TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Do not rely on Rogers cell plan in sxm

Greetings,

Callout to all Canadians... DO NOT RELY ON ROGERS CARIB CELL PLAN!!!

I could hold 10+- mins data for most of my stay on dutch side... then rinse and repeat.. flow, digicel, gsm (usually held data a bit longer), and then they would alll drop... my frequent attempts to connect were drawn out slow... do my internet quick search before alas my connection is lost again. I think french side was more reliable.

Also, i was never able to use the incl cell calls. No luck whatsoever. Text worked though i dont know yet if i was charged more.

Fellow Canadians, i dont have the answer but dont waste your $ on the expensive carib plan... at least not yet.

Psa over.

My Bell plan worked maybe 10% of the time. After 10 days they fixed it and it worked fine. They said they would not charge me the first 10 days

"Roam like home" with Rogers works perfectly for me everywhere I have traveled Never a problem on either side of the island.

Islang gem... interesting.

I gave up on their chatbot... ummm. Because i lost connection???? Ugh!

Never again.

Im now in french territory and rogers works well, though still drops. Id say i get a good hour (not sure after that as i move on).

I only rely on Wi-Fi while in the island. No roaming. My phone is not that important when I'm on vacation. WhatsApp with the kids 3-4 times a day. That's enough for me.

Note: i am referring to the monthly can usa carib plan, not roam like home.

Some of us travel for longer than a month and consider the monthly plan. My warning is that its a waste to lose you canada plan and upgrade to $60 carib free internet txt and call, when two options are unreliable.

Also, most of us prefer secure access as well. Some internet tasks/private calls don't go away on vacation.

I’m with Bell but refuse to pay the “roam like home” version of their plan ($16/day). I turn off data roaming, purchase an eSIM from Ubigi (Best Caribbean - French side only coverage), and use Fongo for free phone calls to/from Canada. If I do happen to need to send a non-iMessage text, I just bite the bullet and pay the 75 cents or whatever it is per text (it doesn’t happen often). We are on island for 10 weeks and only pay $20 to $40 U.S. for the eSIMs. (I just tried, unsuccessfully, to try the Airalo Island Hopper plan. Just fine on the French side but absolutely no coverage on the Dutch side. After 3 days I complained to Airalo and did get a refund, then promptly added the Ubigi plan.)

(Anyone interested in Ubigi can PM me for a 20% discount of your first purchase.)

Has anyone tried this company?? https://www.esim.net/vodafone/travel

I don't think we'll be using our phone much, but I guess it wouldn't hurt to have something for easy access. We'll be there for 6 weeks. I'll be wanting to talk to my mom since she is 84 years old and check in on her periodically. $29 for a month isn't bad.

But after looking into this more it will work in Saint Martin but not Sint Maarten unless you pay more unless I'm reading it wrong. I'll keep looking into it.

Has anyone tried Maya Mobile?

https://maya.net/

I have successfully used a vodaphone esim on dutch side incl a uk phone number two dec ago.... unfortunately, they no longer offer that option.

I did like vodaphone though the esim company i used is named something diff that escapes me.

Thx for airalo update. They were once a contender too.

As mentioned elsewhere, avoid gigsky on dutch side too.

Surely there's an esim that isn't blocked by the powers that be????

So vodaphone doesn't work on the Dutch side, and if you get airalo island hopper that doesn't work.

But airalo does have a plan just for the Dutch side and I'm wondering if that would be a better plan since it is geared toward the Dutch side??? I'm not going to pay $13 or more $ a day for something like this, so my Verizon plan is out.

Did I see that Ubigi might work on the Dutch side? I'll check into it.

Okay, Ubigi does not have the Dutch side listed either. It has tons of islands and many more places, but not the Dutch side of the island. Does anyone know why this is?? Vodaphone, Ubigi ? French but not Dutch. Interesting.

Google searches show Gigsky as one of the options. It shows the Dutch side on their plan. What is wrong with this option? I am from the US and it shows this as a US option. Does it matter where you are from and the type of phone you have?

A phone is not on my top 100 things I need, but if I can find an esim carrier for a good price, I'm going to try it. If it works it works, if not, I'm fine. I will look for a refund though, since I'm a cheapo kind of guy. LOL>

I agree with what you said.

I used Airalo (sp) last year and purchased a 120 day talk and text plan. I found that I could call out but when people tried to call the number back they recieved an error message. This year I boughtthe Canadian Freedom mobile plan but it only connects to towers on the French side.