Recommendation on European Cell Service Providers?

I am on a Avalon cruise this summer(Budapest to Nuremberg) then off to visit friends in Germany with 7 days in the south of France. I have an unlocked IPhone and am looking for advice on which cell phone providers in Europe would provide a good solution. I am not looking for the least expensive deal.

I did just found a thread on Hotspot modems for rent but at $10-$15 a day that would add some major cost on a 28 day vacation.

So thoughts, experiences, pitfall to avoid are welcome.

who's your US provider?

I have iPhone & Verizon and just activated EU service when I did pretty much the same thing last summer. Rates were very reasonable and I had good coverage. I had voice, and data - but also found free WiFi in all the hotels we used AND on the train (ICE). I believe the service actually was provided by T-Mobile in most of EU - but billed as Verizon to me, not roaming.

CALL and talk to a rep - trying to get what I wanted on the web site was confusing. Talking to a rep' every question was answered quickly and all my options spelled out. The service was also pro-rated to begin the day I landed and stopped the day I departed.

we went Budapest to Nuremberg then on to Hamburg by train with extra days in each .... then QM2 Hamburg to Southampton to NYC.

I am with AT&T and I did look into their plan but was wondering what else was available?

Thanks for the quick replay

If you are planning on calling friends and family and have free WIFI access, What's App works very well. Drawback is that the person you are calling has to have it installed on their phone. But it does work and it is free.

For an unlocked phone, you may just want to get a European SIM card. I've pasted a link below to a Forbes article that may be helpful.

FuelScience

http://*******.com/h6l4u3c

Last year we were on the Danube from Prague to Budapest and have an open SIM so we bought Vodaphone cards for about $20 in both cities but found the service did not work at all the ports. We found using Facebook messaging convenient and easy and free if we had internet service. We will be returning next year to Europe and will attempt to order the cards from Vodaphone before we leave next time.

Found this article and it looks the google option might be a good choice:

http://thepointsguy.com/2016/04/how-to-stay-connected-while-traveling-abroad/

I just booked a Viking Rhine Getaway for May (with the extensions on both ends, so 11 days total).

I'm thinking of renting a Skyroam Hotspot ($9.95/day for unlimited data) so we can use Google Maps and stuff.

For actual voice and text, I'm trying to decide whether to get a couple of Europe SIMs before we go (Telestial has one for $19.00 with $10 credit) or wait until we get there and buy a SIM in Basel. I've been trying to find out what the options are for pay as you go SIMs in Switzerland that will continue to work in the rest of the countries we're going to visit. We bought SIMs when we were in England a few years back and it was about $30 per phone and ended up making about 2 calls in the whole week, but it was a comfort to know we could make a call if we had to.

I have used the Telestial SIM chip for a number of years while travelling. It works great and unlike buying a SIM in every country, you only have to remember one number.

I'm a big fan of the wireless hotspots, although check the fine print regarding "unlimited data." I've used TEP in the past. I posted a review a while back at the link below.

FuelScience

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2248978&highlight=tep+wireless

Here is the aforementioned fine print for Skyroam.

The daypass is modeled to provide the best possible experience to Skyroam customers, so the vast majority of users only get fastest speeds. If there is high usage (over 500MB) within 24-hours, the connection with go to a lighter 2G speed, which is great for e-mail, web surfing, social media, apps, messaging, and WiFi calling. Data always resets with the next global daypass.

Note: Skyroam is not optimized for video services like YouTube, Netflix or other heavy streaming activities.

FuelScience

We rely on free wifi in cafes and hotels and use viber. Free to use for talk and messaging as long as the other person also has viber on their phone.

When not in free wifi zones, we used texting if needing to make contact with home, only 49c a message with optus.

I have used Ekit for a few years.

http://www.goabroad.ekit.com/ekit/MobilePurchase/Sims

I tend to only use voice and text. I do my data updates when I can find wifi.

I have an app where I download map data for each country I will be traveling in before I leave home so I can always see where I am on a map when walking around in a strange city without having to use data.

I have used it in Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Germany, France, Netherlands, Norway, Iceland, Canada, UK, Argentina, Chile, Falklands, Peru, Costa Rica, Panama, Mexico, New Zealand, Australia, Tahiti and many of the Caribbean Islands without problem.

It comes with a US number and a UK number.

I am on a Avalon cruise this summer(Budapest to Nuremberg) then off to visit friends in Germany with 7 days in the south of France. I have an unlocked IPhone and am looking for advice on which cell phone providers in Europe would provide a good solution. I am not looking for the least expensive deal.

 

I did just found a thread on Hotspot modems for rent but at $10-$15 a day that would add some major cost on a 28 day vacation.

 

So thoughts, experiences, pitfall to avoid are welcome.

We just got back from our Christmas Markets trip. We have T-mobile and every country we were in (Hungary, Austria, Germany, and Switzerland) had free unlimited data, and calling for 20 cents per minute. If I wanted to make a long phone call, I just turned off data and used WiFi for calling for free. We recently switched from Verizon, and T-mobile's great international coverage and rates was one of the reasons we switched.

I agree we are in Germany now and we love it!

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bubbulz and rcaruso, with the amount of international travel we do, I'm also thinking of making the switch from Verizon to T-Mobile. Their international plan seems vastly superior. Verizon's is ridiculously expensive in comparison; I just won't use it.

However, reading the fine print for T-Mobile seems to indicate that their international data speeds on the basic plan are supposedly slower than US data speeds. I think you can pay extra to have higher international data speeds but then their rates approach Verizon.

So, question: did you find that the basic data speed in Europe (if that's what plan you have) was sufficient for what you wanted to do? Did you notice an appreciable drop off in speed in Europe cf. USA?

bubbulz and rcaruso, with the amount of international travel we do, I'm also thinking of making the switch from Verizon to T-Mobile. Their international plan seems vastly superior. Verizon's is ridiculously expensive in comparison; I just won't use it.

 

However, reading the fine print for T-Mobile seems to indicate that their international data speeds on the basic plan are supposedly slower than US data speeds. I think you can pay extra to have higher international data speeds but then their rates approach Verizon.

 

So, question: did you find that the basic data speed in Europe (if that's what plan you have) was sufficient for what you wanted to do? Did you notice an appreciable drop off in speed in Europe cf. USA?

I found that it varied by county. Austria and Germany were up to 4G LTE, whereas Hungary and Switzerland were at 2G. That said, I found it sufficient for everything I was doing. I use it quite a bit in the Caribbean on a routine basis, and there it is 2G as well and it's worked just fine, albeit sometimes a bit slower than in the US.

Right now we are getting good speeds in Germany. I can post pictures to Instagram and Facebook. Did this from bus. Has worked well for us, especially when no wi if available. Face timed with our daughter today on bus.

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We just got back from our Christmas Markets trip. We have T-mobile and every country we were in (Hungary, Austria, Germany, and Switzerland) had free unlimited data, and calling for 20 cents per minute. If I wanted to make a long phone call, I just turned off data and used WiFi for calling for free. We recently switched from Verizon, and T-mobile's great international coverage and rates was one of the reasons we switched.

Switching from Verizon to T-Mobil is exactly what we did for the same reason--and I note that rcaruso says the same. We were in Florence for four months (work--tough job but somebody's got to do it) and we did great with T-mobil for calls and text. (Texting was unlimited.) Not sure, but I think T-Mobil is a division of Deutsche Telekom.

We have had t mobile for a very long time. We are very pleased with the European service.

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Update - we switched to T-mobile at the end of December. It worked amazingly well for us on our India trip last week. We had a fine signal in the cities, and even had coverage along the river. Though there were small areas without data coverage, it was so nice to be able to text, WhatsApp, and post to FB, CC, etc without a worry about data charges. Can't wait for the next trip!

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Glad to hear it! We've been very pleased with the service, both at home and abroad. Since we travel internationally quite often, it's nice not to have to deal with swapping SIM cards, etc.

Thanks JP! I've been thinking about making the switch, and it sounds like it's time to say goodbye to AT&T.

T-Mobile here, last year Germany we connected with 2g with an option to upgrade speed, this year lte no cost.

I don't have T-Mobile, and AT&T's plans for Europe look pretty pricey - $10/day per phone. Does anybody know if I got a European sim whether I could forward my Google Voice number to it?