Hi all,
My husband and I will be spending a month driving about in Ireland and Northern Ireland. I am debating about what to do re: cell phone use. I have an iPhone 7 using Verizon, and we will be in lots of rural areas as opposed to cities. We anticipate using the phone primarily for hotel reservations and possibly road side service - not much texting - little data use as we'll use hotel wifi. Should I get the Verizon international Calling Plan (100 minutes, 100 outward texts, 100 mb data) or get a Voaphone SIM card? Anyone with experience with this matter, I would appreciate your advice.
Thanks.
Joanna
Posted by
69 posts
We are traveling to Ireland in April, and we are planning on getting SIM cards for our iPhones. We are only going for a week, and per my math, the Verizon plan is about $10 per day per phone of usage, whereas a SIM card is usually about $45 per card - 20 euros for the card itself, 20 euros for top up. Much more economical.
I'd recommend stopping by a Carphone Warehouse (www.carphonewarehouse.ie). They'll help you set it up. Just bring a baggie for your American SIM cards and a paperclip to pop open the SIM card compartment and change them out on your flight back to the US.
We did this two years ago when we drove around England and Scotland for 2 weeks, and we had good success with it.
Posted by
OP
3 posts
Thank you, Georgia. Are they strictly online or can I find them at the airport?
Posted by
69 posts
From what I could tell based on the website, I didn't see that Carphone Warehouse has a store in the Dublin airport (where we are flying into), though other stores may carry SIM cards at the airport. It's probably not uncommon nowadays. There's a couple of Carphone Warehouse stores right near the Dublin airport (less than 10 minute drive). We are renting a car at the airport, so it will be our first stop on the road.
Others may have suggestions for other stores to use that have services in the airport, but I lived in the UK about 12 years ago for a couple years, before smart phones and the like, and Carphone Warehouse was the store that I bought my phones from then. They've always been super helpful during all of my subsequent visits.
Last time we did this, we flew into Edinburgh and did not rent a car immediately. We had located a store right near our hotel, so once we got into the city, we simply made that our first stop after checking in. You can connect to Wifi at the airport and hotels and use audio/video FaceTime, iMessages, etc. to communicate with friends/family without cell service when you arrive. I'd recommend doing this in hotels anyways.
Posted by
Yorkshire
1349 posts
A UK Sim giving you hundreds of mins UK call time ,unlimited text and at least 1GB of data. and nearly always FREE calls between two phones on same network is no more than £10 and the deal is for a months coverage.
American carriers charge ludicrous fees.
The carrier I use also has call rates to US landlines at 3 c a minute.
Posted by
OP
3 posts
I guess getting a SIM card is the way to go. Any suggestions re: which carrier? I need coverage in rurual areas.
Posted by
349 posts
You might want to check with Verizon again. They have had a plan that's like $40 for 100 texts and 100 calling minutes and I think like 100mb of data. There are a couple other more robust plans to but you can upgrade if you later feel you need more
You can upgrade with the touch of a button when they send you texts advising you of where you are at on your minutes Etc
I would call their customer service for international calling directly. They will ask you which countries you are going to be traveling in and they will set up a itinerary for you and email it to you with all of your details and options and when you reach each country you will get a text from them advising you of what your plan entails.
Posted by
Marion
177 posts
We were in Ireland last spring. We got a WiFi hotspot gadget from Hertz and used it all over Ireland. I carried it in my back pack when hiking and always had service,. I think I turned off cellular data. It worked great. It cost about 8 euro a day. We used it mainly for navigation. We used viber for texting and calling which is free. I am not sure if it is available in countries other than Ireland,