TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Verizon cell service.

Good Afternoon,
Question- Is anyone having a hard time with cell service through Verizon. When a friend called Verizon about being in SXM they were told there was no service .
Can you let me know if this is just "fake news" LOL

Thank you,

fake. use it every trip!! yes sometimes there are issues but we can still run our business from SXM using our Verizon cell

Well, yes there is cell service thru verizon, just roaming, unless they have subscribe to an international plan... There is also wifi calling if they have set it up and they have decent wifi.... We have it where we are, so.............. so Fake news yes, because they are not doing correctly... have them do it correctly and it will work like a charm.

Have both made and received calls, with wifi, so tell them to do it correctly and it will work without a problem.

Thank you for your quick response. I will let them know. They aren't on the island yet but tried to call Verizon about cell service and that is what they told them.
Have a great day

You can text "Global to 4004' with Verizon to open up global calling, and it has worked for us in the past on St. Maarten. Even worked on St. Barth's. I think every time you use it once it's on your phone you'll be charged something like $5 or $10, but beware that if you receive your e-mails on your Verizon plan that also triggers a payment for that day (just not incoming and outgoing phone calls). You might want to Google this with Verizon to see what the plan is presently.

Do not rely on what Verizon told them.... $10 per day, last I remember for international.... and If they turn their phones on with that plan, and receive ONE text, then the $10 starts................ not positive as that is not what we do....

No charge is better.............. what are their needs?? Makes a difference.

Hate seeing people spending for nothing that they do not need.

Like I said, we have no fee US calling with WIFI. But we also have a SXM phone if we want.

from Verizon's own site, "pay as you go" talk rate is $1.79/min (Texts = $.50 send/$.05 receive, MMS= $.25) in St. Maarten (Netherland Antilles), St. Martin, and St. Barth

Verizon International Roaming Rates

if you think you'll be using your phone a lot, you can sign up for Travel Pass for $10/day, with no per minute charges or data usage charges

Verizon Travel Pass - $10/Day

then of course if you're on wifi, you can use WiFi Calling for free, which allows your phone to act as if you're in the US....calls to/from US are free, but calls to/from SXM will be billed at the "pay as you go" rates linked to above

Last trip I turned off “cellular data”. Kept my phone on so incoming calls and texts could come in. I just waited to be on WiFi to respond if it wasn’t important. Was down for 6 days and I had zero extra charges. I could have triggered the 10 a day and use data but didn’t need to. And Global roaming was on, but as long as I didn’t dial or text there is no charge. It’s taken forever for me to figure it out!!!!

This is very helpful information as I'll be there tomorrow and have Verizon. Thank you!

the key to avoiding big unexpected charges (especially without an international calling plan) is to always have Date Roaming turned off....on an iPhone this setting is found under: Settings-Cellular-Cellular Data Options....this way you don't have to worry about remembering to completely turn off/on Cellular Data each time you travel

we've never had a problem with unexpected data charges during our yearly trips to caribbean and europe...for voice calls, we either use WiFi Calling, pay the roaming per minute rates, or buy a local SIM

We have carried our island phone with us when we leave the villa. We leave our US phones here, and have them set on WIFI and airplane mode and leave them there. Hopefully we should have no problems. Will report when we get home.

IslandBoi - that’s exactly what we do. Not a single charge except when. My son decided to call my island number from the states! Cha Ching!! Carol - if you have a newer iPhone (I don’t know about any other kind but it can be done with androids etc) and want the convenience of it, you can have your US number turned into a “e-chip” and then insert your sim into your phone. I have one phone I carry. When I want to dial I have the option of setting which line. But by keeping “cellular data” off I’m not charged unless I answer texts or speak on my US phone line. And I can keep it on in the states so if someone needs to Call me from the island they can as well. But being able to just switch lines is great to make reservations etc.

starting with the iPhone XS/XR, eSIM / Dual SIM is supported as long as your mobile service provider supports eSIM....shocked to hear such a cutting-edge feature mentioned on this site

Info on eSIM & Dual SIM w/ iPhone

bahahaha!!! Yup! Heck I’m impressed at 53 I figured it out!

Kim--Like I said, I'm happy to just carry the island phone when we leave the 'house', and leave our good phones here..

When we went in April we wanted/needed data where ever we were (such as at Cupecoy and other places on the beach) so we went with a monthly plan on Verizon. They had two options, one at $100 per month but we went with the larger option which was about $120 per month if I remember correctly. It worked pretty well for us, and while that is probably a lot to many people per phone it made our lives much better and allowed us to relax with a reliable ability to work remote.

Cheers,
T

Yep. Airplane mode and wifi calling. No charges for us in a months time. No problem sending or receiving texts. Used video calling too.