International cell phone service needed for a River Cruise

[jpalbny]

T-Mobile has been our go-to for the past 5 years. It's so easy; you don't have to think about anything at all. Just turn on your phone when you land in a foreign country, and you're good to go. No new SIM, no new number, no fuss at all.

 

It even worked on Easter Island! Not in the remote parts, but near Hanga Roa. And during our cruise in India, we had a strong data connection just about everywhere. The cellular data was much faster than the river boat's WiFi.

 

The only caveat is that the data is throttled at 3G so sometimes the lag is noticeable. But it's good enough for just about anything I need it for. In fact I do all of my CC blogs on my phone, using data rather than the ship's slow WiFi, and I can upload pictures easily enough in almost any circumstance unless the signal is weak.

If T-Mobile ever changes this perk I'm not sure what I would do. I've gotten so used to it that it would be quite a shock to the system. We had Verizon previously and we just shut down the data and only used WiFi when traveling. It was a big pain.

[westcoastmom]

On 2/17/2022 at 6:37 PM, CPT Trips said:

We have three weeks in France and Italy planned and it would be nice to have the ability to use some data and possibly make local calls when out and about. I won’t need much as most of my data use will be over WiFi on board or in the hotels.

I have an iPhone. As I understand things, that means no SIM card for me. With my AT&T plan, I can get phone, text, and data for a flat $10 for a 24 hour period. can anyone suggest other options for limited use?

Go to airalo.com and purchase a eSIM card to be used in Europe. You can get a 3GB data card for $13 good for 30 days. You can use What'sApp to make your calls or use Skype to make calls. I usually buy a skype subscription for $2.99 to make unlimited calls to the US for a month. Voice calls using public WIFI has low quality and sometimes unreachable.

[KBs mum]

All that is needed is a sim contract/data package that includes international data roaming for the region you are going to. 

[gnome12]

While European roaming is a fact in Europe, make sure that you check the fine print. I have seen cards that limit data outside of the country of origin. Since the OP is travelling to France and Italy, they don't want to be limited in one or the other (or both).

[KBs mum]

28 minutes ago, gnome12 said:

While European roaming is a fact in Europe, make sure that you check the fine print. I have seen cards that limit data outside of the country of origin. Since the OP is travelling to France and Italy, they don't want to be limited in one or the other (or both).

One of ours has worldwide unlimited, works everywhere, including, much to our surprise, the middle of the Tasman Sea. The other is the just in case phone and has worldwide limited data, if data  allowance is exceeded it reverts to reasonably priced pay as you go