Communicating with friends in parks, other than our mobiles any ideas ????

[madhatters]

Hiya, we will be at WDW in August. We are travelling with another family, just speaking to my DH about how we are going to contact them if seperated while in the parks, or maybe meeting up later etc, he looked at me with raised eyebrows and said "well mobiles of course" but am I right in thinking this will cost us a fortune. Have any of you any great ideas ? what do you use while in WDW ? Thanks

 

[MarkF0wle]

In the past we've taken small walkie talkies with us that clip to a belt or a waistband that is barely any bigger than a mobile. If we were going to split up each group had one each. Then if we couldn't find each other we just radio'ed.

 

[Mrs Doubtfire]

We too have used walkie talkies - I have read on here that others have bought cheap USA phones from Wal-Mart and that they can work out not too bad.

Hopefully someone will post.

 

[wayneg]

We tried Walkie Talkies but mainly on the ships when DS was younger, not in the parks. We found they were not great, maybe some are better than others.

When going with friends we have always arranged meeting points and times then text on UK phones if we were going to be late or change plans, rarely needed to text, costs about 50p/text but check your operators website for latest prices.

Some get the US phones form Walmart, never done that myself, wouldn't use them enough.

Are you going with Virgin Holidays? they have started a new system where they send you a phone (£7 P&P) to take away, costs 29p/min for international calls or 15p/text. http://www1.forumtel.com/Tour-operators-&-Travel-agents

 

[Elise79]

We bought cheap AT&T Go Phones in Best Buy for $20 each which included $15 credit as we spilt up a lot as DD was under 40" so we used rider swap but it meant that we weren't tided to waiting in one place.

We chose the simple rate plan which was $0.10 a min for calls and $0.20 for texts.

My UK mobile was going to cost me £1/min to make calls and £0.70/min to receive and think texts were £0.50 to make and receive!

 

[irisheyes123]

I have a tracfone got it walmart cost me just under $10 for the phone I have been using them for a few years now It cost me $20 per phone for top up card gives 60 Minutes. I think you get 3 text messages per Minute you get 20 Minutes on the phone when you buy it but the phone needs to be registered.. It works out for me as I travel over a few times a year .. Just another thing both phones get charged per Minute when used for phone calls so we just text each other.

 

[wayneg]

My UK mobile was going to cost me £1/min to make calls and £0.70/min to receive and think texts were £0.50 to make and receive!

Costs to recieve calls but never been charged to receive a text.

 

[juliebro]

DS and I are both on O2 and I was told last year by one of their engineers that if you text O2 to O2, they don't know that one or both of you are abroad, so you don't get any additional charges.

We've texted each other from different countries since then e.g. mainland Europe to/from UK, US to/from UK and not been charged any extra at all.

 

[distech]

Have you considered renting carrier pigeons?

 

[madhatters]

DS and I are both on O2 and I was told last year by one of their engineers that if you text O2 to O2, they don't know that one or both of you are abroad, so you don't get any additional charges.

We've texted each other from different countries since then e.g. mainland Europe to/from UK, US to/from UK and not been charged any extra at all.

My DH and the other family have O2 contracts, so I will check this out thanks

 

[juliebro]

My DH and the other family have O2 contracts, so I will check this out thanks

I was told this 'unofficially' - so you may not be able to check it out with O2 themselves i.e. they may not be prepared to own up to this!

 

[wayneg]

DS and I are both on O2 and I was told last year by one of their engineers that if you text O2 to O2, they don't know that one or both of you are abroad, so you don't get any additional charges.

We've texted each other from different countries since then e.g. mainland Europe to/from UK, US to/from UK and not been charged any extra at all.

Mobile companies know exactly where you are as the calls have to be connected thru a local mobile company, 02 don't operate in the US so the texts/calls are routed thru a US company who the charge 02 for use.
Never used O2 abroad, would be good if there is some kind of glitch in the system to avoid charges here are their official rates for roaming.
O2 are never going to admit to free use abroad.

http://www.o2international.co.uk/standardrate_and_data.aspx

 

[juliebro]

Can absolutely assure you that we have used O2 to O2 many many times over the past year (UK to/from US and Europe) and never been charged extra for a single text.

We were looking into the best option for DS to keep in touch with his GF in Austria and I spoke to an engineer at O2 who told me that he shouldn't really be advising me to do this but that the best idea was to get DH to send his GF an O2 simcard (enabled for use in Europe) so he could text her using his allowances with no extra charges. The engineer explained that for O2 to O2 their billing system did not know what country the phones were in.

 

[catherine]

Are you going with Virgin Holidays? they have started a new system where they send you a phone (£7 P&P) to take away, costs 29p/min for international calls or 15p/text. http://www1.forumtel.com/Tour-operators-&-Travel-agents

Wayne have you seen this on Virgin's web site? We're pretty interested in this offer, but can't seem to find any info about it on the Virgin Holidays site!

 

[wayneg]

Wayne have you seen this on Virgin's web site? We're pretty interested in this offer, but can't seem to find any info about it on the Virgin Holidays site!

Not seen anything about it myself.
I posted this about it in March http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2676147&highlight=forumtel

Thread about it on the Dibb including some that have come home after using them. http://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=491159

 

[Loftus]

It used to be, and still is if you are on an old tariff, that O2 would deduct 4 texts from your allowance for every text you sent from abroad. If you never got near using your allowance this would explain them being "free".
They no longer offer this.
I don't think O2 wouldn't know your phone was abroad for the reasons Wayne mentions.

 

[catherine]

Not seen anything about it myself.
I posted this about it in March http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2676147&highlight=forumtel

Thread about it on the Dibb including some that have come home after using them. http://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=491159

Thanks Wayne! I think that I'll phone Virgin and find out if we can get a couple of the phones!

 

[Pegasus928]

We went as a group of 8, but knew that we would be splitting up into 3 groups at times - sometimes at different parks and areas altogether.
We bought 3 of the LG Net10 from a seller on ebay and have to say they worked a treat. They cost around $36 each and came with 300 minutes per handset. There were even enough days left on them for some friends of our to take them the following month and use them as well. Setting them up was also very easy - just by following the instructions that come with it - and DW did that on the way to the park on our first morning.
We have bought the walkie-talkies in the past and can't speak low enough of them. They cost us about $30 from Walmart and had loads of diferent frequencies on them, but it always seemed that everyone else in the park also had them and most of them were on the same frequency as us.

 

[gaylee]

Last year we used walkie talkies but found they weren't that great. A few days into our trip we got 2 cheap mobiles from a gas station (I'm pretty certain they were only $20 each and they were loaded with $10 credit). Calls from one mobile to the other were free and I think it cost 10cents per text. Leaving a voicemail and retrieving it cost money. They were great and we've decided again that we will do that again.

 

[juliebro]

It used to be, and still is if you are on an old tariff, that O2 would deduct 4 texts from your allowance for every text you sent from abroad. If you never got near using your allowance this would explain them being "free".
They no longer offer this.
I don't think O2 wouldn't know your phone was abroad for the reasons Wayne mentions.

Totally understand people's scepticism on this. DH has just double-checked DS's online O2 bill for the time that we were in Florida recently. All texts to my phone were just deducted from his allowance. During that same period all texts he sent to his girlfriend's phone (she is in Austria) were charged as texts to an overseas number and not as part of his allowance.

I don't have anything to gain by misleading anyone on this!