Walkie talkies in parks

[eliza61]

Getting ready for my upcoming wdw vacation (actually I was ready about 11 months ago, but we won't talk about that) and I was wondering if I could get a little feedback from other folks.

We're heading down 8/23 and my DS who are 13 & 15 want to excercise a little independance this trip. I was thinking of picking up a set of walkie talkies and this way they could go their separate ways (well separate from DH & myself, they have to stay together) once we hit the park.

Has anyone used them in the parks? Do they get good range? Any particular park that this might not be a good idea? I've seen them sold in packs of 2, and they were not that expensive so I would get 2 packs and eveyone one have one.

As always thanks for your help,

Eliza

 

[bluejasmine]

We use two way radios that have an 8 mile range.. You just have to find a channel that doesnt have a whole lot of other ppl on it otherwise you will hear everyone esles conversations and it can get confusing.. They seemed to work pretty well, there were a few times that they didnt work, I think it was in The Land I was trying to find my DS and kept calling him on the radio he said he never heard me and then once around Splash Mt. Most of the time they were very handy, I bought mine at Walmart it was a set of two with the base charger for $19.99

 

[salmoneous]

Tons of people use walkie-talkies in the park. Which tells you two things...

1) They do work
2) You are going to have problems getting a clear channel.

The crosstalk isn't a huge deal - presumably you won't be discussing state secrets. But, if you have them, cell phones work even better.

 

[missminniemouse]

Get the type of walkie talkies with sub-channels. We've used ours numerous times over the years and never had any problem with anyone being on the same channel and sub-channel as we were on. As for range, it seems to vary depending on the amount of structures that are around.

 

[discraz]

We tried some.(borrowed) We only used them in Mk and AK. They didn't work in MK. I think the problem there was too many building, too close together. At AK, they seem to work ok but not great.
I think next time I will use my cell phone and just pay the roaming. It shouldn't be too expensive if I only call one or two times a day for very short periods. Probably will come out less money than going and buying new walkie talkies.

 

[toocooltobeMom]

I have used the walkie-talkies in the World a few times. Occassionally, you would get crossed with others even with sub-channels and more. We will be using our cell phones this upcoming trip. Most mobile services offer free mobile to mobile talk so it will cost you nothing
You are going to having DH all for yourself. Yours boys will go I have 2 DS (16 and 14)

ENJOY

 

[Praying Colonel]

We used them the last time we went and they worked OK when we were relatively close to one another, which may say more about the $19 Wal-Mart specials we used.

This time we'll have several cell phones and hope cell coverage works better than our walkie-talkies did.

 

[dhcoffey]

Our cell phones don't work down there at all, so we use walkie talkies with our kids. They each have one just in case we get separated. We've had no problems with them down there. We got them at Wal-Mart, I think $30 for two with base charger, they do have the sub-channels. I think they work fine for what they are for.

 

[jensen]

We tried the cheap $19 Wal-mart walkies and they only worked OK - we had a lot of other people on the same line as us and they really only worked when we were pretty close together. They did not work if I was in a building and DH was outside - such as The Living Seas or The Land. I agree that cell phones would be your best bet.

 

[sjms71]

We also use 2 way radios in park. Not sure how much you want to spend but ours have a vibrate mode. Which makes it nice because if you can't hear it ring it will vibrate.

 

[JulielovesDisney]

My parents are letting me and my two friends go off on the parks by ourselves this upcoming trip, and we are just using cell phones. I plan on sending a text message if we need to talk to somebody, just incase they are on a ride. That way they aren't interrupted by an annoying ringtone. Then they can call when they are off of the ride.

 

[JerseyGirl114]

We brought them last time because we didn't know if our cell phones would work & since we already owned them it wasn't a big deal.
Anyway, they worked great, and we let the kids use them because there were 13 of us there the last time. Since there was some traffic they had "code names" but not Disney themed. They had a good time with them and sometimes just listening to other conversations passed the time on the lines

 

[eeyoreiscool]

We took some once and wound up not using them because we couldn't find a channel where people weren't always talking. It was fun listening to some of the conversations because there were multiple families trying to coordinate something and no one could figure out where to go.