Desire Resort Forums

So looking for the best way to maintain my cell phone service while down at Pearl...

Any suggestions on the least expensive way to keep our cell service while down in Mexico?

TIA

Call Verizon and add Mexico for the time you are there. Be sure to use the wifi for data though....

Depends on how much you will use the phone to communicate with home.

Personally, we reserve the use of phone calls for emergencies only, which are $.1.99 per minute with Verizon and no special arrangements before leaving home other than to set cellular settings to Roaming only. We communicate with family (who are also using Apple iphones) through Messaging, so there is no charge for that as long as we use email addresses instead of phone numbers (blue vs green). If you message from an iPhone to a non-iPhone (green) the charge is $.05 to receive a message and $.50 to send a message. Not bad.

Because our settings on the phone for Data are also ROAMING ONLY we are careful to not use any data from the phone.... very expensive. For internet, email, etc. we use our iPad with WiFi....no charge and good connection most of the time. Walk to lobby area if connection is sketchy.

You can set up International settings through Verizon before leaving home if you anticipate a lot of calls. Not sure what the charges are for that. Your nearest Verizon store will help you.

In multiple trips we have never incurred unexpected charges through Verizon.

I'll have to check, but it seems like we added Mexico for $20-30 last year....

I realize you are asking about Verizon, however those with Tmobile will have no issues with the wi-fi calling feature. We were at Pearl last month and it worked great.....very clear and no additional cost!

We had Verizon last year and remember having good coverage, just call them and add the plan for a month.

I think we've looked at every possible angle on this. Have Verizon as well ... so one other thought for you. If you're a heavy data user and don't want to rely on resort WiFi, think about a "local" SIM card. You can get one sent to you in the US before you fly to Mexico, and it can come with US number forwarding - essentially letting you forward your incoming Verizon number calls to the Mexico SIM. The SIM will come with a few GB of data and more voice minutes than you are likely to use over a defined time period like 14 or 30 days. The whole thing is designed for travelers.

A little more complicated than adding the Verizon "Mexico" plan people are referencing above for sure, but if you need a large amount of data, the Verizon route gets very expensive quickly. We've done it a couple times through a company called Mexico Sim Card (catchy/creative I know). Their service was very good. Feel free to PM me if you want more info.

eddieandjojo wrote:I realize you are asking about Verizon, however those with Tmobile will have no issues with the wi-fi calling feature. We were at Pearl last month and it worked great.....very clear and no additional cost!

We had Verizon last year and remember having good coverage, just call them and add the plan for a month.

Can anyone kindly tell me how to use the "wi-fi calling feature" on a T-mobile iphone? We are going to Pearl this May, need to find out how to communicate with kids at home.

I have AT&T Android phone. How does it work too?

Thanks a lot!!

Tmobile wi-fi calling is quite simple if you have a newer smartphone (I have a Samsung Galaxy S5), it's in your settings and all you have to do is put the phone in airplane mode first (so you get no data/roaming charges), then enable your wi-fi connection and find the resorts signal. Once connected you'll be able to get on the web, send/receive text messages and send/receive calls......btw the signal at Pearl was very strong just about anywhere!

Important tip - if you Skype the kids, remeber to cover up.....we had a friend have an accidental slip of her swin suit cover and one of the kids asked why she was topless.....LOL!

dreamtrip wrote:Can anyone kindly tell me how to use the "wi-fi calling feature" on a T-mobile iphone?
Thanks a lot!!

Update, my beautiful wife has an iphone 6 and here are the steps to follow:
1 - utilities, settings, phone, wi-fi calls and slide the allow wi-fi calls button to the right.
2 - in settings, activate airplane mode
3 - place your call normally.....

You should see an airplane icon, tmobile and wi-fi in the top left corner of your display! Hope that works for you....my advice would be to try it now so you can get comfortable with the steps before hitting the resort.

eddieandjojo wrote:Important tip - if you Skype the kids, remeber to cover up.....we had a friend have an accidental slip of her swin suit cover and one of the kids asked why she was topless.....LOL!

Eddie, thank you so much for your quick detailed reply. We are surely going to try it out today on both our phones.

Talking on phone, do you know couples going to Desire have their stand-along cameras, or use the camera on their smart phone for their pictures?

And, just wonder how your friend told her kids where daddy and mommy going for their Desire vacation. We have 7 and 9 at home. Since we are not going to tell anyone around us where we are going, I am quite sure our kids will ask several times a day why daddy mommy not take them with. This will be the first time we leave them behind to enjoy our couple life.

Thank you again!!

eddieandjojo wrote:

dreamtrip wrote:Can anyone kindly tell me how to use the "wi-fi calling feature" on a T-mobile iphone?
Thanks a lot!!

Update, my beautiful wife has an iphone 6 and here are the steps to follow:
1 - utilities, settings, phone, wi-fi calls and slide the allow wi-fi calls button to the right.
2 - in settings, activate airplane mode
3 - place your call normally.....

You should see an airplane icon, tmobile and wi-fi in the top left corner of your display! Hope that works for you....my advice would be to try it now so you can get comfortable with the steps before hitting the resort.

Does this method work with iPhone6 with Verizon? Are the phone calls 'no charge' using the wifi?

We are on verizon with an iphone 6 and a 6+. Having been to DP in late February we can verify this worked very well for us and is similar to eddieandjojo's advice with tmobile.

-place phone in airplane mode (by placing phone in airplane mode you are guaranteeing that you are not "roaming" and using something other than the resorts wifi)
-make sure wifi is on in settings
-place calls with facetime audio
-if calling a non iphone, use google voice, viber or some other such voip. There are a million of them. Some of them, such as viber, the party you are calling must have the app. We just used facetime audio to call other iphones and google voice to call non iphones. I did triple check each time I called that I was using facetime AUDIO and not just regular facetime.

D&J

drleen wrote:We are on verizon with an iphone 6 and a 6+. Having been to DP in late February we can verify this worked very well for us and is similar to eddieandjojo's advice with tmobile.

-place phone in airplane mode (by placing phone in airplane mode you are guaranteeing that you are not "roaming" and using something other than the resorts wifi)
-make sure wifi is on in settings
-place calls with facetime audio
-if calling a non iphone, use google voice, viber or some other such voip. There are a million of them. Some of them, such as viber, the party you are calling must have the app. We just used facetime audio to call other iphones and google voice to call non iphones. I did triple check each time I called that I was using facetime AUDIO and not just regular facetime.

D&J

excuse me for sounding dumb, but what is the benefit of using Facetime audio as opposed to regular calling? is there a benefit in cost?

greatadventure wrote:

drleen wrote:We are on verizon with an iphone 6 and a 6+. Having been to DP in late February we can verify this worked very well for us and is similar to eddieandjojo's advice with tmobile.

-place phone in airplane mode (by placing phone in airplane mode you are guaranteeing that you are not "roaming" and using something other than the resorts wifi)
-make sure wifi is on in settings
-place calls with facetime audio
-if calling a non iphone, use google voice, viber or some other such voip. There are a million of them. Some of them, such as viber, the party you are calling must have the app. We just used facetime audio to call other iphones and google voice to call non iphones. I did triple check each time I called that I was using facetime AUDIO and not just regular facetime.

D&J

excuse me for sounding dumb, but what is the benefit of using Facetime audio as opposed to regular calling? is there a benefit in cost?

Not a dumb question at all. FaceTime audio uses the resort wifi (free) while a regular call uses a cellular connection which depending on your plan, will cost a per minute fee. We had very good luck with FaceTime audio as far as call quality.

D&J

drleen wrote:

greatadventure wrote:

drleen wrote:We are on verizon with an iphone 6 and a 6+. Having been to DP in late February we can verify this worked very well for us and is similar to eddieandjojo's advice with tmobile.

-place phone in airplane mode (by placing phone in airplane mode you are guaranteeing that you are not "roaming" and using something other than the resorts wifi)
-make sure wifi is on in settings
-place calls with facetime audio
-if calling a non iphone, use google voice, viber or some other such voip. There are a million of them. Some of them, such as viber, the party you are calling must have the app. We just used facetime audio to call other iphones and google voice to call non iphones. I did triple check each time I called that I was using facetime AUDIO and not just regular facetime.

D&J

excuse me for sounding dumb, but what is the benefit of using Facetime audio as opposed to regular calling? is there a benefit in cost?

Not a dumb question at all. FaceTime audio uses the resort wifi (free) while a regular call uses a cellular connection which depending on your plan, will cost a per minute fee. We had very good luck with FaceTime audio as far as call quality.

D&J

that is great to know! thx so much for the info!! oes the same thing hold true with regular facetime as well, or just facetime audio?