Wifi & Cell Phone Service

[SunshineandFire]

I have searched the forums a bit and can't seem to nail down current information on wifi and cell phone service available at CTI.

Should we even bring a laptop? I was thinking we may bring one mainly to store our photos on from our cameras.

But does anyone facebook or email while there? Does it cost extra?

We have AT&T Cell phone service. Will we be able to make an occasional call to check in at home? Is it terribly expensive? Do we need to establish international calling with AT&T before we go? I keep seeing references to calling cards...should we do that instead of our cell service?

Thanks for any info.

[MarkSandy]

Making a voice call is more about you contacting your cell provider and asking them to enable international roaming. There's usually a charge involved and it will be active for the month of service that you activate it in.

If your phones can enable WiFi separately from roaming, then you'll be able to use data mode for no additional fee.

We did bring a netbook, and set our phones for WiFi only. That was plenty to stay in-touch with home through email, and watching our house being watched by my son and Sandy's daughter through the Facebook pics they were posting at 3am. Your thought about using it to offload pics from a digital camera is a good one.. That's exactly what we did and it worked out great!

[tracyl]

We too, have AT&T... check with them. We have a plan on one of our phones for international roaming and we also purchase a 50 international text plan for $10.00 just for our trip. This way we can stay in touch with the kids if needed. WIFI picks up in the lobby and some rooms in the main building, and as long as you are on WIFI with your phone, there is no extra charge. The extra charges come in when you are on 3G or 4G service - and those charges will add up very quickly!!!

[Coloradojuli]

We always bring our laptop with us. The WiFi at the resort is free of charge. We download our pictures onto the computer as well as do FB (to make our friends jealous) and emails (to stay in touch). We also do not own an iPod, so we use our laptop for music in the room.

I would suggest installing Skype on your laptop and then you can call home for free to another computer, or to a land line for a few cents per minute. It is the much cheaper way to go.

[NeedBlueWater]

We brought our laptop to CTI last November to video Skype (free, as Juli stated) with our daughter while we were there. We stayed about 2/3 of the way down the hall of building 4. We picked up the wifi from the pool bar. I believe they have repeaters located throughout the resort so wifi is readily available. Yes, wifi is also included at no extra cost. The connection wasn't the fastest, but it did the trick. We had one day without any connection, but that was do to problems with their service provider (supossedly) and not a CTI problem. I also was able to download my pics froom my camera so I could keep on clicking. I tend to be a "shot gun" photographer. Take loads of pics in the hopes that some turn out...lol. We'll be taking our laptop again to CN in December. The only downside, to me, is that it's one more thing to lug through the airport.

[SunshineandFire]

thanks for the info guys. This is exactly the information I needed!

Counting down the days!!

[ct ti fan]

We didn't want to bring a laptop as it reminded me of work. We were also concerned with having a phone for calling to check on our son. But what we ended up doing was turning off the phone service and using the blackberry via wifi only. It worked great and we ended up sending emails and pix back home everyday. You can also use the internet cafe for free. And you can still facebook via wifi as well.

[tumh20]

Just returned from CTI and turned my iPhone on airplane mode and turned wifi on. I was able to check email, take pictures and upload directly to facebook, and even skype my daughter! We did not have a wifi signal in our room, but were successful from lobby or anywhere on beach or at pools.

[Vickyj]

WiFi was spotty and kept cancelling out while we were there. I had no service and friends with AT&T had no service even though they called and were told they would have service. We did Skype our oldest as he was at home by himself. While we were talking, we had a delayed response because of the wifi going in and out.

[Readergirl]

tumh20...
i just finally got an iphone, and have alot to learn on it,
so by putting it on airplane mode ( does that keep calls from coming in)
and turning on the WIFI will pick up the free wifi in the resort, but what about the 3g or 4g how do you turn that off? or does it matter once you have the wifi on? i am so lost. and want to be able to keep in touch with our daughter who will not be on the trip with us. any info would be so helpful!!! and i am still trying to figure out my new phone!
thanks,

[mbuckley]

tumh20...
i just finally got an iphone, and have alot to learn on it,
so by putting it on airplane mode ( does that keep calls from coming in)
and turning on the WIFI will pick up the free wifi in the resort, but what about the 3g or 4g how do you turn that off? or does it matter once you have the wifi on? i am so lost. and want to be able to keep in touch with our daughter who will not be on the trip with us. any info would be so helpful!!! and i am still trying to figure out my new phone!
thanks,

Readergirl--I have a Droid and a verizon rep recommended that I turn off the data plan on my phone. There is a place in my phone settings where I can do this. You should be able to do this on your Iphone too. But I think that putting it into Airplane mode would do the same thing--I don't think it would search for a 3G/4G signal either. Then you just turn on the wifi on your phone to use while at the resort. Now that I think about it, I wonder what the difference is between airplane mode and turning off your data plan?

[Readergirl]

thanks for the info mbuckley....i also have verizon .... and i don't want to come home to a huge cell bill
i want to be able to check in on our daughter while we are away...who will be staying with friends, so anyway, so i am hoping this will work, i think i will also call Verizon ...thanks for the help

[tumh20]

tumh20...
i just finally got an iphone, and have alot to learn on it,
so by putting it on airplane mode ( does that keep calls from coming in)
and turning on the WIFI will pick up the free wifi in the resort, but what about the 3g or 4g how do you turn that off? or does it matter once you have the wifi on? i am so lost. and want to be able to keep in touch with our daughter who will not be on the trip with us. any info would be so helpful!!! and i am still trying to figure out my new phone!
thanks,

YES! It is that simple! go into settings and turn "airplane mode" on. Then go to "Wi-Fi" and turn it on and make the sure that "ask to join networks" is also on.
You will be all set on the iPhone. The 3G or 4G will not show up, but instead it will show the wi-fi strength icon at the top. No calls or voicemails will come through, but you will be able to check and send email, facebook, and even skype! ....as long as you can pick up the wi-fi signal....I could not get a signal from my room, but it worked fine from the beach, pools, lobby, etc. I skyped my daughter from the lobby and walked around showing her the restaurants and beach!
also....the dock in your room will charge your iPhone!