Keeping in touch with mobile phones in Orlando

**Nostromo** · 11-02-2004, 15:37

When we visit Orlando this spring, our group of 7 is often going to split-up, invariably with my wife leading one group and I the other. More often than not, we're likley to be out of Walkie-Talkie range, for example one group in Florida Mall and the other in KSC. It would be nice to keep mobile contact in case of an emergency - particularly with seniors in tow. Both of us have Tri-bands which work fine in the USA, but we've never tried to phone each other on the mobiles before outside the UK. The problem is that I have an Orange Account while the wife uses O2. Will we be able to phone each other in the US and if so, what do we do - just ring the phone number without any area code?

**craig_emptage** · 11-02-2004, 15:47

Hi

You would have to make sure that you had each others numbers stored as +447795 etc rather than 07795 so that it dials the international code for the UK. However I'm sure both O2 and Orange charge huge amounts for international calls though, and I would recommend using text messages instead. Even though you get charged for sending and receiving messages; it is likely to be alot cheaper than making calls.

Thanks

Craig

**Nostromo** · 11-02-2004, 15:53

Thanks Craig. I am not sure text messaging is that much cheaper in the Tariffs we've got. I guess we'll contact the respective companies and check. Funny thing is, international calls made by my Orange phone are not THAT expensive, but it is usually to landlines.

**caroline** · 11-02-2004, 15:58

Hi Nostromo

I have a tri band 02 phone and use it in Florida a lot, I phone other UK mobiles in FLorida, UK mobiles in the UK, landlines - basically everything! and my bill is usually double for the month, so for the convenience it's not bad at all - I wouldn't advise texting for anything important as we found that text messages were sometimes not arriving for many hours

**Nostromo** · 11-02-2004, 16:01

Thanks Caroline. When you used your O2 mobile to phone another (maybe non-O2) UK mobile within Florida, did you use the 0044 code or something else?

**steph_goodrum** · 11-02-2004, 16:04

We used my husbands Orange tri band to phone our home no. in the villa to check we were going to get through as it was the first time we'd tried it in USA. When we got the bill in it was £1.20 for a 4 SEC call to the phone in the same room. So we decided it would definitely be only be for emergencies.

**caroline** · 11-02-2004, 16:37

we dialled 011 44 then dropped the first 0 of the number

for phoning local Florida landlines we just dialled the number ie 863 420 0000

**fiona** · 11-02-2004, 17:09

We use our triband phones in the US but we are all on vodaphone. Our bills are similar to Caroline, about double normal usage. But useful when you have teenagers that want to be dropped off and collected!

**firsttimer** · 11-02-2004, 17:54

Fiona, if you are going to do that, it might be a good idea to use some sort of code. Agree where the pickup will be, and use a code of 3 or 4 rings to say they are ready. If they have problems, they should not ring off, and you know you need to answer the call.