Bonnie, is Lisbon your point of entry in Portugal? If the answer is yes, then don't worry. Contact me and I'll help to find everything (phone and SIM) locally in 15 or 20 minutes.

our point of entry is Lisbon, but we fly 2 hrs after touchdown to Madeira. 3 days later we fly to Porto where we will visit the city and pick up a rental car and drive toward Lisbon where we will stay our last 4 days.
any thoughts on arranging the phone in the us or portugal would be appreciated.
bonnie

I just got off the phone with my cellular company, (Cingular), discussing international calling for our upcoming trip to Scotland and England. They offer a plan, (for a one-time $5.99 charge) that allows international calls at the rate of .99 cents per minute to be added to my phone. That seems simpler than renting a phone and I don't know that I can find rates that much cheaper, correct? I also thought I'd take an international calling card and use that for most of our calls back here to the US because I believe that would be cheaper. I mainly want the calling plan for family & my husband's business associates to call us in case of true emergencies. Does this sound like the best way to go?

If your phone will work over there (900/1800 mhz) that sounds like a good plan.

But I'm confused about the calling card. If Cingular will add international calls for 99 cents, why do you need the calling card?

Well . . I don't know for sure that I'll purchase the calling card. It's just that I assumed that a calling card would certainly be cheaper than .99 minute (maybe not). We need to have the cell phone primarily so that people can reach us when necessary and so that we can make calls when we're not near a phone. But when we're in our hotels, I thought perhaps the calling card might be the cheaper way to call back to the US and check on kids and business. But then again, I've never done this so I'm just speculating :-).

Bendeemer. Did you ask Cingular about incoming calls? I don't know if they are free or not for you. Just so you will not be surprised by your phone bill when you return home.
And I don't think the calling card will be more than .99 a minute but I have not real experience with England and Scotland. This is just from using them elsewhere.
Be careful in hotels. Sometimes there is a surcharge just for using the phone.

Namaka. I found my bill from the Riiing SIM I bought on Ebay.

It was E22.95 (plus E4.86 shipping) and it included E5 of calling time. So basically the card itself cost me about $30.95 or so since I have so little calling credit. This is just to give you a point of reference. Whatever you get I think from then on the top off would be all calling time.

I would think that anything you could buy in Europe would not be any more than that and probably less. Of course, you would probably want more call time.

Yeah, I did ask about incoming calls and the same rate applies. The Cingular lady suggested, if I was worried about that, to keep my phone off and let people leave messages, (we'll warn them in advance to keep them short) and then just turn on our phone occasionally and listen to messages. There's no charge for them calling as long as the phone is turned off & it goes directly to voicemail. She warned, though, if the phone is turned on - even if we don't answer it we will be charged for the time the caller spends leaving a message. This way (leaving it off) we can listen to messages every couple of hours & then determine the importance of the calls decide which ones we absolutely have to return. We are taking my phone since fewer people have the number. If we took my husband's phone he would have every person he has ever worked with calling him non-stop.

Thanks for the warning on the hotel fees. We'll have to check on that.

Bendemeer -- a calling card purchsed IN the country you visit will probably give the cheapest possible transatlantic calls. I've had really cheap calling cards in Spain, Italy and France (hours of call time to the US for only $6-8) and I expect there's something similar available in the UK.
This site may be helpful:
http://www.zaptel.com/

sher,
Thanks for the reference. I will be leaving on Tues. I will have my lap-top and will try to keep everyone up to date.

Dear BonnieN
I asked if your point of entry was Lisbon, becasuse I could take you to the wonderful world of low level (no neons) shops. In one of my favourites I saw a 2nd hand GSM terminal by 19.99 euros. Of course brand new and unlocked terminals should cost more than this.
These shops offer better deals than the official TMN-Vodafone-Optimus shops.
But since your first stop in Lisbon is so short, and you probably won't be able to leave the airport, then I'll drop my offer.

lobo mau,

I am overwhelmed by your generosity. Thanks so much for your kind offer to help us, but we will be there only briefly. Today, I also received an email from the quinta near funchal where I want to stay -- had been wondering why I they did not respond to me email asking about air/hotel pkg. turns out that they were calling all over llsbon trying to help us out. We travel frequently -- have been on 3 international trips since february -- and I have never found such helpful people as planning this very last minute trip. Thanks and we really look forward to our trip.
Bonnie

Hey, Lobo
If you don't mind, and if I do not find a SIM card in Paris that will work for all my countries, could you direct me to a place to get a SIM once I arrive in Lisbon?