Calling Home from G. Cayman, Cozumel?

[funcpl45]

Hi, Has anyone tried to call home from Belieze, Grand Cayman or Cozumel? Do calling cards work? Can you use a cell at any of these ports? What is the cheapest way and or port to do this from? The friends we have traveling with us have someone at home with health problems and would like to call home sometime during the cruise to check on things. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Randy and Deb

[caryh]

Not sure about Grand Caymen, but it is probably the same as Mexico where you can get a calling card at most Pharmacy's/grocery stores. US calling cards won't work there. For $10 they usually give about 20 minutes.

[obnurse]

I tried calling home from both Grand Cayman and Cozumel and the calling card from Sam's Club would NOT work. It worked on St. Maarten and St. Thomas but not in Mexico. I can only speak for the Sam's Club card. Bon voyage!

[aggieastrosfan]

I bought an AT&T prepaid card at Best Buy, and every pay phone I found in Cayman wouldn't accept the prepaid cards. I think it would've worked in Cozumel, but the AT&T number I was trying to dial wasn't free, and I didn't have any pesos for the phone.

 

In Belize, I bought a card (9 minutes for $10) at one of the stores in the Tourism Village. It was called Mayan something (Sun, I *think*). My AT&T card would've worked, but it charged 6 minutes for every minute of call time. If I had a map, I could tell you what store number it was. It's not in the area of the pharmacy, it's in the next area, away from where the tenders drop off.

 

I ended up not using the card I bought at all.:rolleyes:

[funcpl45]

Thanks for the info, I appreciate it. Anyone else? Randy

[lilylakecruzer]

I used my cell phone in Grand Cayman (T-mobile) and it cost something like $1.49 per minute. It didn't work in Cozumel.

[mikesteg]

I had (AT&T) GSM in Grand Caymans, which I now think was provided by Cable & Wireless. Still, I got 3-days worth of stored pages while my phone was sitting in my cabin. I tried to make a direct call back to the US, hoping it was direct dial since they have the same "country code" as us, but no luck. Just found this:

 

Communications: The international access code for the Cayman Islands is +1, in common with the US, Canada and most of the Caribbean, followed by 345. The outgoing code is 00 followed by the relevant country code (e.g. 0044 for the United Kingdom). Internet cafes are widely available. Mobile phone operators do not have roaming agreements with GSM networks, as used outside North America, but mobile phones can be rented.

 

Here: http://www.wordtravels.com/Travelguide/Countries/Cayman+Islands/Basics

 

The underlined bit above suggests that it wouldn't even be possible to make a call using my AT&T phone, but I'm skeptical since the paging function pretty much proves that AT&T and C&W are talking on some level of service. Still, it would probably cost $$ as Lily experienced, so a calling card is the way to go. I haven't gotten my bill yet, but the pages better be "free" since I didn't want to receive them to begin with. :rolleyes:

 

I've never gotten a Sam's club card (AT&T service) to work anywhere in the Carribbean. I brought the number list from the website and tried all the way back from the Panama Canal last January. That was Jamaica, Costa Rica, Belize, Mexico (Cozumel probably), and Grand Caymans (though I may not have tried it in GC, obnurse and aggie did). It seems that those countries don't have the same fair access rules that we do so some of the phone companies just won't connect you to the local "toll free" numbers.

 

Mike

[PMD]

I used my Cingular Quadband GSM phone with no problems at all.

[CruiseMark]

For Cozumel, Telmex, the national phone company of Mexico, sells a card just for the purpose of calling from Mexico to other countries, including the US. You can even buy it online and find out more info at: http://www.telmexusa.com/USA_ing/ttpc.asp

[funcpl45]

Thank you all, I knew I could count on CC members for the straight skinny on what we could use. I really appreciate you taking the time to write! Randy