mobile phones/keeping in touch

[sugarcup]

Going for first tijme in 4 weeks, me, husband & 2 children 8 & 11. We frequently split up on holiday and would normally text each other but rates seem astronomic. I think I've heard people say they buy cheap mobiles especially to use whilst there and also they buy 'walkie talkies'. Anyone offer more info plse. I've trawled back thru 4 pages of threads and cant find anything.
Thanks

 

[DISWolves]

Going for first tijme in 4 weeks, me, husband & 2 children 8 & 11. We frequently split up on holiday and would normally text each other but rates seem astronomic. I think I've heard people say they buy cheap mobiles especially to use whilst there and also they buy 'walkie talkies'. Anyone offer more info plse. I've trawled back thru 4 pages of threads and cant find anything.
Thanks

I have used walkie talkies in the past.....try to get ones with at least 8Km specified range. This is in an ideal flat space, but I find that my 8Km ones just about work at the extremes of Magic Kingdom. All depends on buildings and line of sight etc. Also if you buy them in UK - I am not sure if the frequency of these are illegal for public use in USA. We got our rechargeable ones from Walmart

 

[Donald D Duck]

When we were there in December we picked up AT&T phones from Walmart.

They were $30 but they included $15 of credit each. You can then select which tariff you wanted and we picked the $1 a day and then you have unlimited calls to other AT&T phones. We had one and the in-laws got one so we could phone each other whenever we wanted and the couple of days we didn't use it meant we have enough credit for the odd text message.

When we got them they did a Nokia phone but this is the one they are currently doing on the deal it seems

http://www.walmart.com/ip/AT-T-GoPhone-A137-Samsung/11084522#ProductDetail

 

[wayneg]

On Vodafone contract we pay 35p/text in US, (49p for PAYG)
When we went with friends a few years ago we used texts the whole 3 weeks, we found we pre-arranged times to meet and where we were going to be so text was only used if we were late etc. cost us no more than £5 over the 3 weeks. Certainly not worth us buying anything else out there.

 

[swift]

Can I just check - you pay to send a text but the other person doesn't have to pay to receive it, even if you are both abroad? So each text will only cost 40p (or whatever your network charges). That doesn't seem too bad. I'll probably do that, rather than buy phones over there.

 

[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 THESE and have to say they worked a treat. Texting and phone calls all paid for in advance, plus there was 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.
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.