Mousewait and touring .com' s DLR lines.
Thanks

 

[Tiger926]

Thanks Tiger! I appreciate the help! It is scary not knowing but I will compare what we use daily and go from there....

Can you tell me which Disney apps you used and what you thought of them. We want to try Mousewait and touring .com' s DLR lines.
Thanks

We used Undercover Tourist. Found that they varied from Disney's a bit. I would update the wait times, and noticed that it wasn't always updated either. It was slow at times, and so from a data perspective, you need to watch that.

We also used the Disney Mobile site for various things as well, but the wait times do not work as we don't have Verizon, but they did just make the app for iPhones, so you can check out the Mobile Magic app as well.

Best of luck. I would be mindful of how much time you spend on the apps, as they could chew up a lot of data as they are lots of fun!

Happy travels, Tiger

 

[MikeyNS]

Just the regular Telus us roaming plan, $1/mb, $10 to add it. Otherwise it would be $3/mb, so pretty much a wash whether I added it or not.

 

[maggieb9975]

Thanks so much for all the info!

 

[Tiger926]

Just the regular Telus us roaming plan, $1/mb, $10 to add it. Otherwise it would be $3/mb, so pretty much a wash whether I added it or not.

I figured you must have added on a travel roaming plan based on the rates you quoted, but Telus' regular roaming of $3.00 is pretty reasonable considering Rogers charges us $6.00.

That's great that Telus keeps things lower. Rogers does have a great variety of data package available, and we love the One Rate Plan as it allows us to share our data between regular and roaming.

This has surely been a helpful thread! Tiger

 

[MikeyNS]

I figured you must have added on a travel roaming plan based on the rates you quoted, but Telus' regular roaming of $3.00 is pretty reasonable considering Rogers charges us $6.00.

That's great that Telus keeps things lower. Rogers does have a great variety of data package available, and we love the One Rate Plan as it allows us to share our data between regular and roaming.

This has surely been a helpful thread! Tiger

This is the second year we've added the $10 plan and the second time it's been a wash rate-wise (meaning we didn't really take advantage of the reduced rates).

One of the key things I make sure I do is go to the mobile versions of the sites we want to visit, such as m.facebook.com, m.touringplans.com, m.google.com, m.disneyworld.com, etc.

I find the Facebook app uses a lot more data than the mobile one, and a lot of times we're directed to full versions of sites instead of the mobile ones on our BB. Saves a lot of data right there.