When we were in the States a couple of years ago we decided to pick up walkie-talkies to allow us to stay in touch if we split up while in the parks. We found that the units worked well when we were trying them round the house but were completely useless in the parks unless you were stood virtually next to each other. This was because there were only 22 channels to choose from and when in a park the size of Disney World that’s quite a few people per channel.

This year we decided to try a different tack and go with a couple of pay-as-you-go phones. So when in Wal-Mart we picked up the cheapest phones we could find – two basic Nokia 1208’s on t-mobile. This came to the grand total of £26 and included a small amount of credit.

Registering them was straightforward on the t-mobile website and didn’t need address details, just the number code of your local area.

The best thing about the phones is that they are on a “pay by the day” tariff which has a charge of $1 for every day that you use the phone. Once you have paid your 1 USD you can then make unlimited calls to any other t-mobile number which, of course, includes the other phone.

Being on the mobile network the phones don’t suffer from the problem we had with the walkie-talkies and the only difficultly we have had so far is being able to hear the ring tone in the parks, even on the loudest setting.

I reckon that by the end of the holiday the phones and air time will have cost us just shy of £40, which is a small price for some peace of mind and will have been invaluable.

Thanks to Dirk for the tip.

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