"Pay-as-you-go" Cell Phones?

NewfieFan

NewfieFan

Well-Known Member
Hey guys, quick question for ya b/c I'm leaving early Tues. morning (just had to say that!!!:sohappy:)

Is there anywhere on property or at the airport to pick up a cheap phone where you can "pay as you go". My parents have a Virgin one at the moment and they called to see what it would cost to use it on vacation, well, it turns out it won't even work in the US (we live in Canada)! The customer service person that they were talking to said there was a phone that you could pick up in WDW for only $10 and add minutes to it!?! I have no idea if this person knew what they were talking about or not!?! We just need a phone that would be good to use while we are down there. We're a semi-large group traveling together and we'd like to stay in contact. What are my parents options?
 
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NortyUK

NortyUK

New Member
You can get a cheap Virgin Mobile in the Virgin Mega Store at Downtown Disney. Think they were about $20.

I got a T-Mobile one from WalMart for $20 which included $5 airtime about 2 years ago - it has saved me a fortune!

Tom


NewfieFan said:
Hey guys, quick question for ya b/c I'm leaving early Tues. morning (just had to say that!!!:sohappy:)

Is there anywhere on property or at the airport to pick up a cheap phone where you can "pay as you go". My parents have a Virgin one at the moment and they called to see what it would cost to use it on vacation, well, it turns out it won't even work in the US (we live in Canada)! The customer service person that they were talking to said there was a phone that you could pick up in WDW for only $10 and add minutes to it!?! I have no idea if this person knew what they were talking about or not!?! We just need a phone that would be good to use while we are down there. We're a semi-large group traveling together and we'd like to stay in contact. What are my parents options?
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NewfieFan

NewfieFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
NortyUK said:
You can get a cheap Virgin Mobile in the Virgin Mega Store at Downtown Disney. Think they were about $20.

I got a T-Mobile one from WalMart for $20 which included $5 airtime about 2 years ago - it has saved me a fortune!

Tom
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Thank you - I may have to check that out!:wave:
 
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Richard Bruvofe

Richard Bruvofe

Member
You can buy TracFones for $10. You then add minutes to it ($20 for 60 minutes) and these are "real" minutes, so if you ring the person sitting next to you or you ring Canada/UK etc it will all be the same cost.
 
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farmgirl

farmgirl

New Member
Richard Bruvofe said:
You can buy TracFones for $10. You then add minutes to it ($20 for 60 minutes) and these are "real" minutes, so if you ring the person sitting next to you or you ring Canada/UK etc it will all be the same cost.
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We are from Canada as well and are meeting up with some friends down there as well. I was looking at TracFones while vacationing in North Dakota and was wondering if the would have this same brand in Florida or not so thank you I saw it in Walmart so I was hoping so. I have one question about the pay as you go Cell Phones. How do you charge them??? Do they come with a house charger or car charger? Do they take a certain type of battery??? I could not find this info anywhere. Thank You :wave:
 
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Victoria

Victoria

Not old, just vintage.
farmgirl said:
We are from Canada as well and are meeting up with some friends down there as well. I was looking at TracFones while vacationing in North Dakota and was wondering if the would have this same brand in Florida or not so thank you I saw it in Walmart so I was hoping so. I have one question about the pay as you go Cell Phones. How do you charge them??? Do they come with a house charger or car charger? Do they take a certain type of battery??? I could not find this info anywhere. Thank You :wave:
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I believe most of them come with a wall charger just like normal phones do. My grandmother has a TracFone that came with a charger and she used to have a Virgin Mobile phone that had one too.
 
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S

Susan Savia

Well-Known Member
I've had a Trac Phone for a while and it works fine. In the parks, we each carry little hand held radios (clip on) for contact to another member of our party that may be off in another part of the park. They come in quite handy at times.

__________________________

Next Trip - January 2009
 
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Dwarful

Dwarful

Well-Known Member
we did this with our girl scouts..simply because every family had a different cell phone company/ deal. So to keep some families from getting hit with high roaming charges many opted to buy either the Trac Phones or the Net10 phones. The Net10's were Nokia phones that were $30 but came with 300 minutes.
 
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wvdisneyfamily

wvdisneyfamily

Well-Known Member
Susan Savia said:
I've had a Trac Phone for a while and it works fine. In the parks, we each carry little hand held radios (clip on) for contact to another member of our party that may be off in another part of the park. They come in quite handy at times.

__________________________

Next Trip - January 2009
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Do the radios work if you are in different parks?
 
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lac628

lac628

New Member
We tried the walkie talkies several years ago (like 10 yrs) when not everyone had a cell phone. It was the biggest PITA!!!!!!! SOOOO many people had them and there were only so many channels to be shared. We could hear everyone else using the same frequency and it took forever to be able to distinguish your party from all the other people and to get a chance to even speak. It may be very different now, being that soo many people use cell phones, there may not be near as many walkie talkies out there.
 
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Mikester71

Mikester71

Well-Known Member
This thread is a godsend! We are from Canada too and were thinking of bringing walkie talkies down with us. These Trac Phone or Net Phones sound like they may be the way to go. I know we bought these $5 phone cards with minutes on them at the Welcome Center as we crossed into Florida and used them to phone my parents every couple of days from the resort phone in our room. We were thinking of getting them again next March when we go down but these other phones sound so much better now! :sohappy:
 
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farmgirl

farmgirl

New Member
Mikester71 said:
This thread is a godsend! We are from Canada too and were thinking of bringing walkie talkies down with us. These Trac Phone or Net Phones sound like they may be the way to go. I know we bought these $5 phone cards with minutes on them at the Welcome Center as we crossed into Florida and used them to phone my parents every couple of days from the resort phone in our room. We were thinking of getting them again next March when we go down but these other phones sound so much better now! :sohappy:
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Yes we thought we were going to go with the walkie talkies as well but you see so many people in the parks yelling into them bacause they can't hear them and some r yelling that they can't make out what the other party is saying... so when we heard about the TracFones we figured it might be a better idea to give them a try. :)
 
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Mikester71

Mikester71

Well-Known Member
farmgirl said:
Yes we thought we were going to go with the walkie talkies as well but you see so many people in the parks yelling into them bacause they can't hear them and some r yelling that they can't make out what the other party is saying... so when we heard about the TracFones we figured it might be a better idea to give them a try. :)
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If you don't mind me asking, when are you going to WDW? Just figured I'd ask so that you could maybe let me know if these things work out okay for ya! We aren't going until March 2009. :cry: I am just looking them up online here and have a ton of questions on them - haha! :wave:
 
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farmgirl

farmgirl

New Member
Mikester71 said:
If you don't mind me asking, when are you going to WDW? Just figured I'd ask so that you could maybe let me know if these things work out okay for ya! We aren't going until March 2009. :cry: I am just looking them up online here and have a ton of questions on them - haha! :wave:
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No Prob! Yup we will be going in this year so I can report back to this thread when I get back. I am wondering about the reception in the parks. Hope it works good!:)
 
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S

Susan Savia

Well-Known Member
The radios are really only useful for the park your in at the time. (1 to 2 miles probably tops distance). I was near the American Pavilion in Epcot and my husband left something in the car and so I waited while he went all the way back to the car. The radios worked fine at that distance and there was no outside interference on them.

_____________________

Next Trip - January 2009
 
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lac628

lac628

New Member
Also, the other bad thing about the walkie talkies, if you are in MK and you want to talk to the other part of your party that's at the resort, you can't. If you get phones, it doesn't matter where you are, you can still talk.
 
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