Cell phone rental? Walkie talkies?

[teag_98]

Does anyone know if you can rent cell phones at Disney? We're coming from the Caribbean so our cells won't work there, and I know we can get walkies but I would feel more comfortable with cells. If not, any suggestions about walkies, I don't know anything about them. Thanks in advance...

[harra]

My wife and I haven't used walkies when in the parks since we are always together. But, we used them when we had to take a long trip in separate cars once.

The only problem we had was getting the hang of using them. It took us awhile to figure out that you had to press the button to talk, wait a second then talk and to let the person know when you were done. Otherwise we did alot of "stepping on" each others talking.

Most of the newer models seem to have enough channels and such that you don't end up on another group's frequency.

The use of walkies isn't unusual at WDW. I see quite a few of them when in the parks, but I highly doubt you could be in one park talking to another group member in another park. I think the range is only a couple miles.

As far as cell rental goes, if Disney does do that, it's news to me.

[HauntedGabe]

The last time we used walkie talkies was 2000 before roaming charges were a thing of the past and our entire family ultimately had cells. Back then WT were a problem because every other family had them, kids were being kids and playing as kids do on the channels. We had 10 mile range so we could always reach each other between MGM and Epcot. The rest was too far off.
I could reach Board Walk from POR. In my trips last year it was rare to see families using WT however we did note a bit of rude cell phone use on rides that disturbed rides on PoC, JC, SW. Talking just over-rode everything else on the rides.

[Keasmom]

You could check on line and see about the "disposable" cell phones. I think Walmart sells a phone and minutes package that has no contract, and no real rules just by the units and the number of minutes you need. Also, some rental car (hire cars for UK'ers) companies offer cell rental with the car, but it is probably only one unit.

[DarGoku368]

I would suggest a disposable cell phones

[HauntedGabe]

You could check on line and see about the "disposable" cell phones. I think Walmart sells a phone and minutes package that has no contract, and no real rules just by the units and the number of minutes you need. Also, some rental car (hire cars for UK'ers) companies offer cell rental with the car, but it is probably only one unit.

Now that is a great idea. I have seen them at Walmart near the camara area. There is a Walmart past Downtown Disney, I'm sure there are others too.

[teag_98]

Thanks for the replies everyone. By "disposable" cells, do you mean ones with no contract or ones that you actually throw away after use? From what I found, they aren't widely available and don't receive calls, so I've looked at ones with no contract and found one on Tracfone.com for $50, not too bad.

[WDWmom64055]

way to the World! My family uses tracphone- the phones cost about $12 and you buy time for them. I think it's $19 for 30 minutes...and the cost per minute goes down as you buy larger amounts. If I remember, it's around $25 for 60 minutes.

Here's the nice thing about tracphone...if it get's lost, the most you're out is the price of the phone and minutes. No one can run up a huge bill. Plus, if you have a preteen (as I do) who sometimes does things like wash his pants with his phone in the pocket (yes, this really happened), it is annoying, but not a tragedy.

The only thing is, I don't know what coverage is like in Orlando. There are huge parts of the midwest (Iowa especially) where you have no coverage. I would guess that Orlando is well covered will cell phone towers!