Telephone Service

What do people coming down from the states do for telephone service. I was thinking more on the lines for making reservations and contacting our drive to pick us up or drop us off. In the past, we made arrangements with our drive by setting up times to pick us up. But it would be nice not to be held to specific times. Thinking of a cheap phone and calling card option that is purchased on the island. Or, do you us your Verizon service down there?

We have Verizon and it's very expensive to use outside of USA so I too am interested in finding something to use on island. The was a woman who rented cell phones, Queen of St Maarten, but I think she left the island so need info if anyone took her place.

AT&T (and I think Verizon has something similar) has a day pass service. It’s $10 per day that you use talk, text, or data. We don’t use the phone away from WiFi that much so it works for us. I think a lot of people use Whats App to call from WiFi.

WhatsApp works great and with most places providing wifi it works great. Most places and individuals on island use WhatsApp. Once you install WhatsApp all your contacts that have the app show up in the WhatsApp contacts list.

Get an unlocked phone and buy a Chippie sim card. That's what we do.

Not sure what was going on, but on our last visit in March '19 our phones worked without any trouble on St. Martin and we incurred no fees of any kind on our cell bill. No roaming charges, nothing. They (Verizon) must have messed up or something. Funny thing, I never did mention this to Verizon but just stayed mum about it.

That's a score! I use wifi calling exclusively but last year a couple of calls to Leslie about the car also incurred zero charges. I also have the Verizon Travel Pass for emergencies but have only used it once in France....excellent backup but I would never use $10 worth of calls in a day but if there is no wifi it is a life saver....if you don't have wifi calling then the monthly Travel Pass plan works fine....

Options:

...use an unlocked phone/sim card and pre-pay for minutes....cost varies
...Travel Pass (or similar) on present phone...$10 per 24 hours when used or monthly charge
...WiFI calling on present phone..no charge for any USA calls made or received..wifi needed....MAY BE a charge for non-USA calls
...WhatsApp on present phone...no charge ..wifi needed and contacts called also need the app installed...REALLY popular outside the USA

if your phone is unlocked buy a Chippie Sim Card its the best and cheapest way to go !!!!