TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Anyone have one of Sharon's phones?

Well, Beachside Villas does not have phones in the units, so there goes that one also!

A loyal SXM'er advised me to buy a French Phone for the French side and I did! 5 years ago ....From DAUPHIN in Marigot ..cost 39 Euros with 40 minutes FREE! ... have added 5 Euros on the card twice ..and it's still going!
Yes, Folks , it is French, but it's intelligent enough to shift in ENGLISH. We use it to call our landlord, taxis, restaurants and Pizza. BUT just-in-case , we had an emergency, we could call Emergency Services. We spend 2 month on the French side, but do not use it to call our children (USA and Canada).
For us, it's a DEAL!

Elaine, I'm soooo confused! I used my Chippie SIM earlier this month with no problems. When you say you need a new chip, exactly what does that mean? Has something changed since we were there?

No, this changed after Irma. If you have a working chip, you're very lucky.

Todd's island phone worked fine too. Guess we're among the lucky ones!

Was Todd's phone from Sharon?

Not the phone, but the sim card. Mine was too.

OK, thanks.

Georgia, any chance you and Todd both had smartphones?

I just had a little phone that was...a PHONE! Lol

As of this morning I am now the owner of a little Samsung smartphone from Blue Point (old Rima’s)
in Phillipsburg. Transferred the SIM I bought from Sharon and $$ is still there, plus kept my island
Chippie phone number. Still have the TopUp card as well. Yay.

If I may be so bold, how much did your new phone cost?

Georgia--that was going to be my question also..

Yes, they're both smartphones.

AHA! Another piece of the puzzle...lol

Linda, it's a cute little gold Samsung Jr (mini?) dual sim for $110

I like the dual sim as it can have another card in Europe or Mexico.

Same as we got! Both our phones have dual SIM's. Very convenient.

Thank you Elaine for the suggestion, and helping me figure out why my phone wasn't working! You are a wealth of info.

I too have one of Sharon's phones and will be taking it with me in June. I understand that my old Nokia may not work, I will be trying the sim in one of my host's phones to see if that works. I also have my US cellphone which I know works in SXM. I will keep you posted.

Carol I rented a phone from Bobby Barron ( Packlight) when I was there in March. Reasonably priced and he makes pickup and return easy.

Thanks mort. We are going to buy a phone at this point. Trying to decide whether to wait until we get there to confirm our phone doesn't work for sure, or just buy it here, assuming it doesn't work.

The phone both Beachkitten and I purchased on the island in the Galaxy J1 mini prime. https://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_j1_mini_prime-8397.php

Mine was $99 on sale, while full price seems to be $119. Blue Point Simpson Bay or Pondfill, RIMAS old building.

OK, thanks. I know exactly where that is! (...wish Rima was still there!! )

$73 shipped on Amazon (Prime)

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Gala...=8-3&keywords=samsung+galaxy+J1+mini

Yes, I'm sure we can get it cheaper at home. Holding out hope that our phone will work, will probably it won't...

Currently $79 on Amazon. Reviews there indicate poor sound quality. Is that your experience, Elaine?

Works fine for us. We don't use any phone very much.

I had no issues. Made reservations, connected with friends, ordered pizza...no sound problems.

It is lightweight too. I WAS going to wait until I got home and just put the SIM card I purchased from Sharon into one of my old iPhones, but I wanted it right there and then, and wanted to activate and know it worked.

I'm taking an old Windows phone that's unlocked and hope to get a sim card to work with it.