USVI-On-Line

There have been numerous inquiries about cell phone coverage on STJ, but I am not looking to make calls while on island. Wife wants to be able to text, if needed. We have Verizon- is texting workable? Also, I could bring the iPad, if it works on island. We are staying at Cinnamon Bay Campground in week 1, then staying at castlestjohn.com in Coral Bay for week 2. Any texting/iPad feedback?
Tom in CT

Texting/talking works the same way so the service should be the same regardless of which one you want to do. When you're at Cinnamon you have to be careful because cell phones pick up BVI towers there.

Texting/talking doesn't really work the same way. For example, there are some places that we camp in Vermont in which a phone call keeps dropping, yet, the texts always go through.
Not sure if STJ is similar.
I can bring my Blackberry, and use as a primary text. (Let me correct that- my wife is going to worry about the kids while gone for 15 days)

Teresa_Rae wrote:Texting/talking works the same way so the service should be the same regardless of which one you want to do. When you're at Cinnamon you have to be careful because cell phones pick up BVI towers there.

We have travelled to STJ with Verizon on our last 10 trips. Coverage is spotty at best. Wifi hot spot would never work., But were usually able to make due. On the rare occasion we were picking up a BVI signal and were charged international roaming rates a quick call to verizon after we got the bill had them removed. However, Last years trip we were charged 1.50 per minute on all calls. I called verizon, thinking this was BVI charges. They said No, that they had changed their rates, and that PR and USVI were now 1.50 per minute. We had made very few calls, but it added up really fast. This trip we are getting a disposable att. Can't really answer the texting part of the question as I'm not much of a texter.

I put my Verizon phone in a drawer when we got in our villa this past trip as we get an AT&T Go phone and I got charge for two days as it apparently
Took two texts people sent to me before I turned it off. The 800 number for Verizon were not oly useless ,but rude and the woman did not have the supervisor call me back like she said she would. The local office, at least reduced the bill by 50% but since the phone was on they did it as a courtesy. You will get charged for both texts you send and receive. Be sure your phone turns off. They advised me to turn off the roam as well as turn off disable the wifi.

Dome526 wrote:Texting/talking doesn't really work the same way. For example, there are some places that we camp in Vermont in which a phone call keeps dropping, yet, the texts always go through.
Not sure if STJ is similar.
I can bring my Blackberry, and use as a primary text. (Let me correct that- my wife is going to worry about the kids while gone for 15 days)

Teresa_Rae wrote:Texting/talking works the same way so the service should be the same regardless of which one you want to do. When you're at Cinnamon you have to be careful because cell phones pick up BVI towers there.

That's not my experience with AT&T at home or on STJ. I can only send texts in places where I can make calls.

We dont have Verizon so Im not sure if this will help you...but we stayed at Cinnamon Bay our last 3 trips and was able to text just fine...we didnt incur any extra charges at all..The first trip we had ATT and this last 2 we have Altell. I just turned off Data roaming on the phones and we still did pick up the BVI towers..and I wondered if we would be charged...but our bill was normal...I too worry about the kids when we are there if they are not with us...one thing we had thought about was getting a prepaid calling card and just using their pay phones..or getting minutes for the Go phone..(ATT) But as it turned out...we didnt need either...service was spotty at Cinnamon...but I managed to get somewhere and get signal made sure the kids were fine...then turned it back off...It was kinda nice to be "unplugged" ..once I knew all was well at home... Id check with ATT though...just to be sure...Altell's people told me 3 different things as far as us being charged...we werent.

I have an international calling plan with Verizon ($4.00/mo) and had no problem with texting while on STJ. Cost was $0.50/message to send and $0.25/message to receive. I turned off my data package as the costs to receive emails and download from the web were outrageous. Calling was pretty expensive too, but we had free access to/from the mainland at Grande Bay so that didn't come into play. Bottom line with Verizon - be very careful with all of your usage unless you have a specific plan with them.

On our last trip I had very little success using my Verizon phone anywhere, and when I did, they charged me mega fees. I had also brought along a GoPhone from ATT and had my calls forwarded to it. It worked well just about everywhere on the island. The only place I couldn't get signal was at Lameshur. Texting worked fine everywhere. Texts will not forward, so I just made sure my kids had the ATT number for texting. It was $2 a day and well worth it. This phone is now labeled our St John phone and only gets activated for trips. Make sure you turn off data on your Verizon phone before you leave stateside, as any automatic updates will cost you international data fees and it gets really expensive!

Another vote for getting a cheap AT&T Go Phone. I'm a verizon customer but bought a go phone for our third trip down last year. From a cost standpoint, that is definitely the way to go. I missed being able to upload pics to facebook in order to taunt my friends back home but the savings are worth it.