PAYG Vodafone mobile in Europe

[Wombat]

I haven't been to Europe for a few years now, so I'm out of date (always was...)

I'm off to France for a month shortly  (Le Mans 24hr then visiting a friend) and I want to be sure that I can stay in contact by phone, text and webmail.  A recall that the last time we went anywhere, people could phone me no problem, but I had to do some funny business to get my texts, or maybe that was voicemail (yes, I think it was voicemail, actually).  I know it sounds daft to ask (nowt new from me) but is it safe to assume it will all just work?  Maybe a visit to the Vodafone shop will help, if I try to look old and stupid .  I vaguely recall that when phoning the mobile of a friend who was still in england, I had to use the UK code, or am I misremembering that?  I hope I am...   

I've always been on Vodafone PAYG, so nothing changed there, and always had the same SIM card till my phone got nicked a while ago, and my wife (who is travelling out later so needs contact too) still does have the same SIM card.  For some reason her phone wouldn't access the internet, whereas mine would, and the phones  are the same model, bought a month apart.  The Vodafone shop swapped sims for a minute and put the original back, and then all was well...

[rusky]

Everything should just work as long as any number has the country code at the start instead of just the STD code. +441273 instead of 01273.

That's probably the change you had to make to the voicemail number.

[Ham]

Your phone will work but roaming costs (for webmail etc) are often very high, especially if you are on PAYG. Consider picking up a cheap french PAYG phone or SIM deal from SFR or whoever has the best deal. You do need basic french to drive, but it isn't too difficult.

[hellymedic]

Data roaming on Vodafone PAYG is very, very, very expensive (especially if you're using a dongle).

(>£40 credit has vapourised over the last three days, while David's been in Geneva. David says he's only used low-bandwidth sites, yet >£30 vanished yesterday. Voda won't discuss David's data use with me for Data Protection reasons. I've reached Voda's 'credit limit' for my CC top-ups. David is a mile from the birthplace of the internet but I can't get him back online. I'm not really ranting or hijacking a thread. Oh no!)

David won't use his phone much cos the Swiss use different plugs to most of continental Europe and he has no adaptor for his charger..