This month, my parents took a trip to Europe, along with my mom’s younger sister (these people are all in their seventies, FWIW). Their itinerary was basically: Ireland, Frankfurt, Lourdes, Nice, Assisi, Munich, USA (stretched out over three weeks).
They arrived in Lourdes last Friday. The plan was for Mom and Dad to spend until Tuesday morning there (taking a train to Nice), but for my aunt to take a side trip to visit a friend of hers elsewhere, and rejoin them on Monday evening.
So this morning, I receive this email from my sister:
I’m a little non-plussed that none of them had their cell phones with them. I know that they all have cell phones. But I suppose that maybe their cell phones aren’t configured to work in Europe. Even if that’s the case, though, wouldn’t it have been easy enough to get themselves a pair of cheapo pre-paid cell phones, just to use on the trip? I’ve got a Virgin mobile phone that cost me twenty bucks, and I can buy 200 minutes to be used over the course of a month for another twenty bucks. Placed in the context of expenditures for a European vacation, this would seem to be kind of a minor accessory to obtain.
EuroDopers, how do the logistics of cell phones over there fit with the notion of taking this approach? Prohibitively expensive? Too many bureaucratic hurdles to overcome? Fight my ignorance, please.
I don’t know how is it available in the whooooooole of Europe (pretty complex place sometimes), but a relatively cheap option, very popular with immigrants, is prepaid cards; I’ve seen them in Spain, France and Switzerland but the reason I don’t remember them in other places I’ve been may simply be that I didn’t notice, not a lack of availability. You buy a card with a code which gives you X time locally or Z to a country of your choice, and can use them from any phone (so long as that phone can find the local network).
If they have the right phone, it should allow them to phone wherever - the question would be how much does it cost, but that can be found out ahead of time. I’ve used my movistar (from Spanish communications giant Telefónica) all over the place; every time it detects I’ve changed countries it sends me a SMS with the rates that will be applied, which was a PITA when I lived in Basel as I’d change country 2-4 times per day.
Not sure how that would work with a person on a train. Aren’t public pay phones disappearing from the EU in pretty much the same way they are in the U.S.?
If the person is on a train there are very likely to be bad-reception times, but using a SMS instead tends to work quite well; you send the SMS and, if the signal isn’t good enough, the phone just holds it until it is. The “blip” of data for “lost 7pm train, will arrive at 11pm” takes a lot less time to send than having a conversation.
If they had GSM-compatible phones, AND if their providers have contracts with local companies for roaming and such, their phones should work. The price for this, however, is an entirely different story. It can be ridiculously expensive. Still, not too expensive to be used in an emergency.
Prepaid cellphones are readily available if you know where to get them. Believe it or not, the problem (at least in France) is not the lack of offers, but rather finding a shop that bothers to carry such a thing, and if it does, to have it in stock, and if it has it, to find it open for business. In general they open late, close for lunch and then re-open for a bit in the afternoon, but they close early. I had problems finding some merchandise during the week because of this. Beginning Friday afternoon, all bets are off. (Unless we’re talking big chain stores it’s safe to assume that a place will be closed during the weekend. The vast majority of all the shops are closed Sunday).
Given the described situation it’s easy for me to imagine trouble occurring because of some of the phone’s incompatibility, combined with the difficulty of getting a prepaid cellular (not because of the bureaucracy, but because it may be difficult a store that is both open and selling them).
Ain’t that the truth. We take for granted here in the U.S. that merchandisers actually want us to come in and give them money for merchandise, and that many of them are open all day. This isn’t the case in France. We saw any number of shops we wanted to browse, but they were usually closed. And we weren’t strolling around at odd hours, either. What’s up with that?
I see absolutely nothing wrong with the old-fashioned way of meeting up with people: “I’ll plan to meet you at X at Y o’clock. If we don’t hook up there, we will meet at Z.” It’s always a good idea to have such a plan – even if you have a cell phone, for it may be lost, destroyed, or out of juice.
I have a cheap pay as you go cellphone, in France - it cost me 35 Euros, including (I think) 5 euros of calltime. The only problem with someone buying them on holiday is that I think you need a French address to register it to, but you might be able to use a hotel address, perhaps.
Shops closing for lunch and everything shutting down entirely on Sunday is a subject near and dear to my heart and it drives me mad. It is a big selling point with our supermarket that it stays open throughout lunchtime. I will stop before I start ranting.
My aunts disappeared in the Rome train station and we had murder in our hearts and were planning on the next train by the time we found them again, and they had cell phones they just weren’t answering!
Last time I went to Europe we called our cell phone providers and they rented us phones that would work there. No problem. And if not, then you should do it the old way - I am going to be under the clock in the train station until 1:30. If you are not there by then I am going to be on a train.