help with cell phone

If your phone is unlocked I would buy a local SIM with an Italian number in Italy. Not sure what phone you have though as earlier Verizon phones did not work in Europe. You can buy an Italian plan for a month, 2 Gb, hundreds of local minutes and texts for under 25 euro, after July 1, 2015 the intra EU roaming will become illegal therefore you won't have to pay the higher roaming charges when you go to France for the last 4 days.

Like your friend, I have never been able to get Verizon to work in Italy, despite assurances from Verizon personnel that they have unlocked it. I finally bought a TIM phone in Italy a few years ago.

traci,

The first thought that comes to mind is that it would be a good idea to ask your friend to contact Verizon and complain about the fact that he/she bough the international roaming package and still couldn't get the phone to work. The response from Verizon might shed some light on how you could avoid the same problem. Your friend should definitely ask for a refund on the roaming package.

One solution that might work for you would be to sign up for the Verizon international roaming package, but also arrange to get your phone unlocked. If you find that the phone won't work when you arrive in Italy, simply go into the nearest mobile phone shop and buy a PAYG SIM card. As a last resort you could pick up an inexpensive, basic phone there and use that for voice and text., limiting use of your Droid to Wi-Fi areas.

Good luck!

Verizon has Global packages for you to choose from. Its just picking one that meets your needs. Maybe best to go to a Verizon store when looking at activating it. Or you can purchase a phone from the many sites that offer international deals. I have a phone from Eurobuzz, www.eurobuzz.com, the number is mine for life (actually two numbers one overseas and one U.S.). Pay only when you use it.

My wife and I spent 15 days in Italy this March. iPhone or Droid, if your phone is broken, you can buy a SIM card when you arrive in Italy.

We bought a SIM card from a local Wind store in Venice when we arrived. The clerk installed our cards and set up our phones, and 1-2 hours later our phones were working perfectly.

Don't know what your preferences are for your phone, but these were ours: DATA for Google Maps and sending texts or making calls home via Skype. Everything we did with our phones was done over the internet. Having the data on my phone and being able to use Google Maps kept us from getting lost and it worked flawlessly. We wanted to be able to text family back home and Skype did that flawlessly. We wanted to be able to call family back home and Skype did that flawlessly. There really wasn't much of a use for sending texts or calling because of the 8-9 hour time difference between Italy and Phoenix, AZ.

The Wind SIM card I bought came with 300 voice minutes to anywhere and 4 GB of data for 35 Euro. We NEVER used any of the 300 voice minutes, just didn't want to mess around with using an Italian phone number. Skype worked perfectly.

When we go back to Europe we will only buy a data SIM card with sufficient data to last us for the trip. Everything we need was handled using the internet over our SIM phone card. We used our hotel WiFi a few times but most of their connections were pretty weak.

So my recommendation to you is, get yourself and family on Skype (free), buy a SIM card when you arrive in Italy with a sufficient data plan, and you will be all set. Even if you need to call a land line somewhere, Skype is cheap to use. But calling another Skype user is FREE.

We stayed away from using Verizon abroad. Just way too many hassles and because Skype worked so well for us I would recommend you not mess with your local cellphone provider. It's just not worth it.

Hope that helps. Have a safe trip.

I also have Verizon, and a droid, but their plan is way too expensive. I bought a SIM card for $9 from eurobuzz. You only pay if and when you use it.

EuroBuzz's data is really expensive. So take that into consideration also.