Buying European Sim Cards after arrival

[TFree]

What I have found so far:

 

Tim for Visitors

 

30 Euros (35 at FCO), 4 GB data, 100 minutes talk, Good for 30 days

 

Orange Holiday

 

$50 Amazon, 10 GB data, 120 minutes talk, Good for 14 days*

*can buy top-up for additional 14 days for 10 Euros or 20 Euros

 

Reviews on TIM for Visitors are quite mixed. Orange Holiday seems better except (in my case) for the need to buy a second 14 day period (just seems like another point at which something can go wrong). I am also exploring other sources such as www.cellularabroad.com and www.telestial.com. I still have time so I can fool around with this for awhile.

 

Tom & Judy

 

Just as a follow up to my own message, I have decided to go with the Orange Holiday SIM for my trip, despite the disadvantage that I will have to "recharge" it halfway through my trip to get an additional 14 days.

I have checked reviews of as many of these Sim cards as I have found, and as a general proposition, it seems like they work fine for most people, but for a minority of people there are endless problems reported. No data connection, can't make outgoing calls, data drains way too fast, etc. I have a hard time judging whether these are real problems with the Sim cards, or primarily user error.

I might be kidding myself, but I have become convinced that a plus for the Orange Holiday card is the fact that you are buying the Orange Holiday card directly from Orange USA (through Amazon). Thus you have a more direct link to customer service, if needed, than if you buy a card through some third party vendor.

 

Tom & Judy

[cpl100]

We just returned from Europe yesterday. We purchased Tim cards in Sorrento Italy. We got the 35 Euro plan which included 15 Gb of data and 200 International calling minutes good for 30 days. We were in Europe for 24 days so it was perfect. It also included 5E of free whatever (not sure what it was, but I think it applied when we were in Monaco.) Both dh and I got the cards for our phone. His worked flawlessly the entire trip. My phone decided it did not want to make calls to the USA about 2/3 of the way through the trip (though I could still call his phone). Used mostly for the data anyway but it was a slight annoyance.

 

BTW, note that Monaco is not part of the EU so the rules are not the same there.