Where do and where don't cell phones work

[singermom4]

I've been reading some trip reports where it seems like it is hard to get cell phone coverage. I'm wondering if it is a good idea to rely on cell phones to meet up with people. Is a particular park hard to use the cell phone in? How about rides? restaurants? resort rooms?

[roryjulie]

i wouldn't rely on the cell. especially in epcot. it only seemed to work in DD.

[TiggerRPh]

I've not had much of a coverage problem with my cell phone except in Epcot around Spaceship Earth. It might depend on your plan and the type of phone you have (might have poor coverage with a bad antenna).

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[Timbo]

I've got T-Mobile service (formerly VoiceStream). I used to have Cingular. Both companies have spotty service in the parks, but I've noticed that T-Mobile seems to be a bit better overall. I have never had service inside an attraction, at least not that I've noticed. Usually, I come out of an attraction and notice that I have a new message, then I have to find a spot that has a decent signal to get the message and make the callback.

It's a bit frustrating because I often meet up with friends or family at the parks, and cellular phone is about the only way to keep in touch. I have seen very few cellular towers in the WDW Resort area...I don't suppose they're very pleasing to look at, but I do think they are a necessary evil.

[Piglet822]

My DH and I both have T-Mobile. He works at WDW and I am on property quite often. The only problem we have is around the Epcot area. Not just around Spaceship Earth, but around the perimeter roads as well. Once in Epcot, we seem okay, weak signal but usable. Weird, I know smile.gif
I always tell DH if he's got a weak signal, he's got to stand near a window, facing northeast with his left leg at a 45 degree angle while balancing on his right leg. graemlins/rotfl.gif

[Mufasa]

*shameless merchandising plug alert*- Cell phone reception always improves at WDW if you've got your Mickey ears on! graemlins/mickey.gif Even a goofy hat will improve things a bit, but it is hard to dial on those tiny cell phones when you've only got 4 fingers.

[Fangorn]

One of the things that can impact cellular service, especially in the Epcot area, is the presence of large conventions at the Dolphin. A couple of years ago I was at a convention of 10,000 techno-geeks there. During session breaks you had at least 5000 people trying to make calls all at once. Really plays havoc with the phone systems. Disney had the phone companies bring in a legion of mobile cell towers to help out, but it still wasn't enough.

From a service standpoint, you're really better off with a 2-way paging device than a cell phone. I've had really good experiences with several 2-way paging devices. They generally won't work inside the buildings, but external coverage is pretty good.

Steve

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[vizsla]

My DW works for a major cell phone company and the what problems you can run into is the quality of the phone. Some phones will give you a better signal(bars) than others. The other major factor is all cellular phone companies have drop off zones. You can obtain a area coverage map from your cell phone provider to see if there is adequate coverage in that area. I don't know if Disney allows cellphone companies to put towers on their property, but I know the company my DW works for doesn't have a tower on Disney property and we only encountered minor problems, we could not make calls from inside our room at POR. That was the only location we had a problem throughout all of WDW.

[CJDDS]

Here's a question - why worry about the reception in an attraction or restaurant? Why not turn it off and enjoy the attraction or your meal? Just my pet peeve - sorry. I have T mobile and reception was good at FW, but that's all I can tell you.

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[singermom4]

Thanks for the replies and no - I am not one of those people with the cell phone on all the time. We will be visiting WDW with extended family so we will have to split up at times and I would, at least, be able to get a voice mail message. It seems that some people had trouble registering even if a voice mail message came in. By the way, we are on the Nation-wide long distance plan with Sprint and my mother has Bell Mobility (she lives in Canada).

[Mufasa]

I have to agree with you about turning off the cell phone when in an attraction or restaurant. It's my pet peeve too (I was really annoyed when someone's cell phone continuously rang throughout a recent performance of La Nouba at Downtown Disney and didn't get the hint until about 20 minutes into the show to perhaps turn off the cell phone).

Why is it that these individuals:

1.) Have the most obnoxious cell phone ring tone.

2.) Have it turned up so loud it just as well could wake up the dead (have no concept of turning the phone to vibrate if they absolutely have to leave their cell phone on).

3.) Will answer the phone and talk LOUDLY into the phone (I'll bet that the person they're speaking to probably could hear them without the cell phone since it seems the rest of the audience can hear their conversation loud and clear).

It's one thing to use a cell phone to coordinate a meeting place or in the queue for an attraction, but I don't need to hear someone call and say "Hey- I'm at Disney World... yeah, we're on Pirates right now. Ooh- look, there's a pirate honey. Oh, and can you hear the music- here, let me put the phone up so you can listen in too." Sadly, it's one of those evils of the technology.

At least if you're in a theater, is it really that difficult to excuse yourself or return the call at a more convenient time? And if you really are expecting a call that badly, tell the calling party where you'll be and perhaps speak to the ushers of the house and they can grab you if necessary.

Sorry... didn't mean to go off on a cell phone etiquette rant, but it's something that I think needs to be addressed. (same goes for those FRS radios too).

[vizsla]

Singermom4, I see you mentioned the cellphone company you have. That is who my DW works for. I can tell you that you will have good coverage and reception while at WDW. As I mentioned earlier, you may have a slight problem when making calls when you are in your room. We had problems with that at POR, but when we stayed at the Poly everything was fine. I don't have an answer for your mothers carrier Bell Mobility, her situation will depend on the best roaming signal her phone will pick up.

[Mufasa]

Bell Mobility is a CDMA carrier in Canada (in some of the newer markets in BC, Ontario most of their networks are in the 1900 Mhz CDMA band)- they generally have a roaming agreement in place with Sprint in the US. (They also have analog roaming agreements with other carriers in the US, though you would want to check with them to see if there's any added fees to roam analog).

Verizon wireless is also on 1900Mhz CDMA in the Orlando region, though I don't know if they're a roaming partner with Bell Mobility. One other thing your mom may want to do is go to a local Bell Mobility store and make sure that they load the latest PRL- priority roam list on her phone before the trip.

The PRL is a CDMA specific thing- basically it's a small file/database listing preferred SID and frequency to use for calls in order of priority (system identification number) for different areas. Even with the PRL, your phone will scan through and lock onto an available signal, but you may pay a roaming charge (the cellular carrier will pass along the charge if it's not in their PRL- it's how they can keep down costs by making sure you use one of the carriers they have an agreement with).

Good idea for any customers on Sprint or Verizon as well to periodically check and update the PRL on your phones before travelling to ensure the best coverage. Other providers with different technology (GSM like T-Mobile or some markets of Cingular and AT&T don't require a PRL as they handle things a little differently).

[Mufasa]

As far as not receiving voice mail indications- that shouldn't be an issue these days with ACD (automatic call delivery).

In the older days of cellular (and early days of digital coverage), sometimes you'd be in a market and have to enable what was called Follow-Me Roaming (FMR for short). Basically, if you dialed *18 on your phone it would set a flag on the switch which would enable roaming. (which is the default). Occasionally, when roaming if you tried to call your own number (to access voice mail) you might get a busy signal, which is why you would dial *19 to disable follow me roaming, so the system would know to properly let you forward your call to your home system and check your voice mail.

Sometimes a user would forget to re-enable follow-me roaming (or the flag in the computer system would somehow not be set) so they wouldn't receive any incoming calls or notification.

These days it's not needed to perform a *18 (though it doesn't hurt anything). There are a few tiny mom and pop cellular companies where you might have to do that, but we're talking less than 1%. ACD isn't perfect though- sometimes the system won't completely register that you're roaming on a system and you'll miss an incoming call (and more likely to happen on a CDMA system depending on how they have the paging slot cycle index configured where theoretically your phone could miss the paging message and not ring and skip directly off to voicemail).

Generally speaking, sometimes it's a good idea just to make a quick outgoing call in your new market and you shouldnt' have a problem receiving incoming calls (just a quick call to customer care *2 for sprint or *611 on Verizon and a number of other carriers will do it- it's a free call and will register your phone with the local system).

[singermom4]

Thanks for the wealth of information on celluar phones Mufasa! I did not know about priority roaming lists!

Vizsla - good to know that Sprint has decent coverage in the World. We took a trip to San Jose, CA recently and could not use our phones!

[ January 01, 2003, 08:16 PM: Message edited by: singermom4 ]

[TheSorcererofFantasia]

I've been using Verizon Wireless for almost two years now and have always had fantastic reception at WDW. Last trip my phone rang (vibrate mode) inside The Haunted Mansion half way through the ride.

Personally I use the cell phone to keep in touch with friends/family in the park and calls to home. Whether I'm in a park, restaurant or just hanging at the resort I leave it on vibrate mode.

[Flower]

My c-phone is w'Bell Mobility. I was not able to get a signal during our stay at POR, however I did not take it to the parks.

That being said, I was able to use it on a trip in November 2001 in Detroit, St Paul MN, and Portland OR. So I know the coverage is good.

[Womble]

I had a mobile phone, which worked really well WDW. It was a Vodafone from the UK. The first day of my holiday in MK, the Unit I work for called me three times in a four hour period, graemlins/shakehead.gif just so I could confirm things they already knew! After that the phone was switched off, taken back to my hotel room and left in the safe!
It will never go on holiday again! :D

[WDW crazy]

I have Cingular and didn't have a problem when I used it on our last trip to WDW. My coverage seemed to be good most of the time even when I was still on the plane in Dallas and we were waiting to pull up to the jetway. (Yes, they did say we could use our phones)

[CJDDS]

Originally posted by Womble:
I had a mobile phone, which worked really well WDW. It was a Vodafone from the UK. The first day of my holiday in MK, the Unit I work for called me three times in a four hour period, graemlins/shakehead.gif just so I could confirm things they already knew! After that the phone was switched off, taken back to my hotel room and left in the safe!
It will never go on holiday again! :D That is the true curse of cell phones. I don't like phones to begin with, but have a cell because of my job. I take it on vacation, but generally leave the thing switched off and back at the camper. Good for an emergency, but leave me alone on vacation!

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[wendy*darling]

We also use our cell phones at WDW. We have Verizon's family plan and use the phones to meet each other, atc.

We keep them on vibrate and we use the text messaging quite often. That way we don;t even have to talk! My son types in "c u in Frnc in 30min" and my phone vibrates to tell me the message is there. graemlins/thumbsup.gif

Our reception when talking, signal strength, and general coverage has been excellent anywhere on the property. Even inside most buildings.

And when a work related call comes through "acidentally" I just hit "IGNORE" when I see the phone number and it goes right to voice mail. I do NOT want to talk about work on vacation :D

[DisneyDog]

We have Nextel service, and haven't had any problems in any of the parks. Our phones also have the paging system in them, so if we were to be separated, we could use that instead of using airtime. Very convenient!

[crismors]

I use Verizion on a tri-mode timeport, visited all parks nov. '01 with friends using Nextel and had no problems keeping in touch. As far as I can remember we never mised a call unless one of us had turned the phone off during a performance, etc.

[mcpenguin5]

When we went to WDW in early November, we all carried our cell phones in order to keep in touch when we separated. One day, my son and his wife were ready to leave the hotel sooner than we were, and we used the cell phone to find them (and our darling grandson!) when we arrived in the Magic Kingdom. I worked great, except they were not able to receive the call while they were in the Pirates of the Caribbean. The call went thru with no problem when they came out. We also used it on a day when they wanted to go to Epcot for the Food and Wine Festival and we took our grandson back to Magic Kingdom. We had to coordinate when we would be arriving back at the WL in the afternoon. Calls went thru smoothly, and we had no trouble with dropped calls or noisy lines. And even better, when we came home and the bill came in, I was amazed how cheap it was. We all have Verizon Wireless, and I knew roaming charges are more expensive, but we figured the money was well spent to allow us the freedom to explore all the areas of the park we wanted to without anyone being dragged along where they didn't want to go. It was marvelous! We had no idea it would have been so inexpensive or we would never have considered any other plan, such as the walkie talkies we priced out. We would do it again in a heartbeat.