Cell Phone

[Friendly Cruiser101]

In May 07 we are going on a Trans-Atlantic cruise on the Galaxy from San Juan to Rome. Port of Calls is St. Maarten, Agadir Morocco, Casablanca, Barcelona, Nice (Villefranche), Rome plus 3 extra days in Rome.

Does anyone have information on cell phone rental, buying a phone, or a sim card or cell phone reception? I would like to sneak away and call the girlfriend, no just kidding, what to call the kids and grandchild.

[greeneg]

Two years ago, I bought a multi country SIM card from Telestial ( http://www.telestial.com ) and had it work very well. Be aware that it requires an "unocked" GSM phone; most US phones are not unlocked out of the box and some providers may not provide that service.

 

Hope that helos.

[tuggers]

Cingular and TMobile use GSM phones which means you can buy a Sim card to replace the American Sim card and call from Europe at much lower rates. You will need to secure unlock codes from your carrier before leaving the US. this is your cheapest option.

Sprint and Verizon will rent you a phone usable in Europe for a weekly or monthly fee plus a charge for your minutes.

If you are not going to be gone very long you may find it more economical to buy phone cards and just dial from a pay phone. Unless language is a barrier.

Most expensive option is just to buy an unlocked GSM phone from a third party phone seller and then you can use it whenever you are in Europe.

Good Luck!!

[calberry]

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=514615

 

Here's a similar discussion on a different thread that might provide some different information.

 

Good luck.

 

Steve

[bigwally]

"unocked" GSM phone; most US phones are not unlocked out of the box and some providers may not provide that service

 

Unlocked tri or quad band phone. Many US phones are only dual band 850/1900, neither of which are compatible with Europe where 900/1800 is used.

 

On a tri-band phone you typically get 900/1800/1900, which will be good for Europe and a majority of the US. 850 is an older system, but is now coming back into vogue in an efford to expand domestic coverage.

[Jim_Iain]

I found out something that might be of interest. With Cingular if you have had your service with Cingular for X amount of time (I believe it is 6 months) You can call and they will fill in an application to their tech support folks to get your phone's unlock code. It takes approximetly 1 week. Worked for me on a HW6515.