Getting a sim in St Lucia

SusieWinwood

We go away a week Tuesday :j :cool: to St Lucia and I am debating the thought of getting a sim while I am there to keep in touch with relatives etc.

It's no massive drama if this can't happen as I've given contact details for the hotel should the balloon go up at home.

Is this the best way to keep in touch? I've called o2 and they have no roaming packages for there.

TIA

Susie

NFH

http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/stlucia.html

mrcamp

The page above was last updated over 4 years ago. I am sure things have changed since then. For just a week, I would not bother. Just roam and use your phone only when it's critical.

redux

None of the global SIMs seem to have free incoming calls there - the best is about 15 to 30 pence incoming - and they can't all be phoned from all other network inclusive minutes anyway

A local SIM would charge about 25 pence a minute to the UK

Cheap calls providers from here cost from about 10 or 13 pence a minute to a St Lucia mobile. See the MSE callchecker

I'd stick with your UK phone for just one or two text messages to and fro, forward all calls to voicemail before you avoid being charged to answer, and as you say you could use the hotel number if there are problems.

You might ask the receptionist if the hotel room extension can accept direct incoming calls, and if so what is the number, then people could call you on that, or you might use it with a third party callback service for outgoing calls

Im_just_careful

If you have a smartphone turn the data off.

Even better get a PAYG SIM from your current network and put that in your phone instead !

NFH

Im_just_careful wrote: »

Even better get a PAYG SIM from your current network and put that in your phone instead !

No, the OP is already one step ahead of you. He's already realised he should get a local PAYG SIM card, not one from a UK network.

DUTR

NFH wrote: »

No, the OP is already one step ahead of you. He's already realised he should get a local PAYG SIM card, not one from a UK network.

It looks like the St Lucia rates on digcell are in USD, in Jamaica it is almost daft not to have one, calls to the UK were about 10p/min and the data was cheap spent about £20 for the week if that much and left a voicemail on my O2 with the access number to just dial so it was costing the caller less to call me from the UK :cool:

NFH

DUTR wrote: »

It looks like the St Lucia rates on digcell are in USD

What makes you say that? The currency in St Lucia is XCD. USD/XCD is pegged at 2.6882.

http://www.digicelstlucia.com/en/plans/digiflex/flex_tariffs

DUTR

NFH wrote: »

What makes you say that? The currency in St Lucia is XCD. USD/XCD is pegged at 2.6882.

http://www.digicelstlucia.com/en/plans/digiflex/flex_tariffs

Thanks for that, the rates are pretty reasonable then, the JMD is a >100/£ I didn't know there was an XCD

redux

The other network there is LIME (part of Cable & Wireless)

http://www.time4lime.com/lc/personal/mobile/