What do you do for phone service in Cabo and Puerto Vallarta?

Hi,

I'm going on a 7 day cruise - 3 at sea, 2 in Cabo and 1 in PV.

I have AT&T. If you have gotten service, what you have done?

I'm not sure what's available, and more importantly what's best.

On a related note - based on what I've seen, there's not a good choice for when you're out at sea on the ship either, but maybe I'm wrong there. The rates looked crazy high.

Thanks,

LB

"Best" is a vague term...you provide NO definition. What is "best" to you?

If you need to use your cell phone, you could use the $10 per day plan...you don't want to do the onboard ship plan. Far more complicated and expensive.

If you have a high data plan...above 10 gigs...Mexico may already be free for you. Have you looked at the AT&T website? Have you done any research with AT&T?

If you look around the board...discussed here frequently.

ATT allows texting from those Mexico cities at your normal rate.

I've done that on shore without any special new plan.

I don't know about actual phone calls but that may be included as well.

I generally use WhatsApp to text or call using local wifi when I travel out of the USA.

Many local restaurants in Mexico have free wifi.

You can hook up to wifi & communicate through a plethora of apps or Imessage if you have an Iphone. If you wish to use these at sea, you would have to purchase a wifi plan through your cruise.

If you aren't happy with AT&T, I have T-mobile, which allows free texts & data almost everywhere. It's been excellent.

We have T-Mobile which works in about 140 countries with no additional fees other than 20 cents a min for phone calls. Our T-Mobile plan gives us unlimited data and text just about everywhere (including Mexico). In Mexico there are primarily two phone providers (Telcel and Movistar). If you have ATT you would normally automatically connect to Telcel. T-Mobile works with either of those two providers.

Hank

Thank you all for the responses. I'm going to stick with ATT. I'll use them on land and whatsapp on the ship.

LB

Found this site that lists Wi-Fi hot spots. Search alphabetically for the city such as Cabo San Lucas and a list of spots will show up. You can then call using Messenger or FaceTime etc.

https://wifispc.com/mexico

We travel to Mexico often and have ATT. Check with your local office you should have coverage in Mexico just like the US for no charge. Of course that only works when close to shore. When at sea we use the ships WiFi not cellular.

Regarding Puerto Vallarta, many bars, cafes and restaurants offer free WiFi to their patrons (and others outside). I would also mention that like many frequent cruisers/travelers we used to spend more than our share of port time looking for free WiFi. But since changing our cell provider to T-Mobile we no longer care about Wifi...since our phones work nearly everywhere (140+ countries) with unlimited data at no additional cost.

Hank

But since changing our cell provider to T-Mobile we no longer care about Wifi...since our phones work nearly everywhere (140+ countries) with unlimited data at no additional cost. Hank

Our ATT International plan does the same. We have used it in UK, Sweden, France, and Germany and receiving and dialing out is just like you were in the US, which isn't all that great when people calling you don't know you are in a different time zone. The international plan can be added for a month and then deleted. But it's so cheap we just leave it on all the time. I believe Canada and Mexico are included in the regular ATT plan and you only have to add international in other places.

Our ATT International plan does the same. We have used it in UK, Sweden, France, and Germany and receiving and dialing out is just like you were in the US, which isn't all that great when people calling you don't know you are in a different time zone. The international plan can be added for a month and then deleted. But it's so cheap we just leave it on all the time. I believe Canada and Mexico are included in the regular ATT plan and you only have to add international in other places.

As mentioned above, Canada and Mexico are only free on plans above 10 gb of data. That is straight from ATT.

As mentioned above, Canada and Mexico are only free on plans above 10 gb of data. That is straight from ATT.

Maybe "free" isn't accurate, it's "included." Could be with four kids on our plan I am sure DW has at least a 10 gb plan. All I know is it's "included" maybe not free as we have never paid anything extra for roaming, calls, text or data while traveling in Mexico and we add the international plan for the month when we go and remove it when we get back. We used our phones in the Maldives in October with no extra charges.