Cheap Cell Phones When In Florida

[Vickyrowe]

Hi we are strongly considering getting a couple of cheap $30ish cell phone to keep in touch with each other in the parks .

we will be 5 adults , my self, my husband , his carer and my in-laws , the in laws are useless at finding places and directions but have a tendency to get left behind or will wander off if we are on a ride etc. so it would be good to be able to keep tabs on them ( sometime i wonder if we are the more adult ones)

Also handy if any of us want to pop back to the room we won't be tied down to meeting in one place we can just call when we get to the park and find each other

Has anyone else done this? was it easy to set up like PAYG here in uk, just don't want to spend a whole day in Target etc setting it all up when i could be hunting down a mouse!!

 

[DCLMan]

We got 2 Net10 refurbished phones from Walmart on line and had them delivered to the store on Turkey Lake Rd. They were reasonably easy to set up and when we got them activated they worked well.

 

[Vickyrowe]

Thanks , Didn't know whether you had to be a US resident or anything but i suppose with Pay as you go , they already have your money so they probably don't care

 

[2Tiggies]

Do you prefer to be able to call? There is free wifi at MK and Epcot and the other parks will follow soon. If you have a smart phone you can use various apps to contact each other on your own phones at no cost. That's if wifi plays - I did find a lot of black spots while we were there.

 

[DCLMan]

Thanks , Didn't know whether you had to be a US resident or anything but i suppose with Pay as you go , they already have your money so they probably don't care

I didn't need to put an address in my account to activate the phones. They do take an hour or so to activate.

 

[Vickyrowe]

Thanks , With Regards to the WI-FI , i'm not sure the in laws could work it , one can just about use Facebook if i open it up for her, so i think we would have to stick to calling them lol

 

[sandshal]

We buy Tracfones every trip ... My sister who lives in Houston buys them for us and brings them home but they definitely do sell them in Walmart and they work brilliantly every time ... Well worth the small amount of hassle activating them. Ive got two spare sets of phones in my holiday drawer, trouble is sim cards expire if you don't use them and it's easier and cheaper to buy new ones each year.

 

[Button]

We bought 2 in Walmart for our last trip dirt cheap but we did find the credit was eaten up by junk calls/texts. Seems you get charged to receive calls too so keep that in mind.

 

[madmumof2]

We were thinking about doing this too. we don't have i phones or anything similar, just standard phones, so I very much doubt they will work over there.

We've got to go to the Walmart near Sanford airport anyway to get a sat nav, and some food, so we'll probably buy a couple there. We have a few days planned where we'll be in different places so they'll be very handy.

 

[sandshal]

Take a look at the website www.tracfone.com - bit tricky to buy online unless you've got a card registered to a us address, but as I say they do sell them all over the place too ........ certainly in Walmart for $20 - $30 dollars. If you search online before you go you can also find lots of codes that double your minutes etc. when you activate the phones.

Well worth the effort - although as a previous poster mentioned - set up the number of the other phone so you know its your own calling - we often got calls for wrong numbers that eat into your credit - you soon learn which ones to ignore and its really not much of an issue.

Sharon