AmbergrisCaye.com Home Forums The Cayes Ambergris Caye Calling to/from Belize

Thanks for the heads up on the voicemail. I just found the small print on the t-mobile website:

Unless you switch your device off or activate Unconditional Call Forwarding on your device, you will be billed for calls delivered to your voice mail box while you are roaming internationally.

I'll just turn the phone on when I need it. I'm on vacation, I don't want the distraction of that thing ringing anyways =)

SweetJane, I use skype to talk to my best friend in Afganistan. Once you down load the software and set up an account you can acces it from any computer tied to the WEB. It is free if you are calling another person with a Skype account (so set the family up). If you are not calling another Skype account, you can dial from a phone number within the county you are calling and yes get the cost down to .02/min. You do need to carry a headset and mike, or combo unit, but I would test it from home.
If you want to try, let me know and I will give you my skype name and we can talk, You can also "chat" and leave a message for so and so to call you back at a certain time. It takes a little getting used to, because there is a slight delay, but it's not bad. That also depends on where you are calling. My buddy is on a Satellite link with a narrow band width, but it's pretty good and cost zero.

Verizon works, if you have the phone set up before you go. If you refuse the international plan, it is $1.49 or so per minute, but if you don't plan on long conversations it's not bad.

We have unlocked tri-band phones with T-Mobile...we just contact them before we go down and add"international" service for the month we're going to be going. We've used our phones to call home for check-ins and also from us to other people on the island....and it wasn't very expensive. Inexpensive enough that I barely noted it on the billing. UN-like when we were in Mexico and made the mistake of using the "FREE COLLECT to US" phones on the streets...LORD...$40+ for a 5 min. call it turned out it cost us...which we only found out AFTER getting home, having made 2 of these calls! OUCH!!! Live and learn!!

we were given a Belize cell with our wedding package which was very helpful.
We bought pre paid cards and our calls to the US were around 50 cents per minute.

Gosh... I am so old school... I leave Houston and don't usually call anyone in the states (unless I decide to extend my stay). If there is an emergency they will email me so I check email once a day and more if I'm at the taco's. Back in the day ya left for days and didn't call... I just don't get it... and I have a small child!!

TQ, I'm with you. I go there to get AWAY! What did we do before cell phones and email?
We just dealt with the problems when we got back.
I know, I know: family, kids, work!

To each their own.

While I don't plan on carrying a phone with me or leaving one on to receive calls, a couple of times we'd like to just say hi to our little ones and more importantly let them know we miss them and will be back soon.

It's also nice to have a known, inexpensive way to call out if an emergency happens. Last year we were down there when Hurricane Dean came in. We had calling cards that wouldn't work anywhere so we ended up having to make extremely expensive calls to the US to let our families know that we were safe on the mainland, as well as our plans for the rest of the trip after the hurricane passed. It never hurts to have communications channels in place in case they are needed.