cell phones were a bust!

[Tigger&Tink]

Have used Cingular in the parks now for years --never a problem, even in the rooms, and even when they changed over to the GSM phones,,,no roaming problems,,butwe have a NATION WIDE plan, so that maybe why...



Tink

 

[Jsmply]

I have t-mobile and although I haven't seen any T-mobile users yet, we have no problems using it in the parks and have always had great reception. Another bonus is almost all of their plans have free roaming, so no matter where I am in the country we never worry about roaming. Once in a while we will see we are on a cinglar or at&t network, but we never worry about charges.

I know it doesn't apply to your situation, but just thought I'd reassure any t-mobile users.

Whenever your travel no matter who your carrier is, if your not sure what your roaming agreement is be sure to check! It can add up quick!

 

[dbanzai]

Another happy T-Mobiler here. I was even able to hold my phone up while British Invasion was playing to let a friend hear them, and she was able to hear fine. And texting has worked well all the time there for me.

 

[mo3]

We have verizon and are going next week. That's a great tip about the text messaging!
I have read elsewhere that cell phones have de-magnetized some admission tickets causing them to not work upon entering parks and at the fastpass machines.
Did you keep your cells away from your tickets? This is a major concern since I have 3 teens and will be letting them go on their own. I want them to use lanyards, but they looked at me like I was crazy!

 

[dbanzai]

We have verizon and are going next week. That's a great tip about the text messaging!
I have read elsewhere that cell phones have de-magnetized some admission tickets causing them to not work upon entering parks and at the fastpass machines.
Did you keep your cells away from your tickets? This is a major concern since I have 3 teens and will be letting them go on their own. I want them to use lanyards, but they looked at me like I was crazy!

That happened on my last trip. My friend demagetized his card with his cell phone, but it only caused trouble on the last day or two. It was hard for the turnstiles to read the info on those last days, but only on the last day (I think it was day five of five) did it not work at all.

So long as you keep the cell phone in a pocket other than where your ticket/keycard is, you should be alright.

 

[Martha7]

Disgal~
Thanks for posting! We just switched all of our phones over to Cingular service. I'll make sure to test them out before we rely on them at the parks.

 

[beattyfamily]

In this day and age I didn't think anyone had roaming charges anymore!

We have Nextel and have never had a problem at WDW except in an attraction but at that point, we're shutting the phone off anyway!

 

[LiLIrishChick63]

Cingular isn't as big a cell phone company as Verizon and Sprit so they have less coverage. next time go to a Cingular store near you and ask them for a map of the country and it will show you where you should and shouldn't get service. if it says you could get service in Orlando then i'd say something to them about it. being busy in the parks wouldn't have anything to do with no reception. if anything you would just keep getting busy signals if all of the networks were busy at the time with phone calls.

 

[Leota]

I have used Cingular in the Parks for years & never had any real problems with it. I have Nationwide also, so no roaming here.

 

[safetymom]

AT&T is now part of Cingular so they should have lots of cell towers. We have Cingular(was AT&T) and have no problems in the parks.

 

[PNO4TE]

We have had Cingular for years and have never had a problem in WDW. We have the Family Talk Nationwide calling plan and never incur roaming charges either.

Now, ask me if I can use my cell phone in my own home...

 

[disgal1]

Wow alot of replies!

Let me clarify a few items,

We are on the family nationwide plan, and with kids in college all over, we have never had any problems with it. That is why we were so shocked at the trouble we were having at WDW.

The first 2 days we were at universal, and did have trouble there also. It would go straight to voicemail. That is when we decided touse the old fashioned method of meeting times and places.

Lots of times in the buildings there was a no service message, but even outside, we couldn't get through

We had no extra charges, and have been happy with Cingular other than this trip.

My only point is to make sure you have a back up plan if you are planning to meet up with people. It was so unbelievably frustrating, and such a waste of time trying to get each other on the phone,

Just a heads up. !

 

[pixiedust23]

It could be high usage problems. If all the "cells" are being used by other people you cant get a signal. At that point in time text messaging works best. You'll see this happen at college graduations and most def in NYC on New Years! I couldnt get a signal til 2am one time!

 

[stevelamb121]

I am with T-Mobile in the UK, and took my cell with me, my last 2 trips, and logged onto the T-Mobile network, and never had a problem at all!

If it is a holiday or major event, then the cells do get congested, this is when more traffic than the cells can handle are trying to make calls. especially if your carrier hasn't got that good coverage anyway.

I work for T Mobile in the UK and this happens sometimes...just has with the London Bombings, when everyone was trying to make a call at once and the network there, was just too busy to cope.

 

[PixieDust32]

Wow! We've never had a problem using our phones, though we have Verizon. I wonder if it might be a carrier problem?

Yeap!! We got verizo and the signal always work, in elevators, basements, lots of friends have told me about cingular issues with signals.

 

[Tiffany]

When we were there on our 10 day july 4 trip, we really had trouble with our cells. We have cingular service.
The boys went off by themselves, and at least half the time, they couldn't reach us or we them. It was so frustrating! My sister also had cingular, and we couldn't get her most of the time.

Luckily, we had prearranged meeting times, and everyone had copies of the daily plan, so we always met up. I couldn't believe how bad our phones were.

I hadn't noticed anyone else having trouble, but if you plan on staying in touch with cells, you may want to have back up meeting places.

It may have been the high volume being a holiday week.

I am sorry you had signal issues with Cingular at WDW. I think this is a carrier issue as we use our Verizon Cells all of the time without any signal issues. Maybe you need to consider changing carriers.

 

[BrinxFam]

We've used our Cingular phones from IL to Clearwater and back including in the parks and never had a problem. Now I can't use it at my house but that's another story!

 

[PixieDust32]

Yeap it might be the carrier antenas in the area! We go camping often to the N GA mountains, and no problem, we went to houston in april and it was fine, my sister was telling me about the same issues with cingular.
Now she got verizon!

 

[disneyaggie]

Did you try text messaging? Whenever we have trouble with our phones we just text message (we have cingular.) In fact, we plan on using text messaging a lot on our upcoming trip, i.e.:

Boma 5:00

In line soarin


starved! meet us at the room in an hour

or something simple like,

"WHERE ARE YOU?"

I actually plan on prewriting some text messages into my phone so I can enter them really quickly when out and about.

Has anyone had trouble with text messaging with their phones in WDW?

Great idea!

I have Cingular and it is aweful!

 

[Marseeya]

I use Tracfone and my hubby uses a blackberry, and I think his service is through Verizon, but I'm not sure about that. Anyway, he had service all through the parks, but my Tracfone didn't have service hardly anywhere in Florida and half of Georgia! No roaming, no nothing.

What's weird is that my cell phone has service even in the boonies in West Virginia when my husband's doesn't.