Hi,

I'll be travelling to Carvoeiro in late August and was just wondering what the Vodafone coverage there is like ? (I need to have broadband so am considering bringing my 3G broadband dongle with me). Are people getting strong coverage with 3G ?

Thanks for your help, and I cant wait to return to beautiful Carvoeiro (I was there 4 years ago!)

cheers,
Wal

It will cost you if you use your UK dongle.
You are better off purchasing a PAYG Vodafone sim whilst you are over. THEy are about 50 euros for the dongle and usage. Make sure you purchase the one which covers you for the amount you download rather than the one that works on time used.
THe coverage is very good.

Great! Many thanks for the information. Much appreciated.

Wal.

There are Vodafone and TMN shops are Guia who will sort it out - they even set up my laptop as it was not behaving very well and I had problems getting the dongle to work. My other laptop worked fine straight away thank goodness. You can get top ups at the phone shop at Intermarche.

There is a vodafone shop in the arrivals hall at faro - €39.99 for a pay-as-u-go dongle and it includes 1000 mins. Top up at the vodafone shop at the lagoa roundabout or at the Phone shop in Intermarche. DO NOT USE YR UK DONGLE - data download is ~ €8/min

I always do my top up at the arrivals hall but when we arrived at 7pm last week, the shop was shut so I had to wait until the next morning to go to Intermarche.

If you register on Vodafone.pt then you can top-up on-line.

If you have a Portuguese bank card then you can also top-up at any ATM that supports Multibanco.

If all you want to do is a few emails and a bit of browsing then the Vodafone Lite service where you buy time rather than the alternative service where you buy bandwidth is sufficient and extremely cheap.

I suggest you have a look at the Vodafone.pt website before you travel to work out which is best for you.

There is also a Vodafone shop just by the EN125 traffic lights at Lagoa - just 5 mins from Carvoeiro.

If you are out late August you might consider buying at Fatacil. I bought a vodafone dongle there last year and got an excellent deal.

Farol - I've never been able to get the on line one to work for me!
Will try again when I am next out.
I tend just to top up when I am out shopping.
I did the "time" one the first occasion I used the dongle, and accidentally left it connected ...

fmm wrote:Farol - I've never been able to get the on line one to work for me!
Will try again when I am next out.
I tend just to top up when I am out shopping.
I did the "time" one the first occasion I used the dongle, and accidentally left it connected ...

I found that the on-line update was fussy about which credit/debit cards I used. It wouldn't take Fairfx nor my Millennium debit card but would accept my Tesco credit card so perhaps they only take credit not debit but I did get it to work ok.

As regards leaving yourself connected what can I say! As I use a laptop I tend to turn it off when I'm not using it. I've been out every month this year and used the dongle to pick up emails and do some browsing and it's only cost me €10 over six months. For some reason when I top up I seem to get twice the number of minutes they say but I'm not going to complain to them. I got all sorts of extras when I bought the dongle at Fatacil so maybe double time was part of it.

I am on line for about 4 hours every day I am in Cvo - (and that is when I remember to turn it off ...)

They often seem to offer extra minutes/downloads when I top up - the mobile phone was the same as well - sometimes I could top up with 10 euros and get 20 euros worth -but when I topped up with 20 euros, that was all I got!!!