Cheapest and easiest way to call home to Canada

[newtocruising99]

Hey there,

 

I need to make a couple of phone calls home to check up on things when i'm on my cruise in a couple of weeks. Just wondering what's the cheapest way to call to Canada?

 

Thanks!

 

Pam

[Warmer Climes]

If you are going to Mexico go online to Telmex.com before you go and buy a prepaid calling card- you can print it out right then. They are the biggest phone company in Mexico and their payphones are everywhere. It is cheap andeasy to use.

[spongerob]

Two tin cans and a really big ball of string. :D

[ballinafad]

We called home quickly from the ship and it cost $35 for 3.5 minutes. Next time I will use e-mail. Much cheaper.

[cruisinbuddy]

I'm in Ottawa with Rogers. We phoned home from Ft. Lauderdale twice, just to brag, :D , and it only cost @ $5.00 for @ 10 minutes, don't quote me. Whatever it is, it's cheaper than the ship.

[pg.]

Well Pam we have cruised twice leaving the kids at home( with grandmas) and we simply did not phone home. They had ship emergency numbers, so they were to phone us if there was a problem. There was no problem . I did look into phoning from the ship once , just to say hi, forget it, the rates were riduculus.

 

Now, if you are phoning for business maybe you could justify the expence, but, I think email is the cheapest.

[cricketgal]

Really depends where you are cruising to. If you are in US, you can get a calling card from Bell before you leave, that works out to 5 cents a minute. Different ports have different options, while in Cayman, we purchased a calling card that worked there and was supposed to also work in Jamaica but it didn't work in Jamaica. It wasn't too expensive. Most ports have phone centres, often in the terminal near the ship and most charge per minute, sometimes $2.00/min, but this is still much cheaper than the ship. St Thomas and St Maarten are cheaper and easy to find close to the ship. Hope this helps.

[LHT28]

We use our calling card when in the USA but we had to call home from Norway one year and had a problem with my card ...I used my visa card ...not ideal but in a pinch it worked fine.

You can also try http://www.infocanadadirect.com/

[Moonstone]

As I posted on the "Has anyone called home to the USA/Canada from one of those payphones at ports" thread.

For Canadians using Bell Canada calling cards at one of those payphones at the Havensight Mall (BVI) or in San Juan (the blue payphones with all the flags around it & signs saying "free 800 calls to Canada & US) MAKE SURE YOU DIAL 1-800-555-1111 to get onto Bell Canada's long distance system before you dial the 800 # or make a Calling Card call or you will recieve a huge bill! I called home using my Bell Family Contact Card, the phone rang 3x & nobody answered (kids always grab it on 1st ring) so I hung up. I was billed $38 for an operator assisted collect call!! Took 2 months of fighting to get the charges dropped for a call I dialed direct myself where no connection took place! The short call to my Mom from the same phone was $72 using her Family Contact Card!!

So if you have a Bell Calling card of any type, no matter where you're calling from, dial the Bell Canada 800# first to get onto the Bell system and save yourself a bunch of money!

~Diane

[Ephraim]

I usually buy an AT&T card in Canada for calling back to Canada from the US. If you buy the cards in the US, they charge 2m for each minute you are on. But if you use one from Canada, it's 1 for 1. Be aware that they charge a certain amount of credit for making a call from a pay phone in the US.

 

If you buy a calling card in the US, be careful to check the rates for Canada. One card we saw was 10x more to call Canada than to call Australia.

 

Most other places, you should pick up a local phone card or ask the crew where they go. They all know the cheapest place or where you can buy a calling card and then use a phone.

 

If you need a serious amount of minutes in the US, you can buy a large card at Costco, Sam's or BJ's. If you don't have a membership card most of them will let you in with an upcharge of 10% to 15%.

 

Be aware as well that most of these cards have expiry dates. Often they expire 12 months after you made the purchase. And check if they have a monthly charge or a per connection charge. They can often be tricky.

 

As far as the islands are concerned, if you have a Roger's (or Fido) cell phone that has world access, you should be able to use it. Some phones, especially the Motorola phones need to be manually changed over to the European bands. CDMA works in the US and a few islands, but GSM works everywhere.