Keeping in touch with kids at home

[g and j]

We will need to be in contact with home. Have Verizon phones. Can we stay in contact with the states with our normal plan or will we need an international plan?

[CokeMann]

You will have to turn on International roaming then your phones will work from Mexico.

[Miacpl30]

Download Skype on iphone and call directly when u are in wifi. Worked at RM last month

[HappyKid]

Skype is the best and cheapest way

read this post
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=2863

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HappyKid
allways a kid at hart

[Newd]

I have T-Mobile and this is what I did:

I called T-Mobile to unlock my cell phone. T mobile did this for free.

Went into a Telcel store customer service center (Atencion a clientes) and bought a Mexico/Telcel SIM card for 100 pesos. This will give you a temporary cell phone # in Mexico. (We did this in Playa del Carmen as we headed to Tulum straight from the airport and passed right by the Telcel service center in Playa.)

I then added a 1.5 GB data plan and some voice time. This cost, IIRC, about $30US. I believe you have 2 weeks to use this data/voice.

I downloaded "localphone" to my phone. I entered my Mexico SIM telephone number as my contact number on localphone app.

I "rented" a local number in the U.S. near where family would be calling. I think it is $1 per month. I then added like $5 to the localphone account in order to place "outbound" calls from Mexico to the U.S. Outbound localphone calls are like 1/3 penny per minute from Mexico to theU.S. 1 dollar buys you 300 minutes.

I then forwarded my T-Mobile calls to my and my wife's phone to the rented localphone U.S. number. Localphone then forwarded my calls to the Mexican/Telcel SIM phone number Those calls then rang through to my cell phone.

In the span of 9 days, we spent probably.... 2 hours talking to kids or people back home. For just about $50 or less. You compare that to what your cell carrier is going to charge you, and it's pretty hefty.

*note* : We stayed at multiple hotels/resorts while in Quintana Roo. Several charged a hefty amount to have WiFi or data in our room. We also wanted access to the internet and navigation while we drove around. I set my phone up to be a WiFi hotspot and my wife ran her phone WiFi off of it and our MacBook off it, too.

I am not sure this works ends up being a great deal if you plan on being at one resort, aren't travelling around needing navigtion, etc. and have access to WiFi constantly. if you are fine with the WiFi in the lobby, than Skype is probably your best bet.

I only suggest this because, for what we were looking for, it was FAR cheaper than using a domestic U.S. carrier's overseas "plan". For $50, we got 1.5 GB of data (in 9 days, we only used 1.1 GB and that was trying to burn through it by using Spotify/Pandora/iheartradio in our rooms), nearly unlimited local calls in Quintana Roo (didn't use this much at all) or calls to our phone (forwarded from home cell numbers through localphone). We almost always had internet access. $50 on T-Mobile doesn't get you many voice minutes and I can't imagine Verizon is much different. However, using our approach, we got nearly limitless outbound calls and as much 3G highspeed data as we could use in a 9 day stay.

If you have any questions, ask away!

[CokeMann]

I have T-Mobile and this is what I did: ..............................................

Wow talk about patience and well researched !!

However for the rest of us that have no patience, I do have a simple alternative solution if you want to keep your telephone costs under control

There are a number of local companies in Cancun that provide low cost cell phone rental with fixed international per minute rates that will will allow you to call anywhere in Mexico, the United States, United Kingdom, Canada or Europe.

Here is how it works:
You pay an initial $10.00 rental cell phone reserve and setup fee
All calls are charged at $0.69 cents of USD per minute, with a $5.00 per day minimum

So for example if you where to rent for 5 days it would cost you a total of $30.00 USD and during those 5 days you could use up to 42 minutes of calls home.
Obviously if you talk more than 42 minutes during that 5 day period you would pay an additional $0.69 cents of USD per minute.

If this interests you here is a link to one of the very reputable companies that provides this Cell Rental Service

[Gunnert]

We just use our Verizon cell phones... for $15.00 you can add 1000 minutes a month to/from Mexico/Canada. We have family in Canada so we keep the service all the time. Don't know if it's available for month-month...

[Newd]

We just use our Verizon cell phones... for $15.00 you can add 1000 minutes a month to/from Mexico/Canada. We have family in Canada so we keep the service all the time. Don't know if it's available for month-month...

That's a fabulous price.

Wish T-Mobile offered that.

Is there anything similar for data?