Walkie-Talkies

[CzepielCrew]

Does anyone ever use walkie-talkies in the parks?
Can you hear the person talking with all the park noise? Worth carrying around? Me, my DH, and my DS 12 and DS12 will be going next August. One likes thrill rides, one does not. Thinking about splitting up a few times. I do not want to lose 1/2 the family for the day

[azcavalier]

We thought about it, as we have some of those Motorola 2-way radios. But then it was like, "We have cell phones. Why do we need walkie-talkies?"

[CzepielCrew]

Is cell phone service usually constant outside of the rides?

[sainter]

We've never had a problem with our cell phones outside of the rides or buildings. We have Verizon.

[Strmchsr]

:ditto: with AT&T

[Victor Kelly]

Use your cell phones. FRS is line of sight and is terrible with all the concrete and steel in the park.

[paymerich]

With Cell service fairly powerfu alll over the park now ,plus free WEEFEE ( WiFi) you are better off not using the FRS radios. Last time we used them there so many people on frequncy or just pranking it was not worth it plus with cell phones you can leave messages, check all the Disney Apps etc etc.

[Mrs Bus Driver]

another vote for cell phones. you can use text and not have to worry about being able to hear. :mickey:

[Renfairwedding]

My wife and I use our amateur radios and can talk to each other almost everywhere in WDW.

[DisneyDawgette]

Cell phones make life much easier! And if you want to know wait times and things of that nature, I definitely recommend the WDW Maps app by VersaEdge. It's a LOT of help in the parks and saved me having to walk all over the place to only be disappointed by the wait time. :)

[Quadstriker]

We used them during a large convention at the Anaheim convention center and then at Disneyland in 2007. Had to take the time to find an unused channel at Disneyland.

Is it possible? Yes. Is it worth the effort? No. It was inferior to texts and cellular calls.

[MickeysBestPal]

My wife and I use our amateur radios and can talk to each other almost everywhere in WDW.

If you are a Ham operator, your gear is superior to the standard FRS talkies.

(But you'd already know that if you are a Ham operator.) :confused:

[Dream'nDisney]

We used the 2-way radios several times when kids were younger, and it seemed everyone used them. We would have them wear a fannypack and keep it in there. However, so many people were always interfering, some of them on purpose just to mess us up, so we stopped using them. Now, we all just use our cell phones. We have never had a dropped call or static on the line. Now, though, since almost everone has cell phones, you might find that there are very few people using 2-ways and, thus, less interference.

[buzznwoodysmom]

We used walkie talkies on our first trip years ago, back when we didn't each have a cell phone. The main problem we had was that back then the CMs used them (they might still use them), as did lots of other guests, so it was almost impossible to find a clear channel to use. We heard lots of other families conversations, and some screaming and cursing too. LOL. Cell phones are much better for communicating inside the parks.

And for what it's worth we have AT&T and use our phones all the time in the parks, and have never had any issues calling out or receiving calls. I have heard lots of folks complain about AT&T inside the parks, but we've never had issues.

[disneysmiles]

Cell phones are a must have for us in the parks.My teens do thrill rides,DH and I do not. We split up all the time. During shows and rides we tend to have our phones turned off or on vibrate, so it's easy to miss a call. We mostly use the text function and have gotten into the habit of checking for them after every attraction. The kids do too.We might have to wait a few minutes for them to answer us, but while you can miss a call, we have never missed a text.

I felt so bad for a mom we saw one time in AK. She was being helped by a couple of CMs. She was panicking because she couldn't reach her kids on the walkie talkie they were using. I over heard one of the CMs tell her it wasn't unusual for bad connections on the walkies because of all the cement in the parks.

[CzepielCrew]

Thanks everyone. We will stick with the cell phones :)

[Tink#64]

We tried walkie talkies once & it was hopeless! But thankfully, we've never had a problem with our cell phone signal in WDW! :call: BTW, our cell phone carrier is T*Mobile. :thumbsup:

[texas211]

The folks standing around me were using walkies.
1. Annoyed everyone standing around you. Much like cell phones, no one else wants to hear your noise.
2. B/c it is kinda loud, didn't seem they could be understood, nor could they understood what was being said and thus spoke louder and louder.

Cell texting works for us. I have a sprint phone (limited coverage) and the wife has ATT. Att works pretty well. In fact, now that we have expensive iphones/droids I bought us disposable att phones to bring to the parks to get banged around, etc. Tried Tracfones for one trip, didn't work very well at all. VZ should work, since they have VZ sponsored apps.