Re FP CellPhone Coverage for Shawna:

All the inhabited islands in FP have at least some GSM coverage (near the main town). the Society Islands all have 100% end-to-end, GSM coverage.
In fact, for islands that are close to each other (eg Moorea/Tahiti and Raiatea/Tahaa/Bora)
coverage bleeds from one island to the next.

For the Tuamotus / Marquesas,
for example, Rangiroa (a huge deserted atoll, after all) does have coverage around Tiputa/Avatoru where the PG anchors, near the Tiputa inlet.

Which meams that multi-band (most of them, these days) T-Mobile phones that have international roaming (free to turn on, but not to use ($2.99/min) :) will ring through and work fine, albeit with a noticeable "satellite delay". My bill ran up quite a bit. I love to take just one work call per trip, from Motu Mahana, in the water, with a Lemon Drop Martini in hand.
"No, I can't do lunch in NYC today, and don't care about your insignificant problem! Na Nah!"

Sorry, got carried away...

Cingular GSM phones may or may not have some sort of roaming agreement with Vini. Sorry, don't know.
Check the Cingular web site.

Normal Verizon Wireless phones are not GSM and will not work at all. Period. I hate VZN.

An alternative is to get a cheap unlocked GSM phone and local operator (Vini) prepaid SIM card for it, one company that does this specifically for FP (as well as most other countries) and one-stop-conveniently is www.telestial.com. The advantage is that incoming calls are free and unlimited to you, but the caller must call your temporary local FP cell number, an international toll call (011-689-xxxxxxxxx) for them. So you call them quick and have them call you right back.

The local FP cell operator is www.vini.pf.
There's coverage maps for every beautiful square inch of FP.

A satellite phone is unnecessary overkill,
unless you're going to the Marquesas/Fiji etc.
*and* the two days at sea have you itching...
If so, you may want to rethink your cruise choice.

I actually saw some dork struggling with one on the last cruise while I was chatting away...

So there. This should be enough to get you hooked up. If that's what you really want. In paradise.

--PGJunkie
(3 x 7-night Society (2000, 2002, 2005))
(1 x 11-night Marquesas (Dec 2006))