Trac phones - pre-paid phones

[Connie]

Here's my dilemma.

Last time when I was down in the islands, I ended up with 150.00 cell phone bill for the week.

I was in target today and I noticed something called trac phones. You can get one as cheap as 14.99 and then you pay for the minutes.


Does anybody know whether these are worth it? Or should I just bring my own cell phone?

[martini girl]

My daughter has a VirginMobile pay-as-you-go phone purchased at Target. It worked on the ferry to STJ, in Cruz Bay, and the northshore beaches. Never made it to the Coral Bay area so can't speak for that. Didn't have problems using it at all.

[Ksea]

My son has a Virgin Mobile phone and plan that he uses every day. His was the only phone that worked on STJ. The others we had were Verizon, Sprint/Nextel and Cingular.
The Virgin mobile phone was about $50. You then either buy a top-up card to load minutes, or charge minutes to a credit card right from the virgin mobile phone.

[PA Girl]

We used a cingular pre-paid phone from Wal-Mart in February and it worked fine for hubs' occasional call-ins to the office. (we use Nextel which isn't available on-island)

In 2004, he ran up $250 while on Provo, T & C so I can relate!

[RickG]

Cingular/ATT works well for me on island. My brother's pre-paid Cingular phone worked well in November. You need to check the network that the phone uses. VirginMobile runs on Cingular/ATT.

Cheers, RickG

[Gromit]

I haven't had a problem with Sprint in the past...

[Lulu76]

I got a Cingular signal almost everywhere I went including Ivan's and Coral Bay.

There were a few times on Cinnamon Bay and The Beach Bar when I would get a text or call and realize I was on some sort of different tower, but I'm hoping I won't get charged for it. If I do, then I'll call and try to get out of it.

[Gromit]

Wait a minute... in the spirit of STJ ... we should all be leaving the mobile phones behind!!

[Lulu76]

I think I used it for about 30 minutes the whole time I was there including the time spent calling looking for our villa greeter. It was nice when we were coordinating a meet-up with the folks in the other car. I did miss it once it took its big drink at Ivan's, especially when my flight was delayed on Sunday and I had no way to call home to tell them.

[onthelake]

Sprint worked great last year ... better reception than some places at home. Called Sprint to Sprint so not using up the minutes.

The Trac phone would probably work great !