right i am in a similar situation and must have a phone. So yes you are right Iphones do not allow you to open the back of the phone and put a sim card into it; you would have to get the international plan and that will cost a lot. You can go on amazon or ebay and do a search for "gsm unlocked cell phone" make sure you put in gsm first it brings up cheaper phones; and then either use mrsimcard.com to buy the sim card for the grenadines and put it in your global phone before you leave or buy the phone and wait until you are in the islands and find a Lime store and buy the card then. Don't know where in the Grenadines you are going but not that easy to get to a Lime store.

I suggest buying the phone from either amazon or ebay and then the sim card from mrsimcard before you go to make sure everything is going to work ok.

We have an old Verizon Escapade that we used all the time to do this, just upgraded to a smartphone that is not global but can still use our old Escapade when we travel and put the sim card in it. So if you buy a gsm unlocked global phone you can use it every time you travel out of the country.

you might see a bunch of expensive phones when you search but don't worry about that and just get a decent one for under $50.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0...cked+cell+phone

http://www.ebay.com/ctg/Pantech-Escapade...mpt=Cell_Phones

hope this helps and you will love the Grenadines, we will be going back in Dec. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Clapping.gif" alt="" />