Just curious to see what is the most economical way to send a message back home. Is there a public computer that people can use to send an email back home? Is there a charge to send an email? Can you buy a phone card and use the hotel phones? If so, is there an additional phone usage charge with the phone card? US cellular charges $3/day plus 99 cents per minure plus local carrier charges so it doesn't sound like that is a very good deal. Plus, they said texting and Blackberry email won't work. Thanks
The cheapest and easiest way I believe, (if your cell carrier is expensive down there) is to pick a phone card once your there, Ive done the cell phone thing and spent an arm and leg, ive bought phone cards for 10 bucks and lasted a few days worth of decent conversation times....there is public computers in the lobby for around 5 dollars for half hour, which are usually pretty accesible, especially early AM or mid afternoon when everyone is out in the sun....
You can also rent a prepaid phone in cancun also, I believe its around 100 bucks for the week and gives you certain amount of time per day or blocks of time....there is a thread on this website about that, or someone on here can give you info, I know one of the shuttle companies offers that.
i have ATT and jamie has tmobile. both our texting work and her blackberry pin-ing works also. set up your phone with mexico plan. it costs$10-15 per month and cancel when you get home. but wait a couple of weeks because sometimes it takes a couple of weeks for charges to hit your account from mexico cell company. it cuts the texting and charges to about half price. on the emails though be careful as that is cosidered data and it gets very expensive to use. we both turn off our data plans while we are there. (someone sends you a picture that has lots of bytes to download it could cost $$$) best thing to do is go online and look up what international plan your compny offers.
oh, BTW the cheapest phone for the phone cards is located OUTSIDE the hotel on the sidewalk. it will take any prepaid phone card you buy in the US.
Do not use your credit card in the pay phone in the resort. I knew it would be expensive, but I figured "how bad could 2 minutes be?" Even at $5 a minute, it would only be $10 and would save me going to get a phone card, etc. I don't remember exactly but it was close to $50. And it literally was 2 minutes.
We have Verizon and were told texting was 5 cents a message, pix messages were $5 a message and phone calls were 50 cents a minute. Hubby's blackberry e-mail worked just fine. I was also able to use the IM feature from my laptop on Facebook, we were there with a Premier membership, so we got free internet in our room.
I have AT&T, and I called customer service to activate international calling. it was $5.99 a month for the activation. 39 cents a minute for phone, texts are 59 cents and I didn`t activate data, as I don`t care about work while I`m there! They said I can cancel when I get back & it will be pro-rated for the time I used it. I did the same thing when we went to London last year, and it worked out well.....for as long as my phone held it`s charge....forgot about the charger not working there!! :doh:
We always purchase a phone card at the convenience store next door. We did this last week as well = cost us $12 for 40 minutes. They have a phone in the store you can use - so you dont need to call from the street with cars rushing past. We used about 10 minutes the first call and then can continue to use the card with each call. Works real slick for us - and no additional charges that you weren't expecting either. They also had 2 computers in the store = and I believe it was $5 for 30 minutes of usage.
