Calling home to the USA?

[galelynn]

Can anyone give me some insight about calling home from Australia and New Zealand? We will be gone for almost 3 wks, so will need to call home a couple of times. I can e mail while on the ship, but while we are in Sydney, and the outback also Carins, I was wondering about the prices and easiest way to phone home? Also maybe Auckland on the last day before flying home? Thanks :p

[kimba_99]

Buy a pre-paid international calling card before you leave home. Depending on how long you want to talk for but $30 should be enough for 3-4 calls.

We took a AUS$20 card to Alaska last year and came home with $7 remaining... used it twice for about 10 or 15 mins each time.

Whatever you do don't use the hotel room phones, they charge rediculous prices.

 

Hope this helps.

Kim

[Globaliser]

I wonder if it might be cheaper to buy a pre-paid calling card in Australia rather than bringing one over from the US? For example, I always use an American pre-paid card when I'm in the US.

 

I don't have any personal experience in Oz myself because I'm always lazy and use my mobile, which costs a fair bit but not as much as hotels charge.

[Aussie Gal]

It is a pity your mobile phones don't work over here. We have just been away in Europe for over a month and I texted home each day, that way it is was so cheap to keep in touch. Telstra here in Oz only charged .34 for every text message! We are so lucky as our mobiles seem to work in every country except the U.S.A.

 

Jennie

[Kiwi Kruzer]

It is a pity your mobile phones don't work over here. We have just been away in Europe for over a month and I texted home each day, that way it is was so cheap to keep in touch. Telstra here in Oz only charged .34 for every text message! We are so lucky as our mobiles seem to work in every country except the U.S.A.

 

Jennie

 

 

 

Welcome back Jennie.I read your review on the HAL board and it sounds like you had a great time.All the best .

David.

[Aussie Gal]

David,

 

Yes we did have a wonderful cruise and holiday. We had great weather but unfortunately have come home to a wet, cold week!

 

We are now looking forward to July when we are off to New York, Boston and Transatlantic on the Maasdam via Greenland, Iceland, Scotland and Norway to the Netherlands.

 

Where are you off to next?

 

Jennie.

[ldnrdh]

We returned today and calling the US is dirt cheap. I think we paid $10 for 280 minutes. The card is in my husbands wallet so don't have the name, but go into any 7/11 type place or newspaper magazine selling shop and you will see the phone cards. You use 40 Aud cents and dial the access code for the city you are calling from, then the card has a scratch off pin that you enter, then dial the US country code 0011 and dial the number. We called 5 times talked over an hour and still left with 200 unused minutes. Cheers ~ Leslie

[galelynn]

Thanks Leslie, so this is a card that you buy right there in Australia? I did that in Tahiti, and it worked the same way. Not to sure what you mean about the 40AUD cents, is this before you use the card each time? Also was it $10 USD for 280 minutes? That is a bargain. Lynn

[Aussie Gal]

Lynn,

 

What you need to do before using the phone card is to first of all insert two Australian 20Cent pieces into the phone box. Then you dial 0011 , then you put in the phone card and continue dialling 1 for US and then the city code and the phone number.

 

The cards can be bought at all Newsagents and Milk Bars. These shops are everywhere and it is easy to buy the card.

 

Jennie.

[estebofarr]

Do you know if New Zealand has the same arrangement with calling cards? Buying them locally to call the US?

[gmcc]

Do you know if New Zealand has the same arrangement with calling cards? Buying them locally to call the US?

 

We are just back from NZ and AU and used 4 modes for contact. The cheapest was by far a phone card we purchased in NZ and used in both NZ and Australia. The rate to the US was 5 cents/min. We did need change to dial but it is returned once you go thru the process of entering the card number, etc.. Cards available in various denominations.Unfortunately I can't recall the name of the card but it worked everywhere we tried.

 

E-mail on the ship is expensive, particulary due slow download times - but unfortunately I had to keep in touch with the office daily and so I had to have it. My daughter and I both used internet cafes when convenient to our location (they were easily found/visible in every port). On average they ran 2.00/hr and were much faster than connection on ship. You simply buy the time in the cafe.

 

Texting worked well on my cell phone when we had phone signal and was relatively inexpensive. Most texting was done to my son, who resides in NZ. I have an international SIM card for my phone and texting (sending and receiving) was no problem and very inexpensive.

 

Most expensive is using the cell phone. Even though my international SIM card is much cheaper than using my regular US provider (TMobile) it still ran at 45 cents/min.

 

If you don't need to stay in touch daily the phone card is the way to go.

[mauicruiser]

Buy a international phone card and use at a pay phone. Very easy and very cheap to call US.

[kaseyoz]

the phone cards are very cheap and easy to use.

We use them all the time from here to phone my family in the uk and Italy and friends in canada.

 

We use "gotalk" but there are many sold. We now have a 'gotalk" phone at home that was free and calls to the Uk are 1c per minute and untimed STD call 25cents. It is dearer to phone next door. Any aussies reading check it out.

 

As stated before you do need coins to connect to the local phone card number and you do need to press a lot of buttons to make the call but well worth it. We even got through many times on christmas day with no problems or delay.

I wouldnt use the card from the hotel though as even locals calls can be expensive.

 

Calling from the US though we always had problems. What we ended up doing the last time was sending sms to hubby when we were at the hotel , then he could phone us there, worked for us.