TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums British Virgin Islands contacting my kids at home

ok-
so I AM a ding dong, and know almost nothing about cell phones and sim cards. I have ATT cell service and do have/can bring a tablet with us.
tricky thing is, I have two young kids that I am leaving at home. I need to contact them daily. what are my best options? (please use basic terms!)
I don't really need the CHEAPEST option, just the EASIEST and most effective.

We used skype...put $10. On the account and made phone calls thru the skype account as long as we had wifi...hardly cost anything for the calls..made them almost daily

Call AT&T and get an international plan. Easiest option. Might not be cheapest, but definitely user friendly.

thanks!
what is going to be more "available" in the islands? Skype or ATT cellular? (we will be going to Anegada)

ATT international plan will be 50 cents/minute plus taxes. Not the cheapest, but easiest. You can set this up on the ATT website.

Or as stated above..

Download the skype app for your phone or tablet or both, you call from your phone/tablet to a landline. If you call to another tablet you can see each other. But the video really slows down the connection.

Many places on Anegada have wifi, you can setup Skype before you go and use it before you go. Calling via Skype to a house phone will be about 6 cents/minute, but as stated above you will need to setup a skype credit. Calling to another device will be free.

The easiest option is to just hit CALL and pay as much as your mortgage when you get home. But we also have AT&T and opt to get their roaming package. I typically don't make any calls, so I do it more for the data roaming and texting. Click here for their plans If you decide to go that route, the best option is to go into a store and find your friendliest rep. Have them set it up so it activates right after your next billing cycle and then have them schedule it to automatically drop after your trip. So you don't forget and get hit for 2-months. If you're also not familiar with your phone's data roaming settings, you may want to get them to show you a few things on the hardware. I believe the Skype option is good, but I personally prefer to shut off my phone and then just catch up when we're taking showers at night, etc. Instead of having to fight the internet and talking over people at the bar on their 10th painkiller. I prefer to be that person at the bar on their 10th painkiller and then call later.

BTW, since we don't do much calling, we get the $30 AT&T plan. This provides plenty of data for the minimal things we do over a week to check email and post a few Facebook pics. You'll have to run the numbers based on your expected usage to see if the $30 plan @ $1.00/minute calling or the $60 plan @ $0.50/minute is the best route. Others will say that is much more expensive than the LIME or other services, which is true. But it's easy to set up before the trip and then just run with it when you land. Good luck!

mayjong, it really depends on how long you have yo talk to your kids and the sitter everyday. If money is not an issue stay with AT&T and you will be fine. Lime is great, we mostly use it to call friends in BVI, restaurants, marinas, and unfortunately chandleries. Twenty bucks of Lime last us a month, it's about .35 a minute to the U.S

mayjong,

Are you only interested in talking to the kids daily (don't need to browse the web or read emails and such)? Does the place you are staying have wifi available? Will you be staying on Anegada the entire trip?

Wifi FaceTime

IF you are using an iPhone, one of the easiest ways is to as the above post states and just FaceTime when you have a Wifi connection. However, that is dependent on your children (their keeper for the week) having an iPhone and/or iOS device on their end as well. We FaceTime our kids when we are gone. It's free with a Wifi connection and works just as good as a phone call.

We face timed while down there a couple of times. Just need WIFI. Otherwise, a phone was provided with the boat so we just put 20 bucks on the Account and used it everyday to call home and check on kids. Easy peasy!

Back in the day, I'd get a phone card at the grocery and call home from the pay phones. These days when I call my kids they text back "Whaaat?"

ATT works most everywhere with international roaming. Call ATT, turn it on for a month and turn it off. You can even call after your trip and they'll do that for you. Data, not so much. We turn data roaming off on our ATT phones. One of our friends got a $XXX bill for a weekend of data roaming. That's one of the reasons we bought a Digicel router for de boat.

Cheers, RickG

We have AT&T and just use the international plan and limit our phone calls. On our last trip down we were able to get US based voice and data coverage well into the BVIs. At times as far in as Cooper we were getting a US signal. Can't say you will see the same, but it is probably worth keeping an eye on your phone when you are on the more western side of the islands.

Matt

Agree with Macaroni - skype works very well

Skype.... Call any US number 3cents a minute. You need wifi

thanks all!
to answer some of the questions posted-
we are bareboating,
10 days, 2 (hopefully ) on Anegada
we will only need to make/receive calls.
we WILL NOT be e-mailing or cruising the net! for sure!

50 cents per minute is not too bad,

I like the idea of using the phone provided on the boat (which we will have), that seems the most simple. any thoughts on the "coverage" of the phone they provide.

our main concern is actually being able to make calls everyday (or MOST days) - not cost...
lmk what you think!

thanks again, this forum is great!

I agree that the simplest idea is just to use your AT&T phone and add the Passport($30/month) or Passport Plus($60/month) plan while you're gone.

When you are able to pickup a signal from the USVI your phone will show AT&T on it and your calls are just like calling from home. If you pick up a BVI signal, the phone will most likely show Lime or Digicel and the calls will be $1/minute with the Passport Plan or $0.50 with the Passport Plus plan.

Thank you - that is exactly what I needed to know! We shouldn't need to make any phone calls (unless there is a work emergency most things can be handled over e-mail) so this seems like a good plan for us. We just want to be able to check e-mail, text and maybe let the kids post a few pictures to Instagram for bragging rights. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Wink.gif" alt="" />

We pick up the 'boat phone' from Renport and pay extra to have unlimited local minutes, which really makes dinner reservations a breeze, or calling your favorite cab guy...etc....The last time I did this the phone came with 200 or so free international minutes.

Renport rental is more than buying a phone. Momx, you might need some connectivity for weather, this can be very important in a north swell. I hate the VHF weather channel

maybe this should be a separate topic but why is the vhf weather channel no good..and what do you rent from renport?

mayjong1,

I agree with Jason - You will be able to use your own att phone, just like you do at home, in some of parts of the BVI. The closer you are to St Thomas/St John the better your chances of getting an att signal. In those areas further out, where you can't get an att signal on your phone the simplest options are to either get the roaming plan on your phone or use the boat phone. Since I have no idea which carrier or phone plan the boat phone is using I would call the charter company and ask them what the per minute charge is to call the states. That will help you decide which way to go.

if you were talking to me, we do not rent anything from Renport. The previous poster suggested renting a phone from Renport

yes i was..why is the weather on the vhf not good enough and what do you use instead

Mom,

Just be careful on the Passport plan. In the US you'd pay around $10 per GB for data. On that plan you will pay $150/GB for the $120 plan, $200/GB on the $60 plan and $250/GB on the $30 plan. Be sure to turn off data when you're not using it as it will continue to use data. Any apps that run can use data too. Also stay away from any video - it's amazing how much data is used just to watch one short youtube video. Stream Netflix and you're in for a nasty surprise!

Here are the current Renport prices linked below.

I have no idea how long you may want to converse with your family during your visit, but multiply your estimated calling time on ATT out per .50 a minute and see where you shake out. Maybe Renport makes sense, maybe it doesn't.

Signal/service has always been very good/consistent.

(FYI - click the mobile tab)

https://rancal.checkfront.com/reserve/

VHF weather is out of Puerto Rico. Half of the weather is in Spanish and sometimes not that audible, even in English. Sites like the Wind Guru are much more detailed including surf, wind, ground swells. we live by Wind guru and the Weather Underground. If anyone thinks $45 a day for a modem is a good deal, I can sell you a modem for 1/2 that and with shipping, I would still make a profit

ok thanks.we use wind guru up here too

does anybody have any experience with verizon in the bvi

Well, not that I'd contribute to getting the thread even more off topic (but that's kinda the norm around here), let me just say this about that...

Sometimes I can't even get a signal for the VHF broadcast and it takes the Spanish part way longer than the English so I'm constantly missing it or listening again because I missed something; makes me crazy!

Last November at the Renport office at Sunsail they were offering the wifi hotspot for $120/week. I negotiated and got $150 for 10 days. It was worth it to me but we go there often enough I knew I could beat that deal easily. No way I'd even consider $45 a night for the Surf Pak!!!

So here is the down side/tradoffs. You have to do a little research. First you will need an unlocked hotspot or you won't be able to put the new carrier's sim in the device and use it. Next, you will need to know what frequencies the carrier uses and that your hotspot matches at least one of these frequencies. It's easy enough to find out what frequencies the device uses on google; not so easy to find out what frequencies Digicel and Lime are using in the BVI. I sent an email to Digicel and their support told me they use 1900 Mhz. I suspected they also used 850 Mhz as well so I wrote back and asked. Then she confirmed they use 850 and 1900. I haven't been able to confirm with Lime, apparently calling is the only way to get customer service, but my searches seem to show Lime uses 850 and probably 2100 Mhz. Finally, you have to configure the "APN", easy enough to get that info off the web. Of course you can just go to the store, buy the device from them and have them insert their sim and configure it for you. So there are cost/convenience tradeoffs you can make.

So far I've probably spent 4 weeks researching all of this and it's taken a fair amount of work to get to the point where I feel I have it understood. All that and now I can take my $60 hotspot, pop by Lime/Digicel for a sim and a $50 data plan and have wifi on the boat. So for now on it will cost me around $50-$60 for data on board; sounds pretty good compared to $45 a day (or even the $15 a day I got last time).

I don't mind being off topic!
interesting stuff, but I LITERALLY have no idea what beerme just said ^

i'll stick to my ATT phone!
thanks again

Love your post Beerme. Helpful.

mayjong1, I love ATT, East of maybe JVD, you won't have it and you'll be "roaming" if you make a call or use data. So, turn off roaming AND data on your particular phone or you will get eaten alive with costs for both. Talk to ATT customer service if you need help with this.

Personally, I'm going with Beerme going forward. Great info.

Ha, ha, ha. Mayjong1 you made it oh so much easier when you said you just needed to talk to the kids! You wouldn't believe the things I left out, or maybe you would!

Thanks JB, I appreciate that very much.

I took my trusty old Ipad 2 with about 10K delivery miles on it to the Roadtown Lime store. It had an outdated Lime SIM in it. The lovely lady there activated 2 gigs for $35.00 and my Son in law added Imessage, or something like that to my Ipad. Worked great.

Side note: Ran into Jolly Lou there and he's looking good but said he's a little bored. Wish he was back at the JR

Saw a young lady at Myetts yammering away on the phone for probably an hour and a half to her boyfriend back home. After the call was over she tells her father "wow, Verizon has great service here even when it says it's roaming". Someone is in for a surprise.

Probably FaceTime? An Apple-to-Apple video chat app, similar to Skype. Imessage is an A-to-A messaging app. Not that I am up on all of this stuff, heck I just did my first Skype call just a few weeks ago (and our niece said welcome to the 21st century) and my cell phone is on a $10 a month talk and text plan from Airvoice Wireless that I use so little I have over $100 worth of minutes that keep growing and rolling over. Been thinking of switching to their pay-as-you-go plan where I could actually get it down to $3.33 per month!

That's exactly how I feel about the wifi/phone conversations! <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/duh.gif" alt="" /> I think I'll just cut and paste what Beerme said and send it to my friend/captain!

When staying where there is WiFi...we have used Magic Jack to call back thru our laptop for free back to the states. I understand the Boat might not always have wifi tho. We would pack a cheap phone with the cord to plug into the Magic Jack and worked great

<img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Laugh.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Laugh.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Laugh.gif" alt="" /> now that is funny....