Thread: Do Cell phones work in Hawaii?

We are cruising on the pride of america in may to maui & kauia areas and were wondering if our cell phones will work on the Islands or at sea? we have "cingular" service.

I have a Virgin mobile phone (which uses Sprint coverage) and when we were in Honolulu, doing a little shopping, I got the phone out to call the cab driver who had dropped us off there and had no bars. So I had to use the pay phone.

In Kauai, I didn't need to use the phone, but turned it on just to see if I had coverage, and yes, I did.

I think the next time I turned the phone on, was on the ship in Hilo, after we returned from a shore excursion. I had a signal.

We have Sprint and have coverage on all the islands in Hawaii. The ships have cell service now, and it's best to check with the Guest Services desk to see what the charges are.

We just switched to Cingular because their coverage is all over the islands We'll find out in 53 days!!!

When we were in Hawaii we had service with verizon.

I also have Cingular, and had service in the Hawaiian Islands when I was there in November, 2005. Cingular is now AT&T again and you have coverage in every country in the world. I've been to Paris, London, Scotland, Trinidad, Barbados, St Lucia, Antigua, St Maarten, Belize, Roatan, Honduras, Aruba, and many, many more countries, and had Cingular service.

I have Alltel service and it worked great on the islands. I spent a couple of weeks there, island hopping, and my phone worked on each one. Since I have unlimited long distance calling in all 50 states, I was able to talk to my DH every day. I just had to remember the time difference between Hawaii & Florida. Oh, I went with my best friend because DH didn't want to go. Just in case you're wondering why I was calling him.

We take our Cingular phones to Hawaii all the time, and they work fine.

Just a side note...if you have a newer style 3G phone it will work pretty much anywhere in the world. I tested my new Razr XX phone on the Danube cruise in December and it was fine both calling the states and receiving calls. If you travel abroad with an older phone you can still get it to work, but it involves unlocking it and changing the SIM card...hassles...then change it all back when you return. With the newer phones you don't need to do anything at all.

My old phone, which was also Cingular but an older Samsung model phone, got no reception half the time when I was out horseback riding at the ranch (in Texas). It would work just fine at the house but not out in the pasture, three miles away. Talk about frustrating! But my new phone has no problem anywhere, I have yet to find a place I can't get good reception. Exact same Cingular plan...just a better phone.

Bottom line - it's partly the service and partly the phone itself that makes the difference.

Well Kind - of.... It was kind of fun calling friends when we were on our trip an telling them about what we were doing and how wonderful the trip was.

On the other hand, I was on deck as we were leaving Maui, and had my camera bag with me. It it was my cell phone which I had left on....It wrang??? I'm like "who is calling me."

It was one of my cheerleader moms calling me to find out if we had cheer practice that night!!

We both had a big laugh when I told her where I was and what I was doing!!!

I have Cingular and It worked just fine in honolulu and all over tjhe Big Island.