Walkie Talkies in the park? About This Page:

[pthomas]

Just curious to know if anyone has used old fashioned walkie talkies in the parks. Are they allowed at all, and if so how well do they work? DH has a set that has a 3-mile or 10 mile range. How do you know what channels are prohibited?

[CinderAbby]

Check out this link. It might help you out.

http://www.allearsnet.com/pl/radio.htm

[bradk]

if they're FRS, there are no limitations on its use. however note the distance is theoretical and objects in the way will drastically shorten the length. i've heard sometimes they work well, sometimes they don't. what always happens though is tons of other families are using them too, so use nicknames and have backup plans to switch to additional (sub)channels when need be.

GMRS requires an FCC license to use for the family, I think it runs about $70, but offers a much longer span.

i think bottom line is cell phones are a better alternative.

[RobinKay6573]

[ QUOTE ]
i think bottom line is cell phones are a better alternative.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with this...as a veteran of horse shows I can tell you that Walkie Talkies can sometimes cause mass confusion. Do you really KNOW if the person you are talking to is your fellow traveler? Voices sound VERY similar on walkie talkies. Also if the person isn't available to talk to there is no way to leave a message or even let the person know that you had tried to contact them. Even CM at WDW use cell phones! That has to tell you something.

[stonewall]

We've used our "Mickey" ones and they worked great!

[christiejay]

Last summer, we separated just about every day so that Joshua could get a nap. Our plan for meeting up: have an approximate time you want to meet, and a general area to meet. Then once the person coming back into the park actually gets in the park, get out the walkie-talkies and figure out the exact location of the person who was already in the park.

This worked fine for us and it was very busy (July 4th week). We stayed together the rest of the time and didn't use the walkie talkie's because in the past we have found that too many people use them and it gets annoying to have to leave it on and listen to other people talk.

[paradox]

Ours work very well in the parks, Midland's witha 10 mile mile range. Having said that, We used our cell phones a lot more. They seemed easier to use for our kids.

[heidismith]

We tried walkie talkies and picked up several peoples conversations, so we abandoned them and went to our cell phones. Yes, we had roaming charges, but not that much. Go for the cell phones.

[GoofysTink]

Funny walkie talkie story @ Disney...
We had ours when we took my DSD and DGS (8 at the time) down with us along with my DSons (5 and 6 at the time). We had split up at one point while DH and I went to get in line with one of the DS and DSD took her son and our other son to the potty. Over the walkie talkie we hear "where are you guys" so we respond with "in line at Haunted Mansion"... the next thing we know there are 3 people walking up and down the line going "where are they" and in the meantime my DSD shows up and says she didn't use the walkie talkie!!! LOL Must have been on the same channel... and it sounded just like her [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/roflmao.gif[/img]

[mamapajama]

We used walkies before we had cell phones. We have a family plan so there is no roaming and we have free texts so it works out much better for us to use the cell phones.

Elise

[coastgirl]

It can be a lot more expensive for Canadians, at least, so we actually just bought walkie-talkies this week. (Don't know if anyone else cares about it, but heck, I'll join in!) Our cellphone provider has NO plan for FL, and the roaming charges are incredible for some Canadians. Our provider offered us a "plan" for $40/month/phone (so a min of $80 to call each other, which was mostly what we wanted), which we declined. Still, we made MAYBE five minutes' worth of calls while away and spent an extra $80 on our bill. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img] Better to have bought the plan, at least we would've been able to use the phones more for the same money. Funny, we used our phones while on a road trip through New England last summer, and had no significant extra charges.

The walkie/talkies we bought have FRS and GRMS (? did I get that right?) channels; apparently Americans need a license for the latter but we don't here, so will have less competition on those channels. (Have been following a long discussion about this on a Canadian Disney board!)

We're still working the bugs out, tried using them on our road trip last week, and got some extra communication...glad to hear others' experience and how to make sure you're talking to someone you know!!

[bradk]

you can buy prepaid SIMs or even prepaid phones.