Fabulous service; mailbox tip
Excellent service. Nina was available to answer all our questions, and at one point (when we thought we might need to print out a document) even offered to let us come in to the office and use their printer. I hadn't thought of it when we booked the Insidr phone, but it made traveling much easier knowing that we had a knowledgeable local available to give us advice or simple answers to questions about navigating the local institutions and way of life. This might only come up once in the course of a trip, but if it involves something absolutely essential that has to be done, it's a lifesaver. This is true even if you speak fluent French. Nina speaks perfect English, and really knows her way around travel, food, lodging, business, government, etc. Other Insidr staff were also helpful. Picking up the phone at airport (CDG) was a breeze, and mailing it back (from CDG on our way out) was also convenient and allowed us to have and use our phone from beginning to end of our trip. Hot spot capacity worked great for U.S. phone and laptop. This was vital because free public wifi is not all that available in Paris, so it's great to have your own private wifi everywhere you go. Your companion(s) can bring along their American iPhone(s) etc. and use them anywhere near your Insidr phone for extra navi connections, web surfing, WhatsApp, Facebook messenger, etc. In other words, you don't have to share your Insidr phone, except for ordinary phone calls or SMS. Battery capacity: we used the Insidr phone heavily all day long, including hot spot use, and still had more than 80% battery left at bedtime. We paid the small (3 euro per day) fee for unlimited U.S. calls which worked flawlessly and was much more useful, and used, than we had anticipated. One bit of advice for U.S. travelers: French mailboxes (at least the ones at CDG) have much thinner slots than U.S. mailboxes, so when you put your Insidr phone in the return mailing envelope, you should discard the welcome brochures, then pack the phone and charger cords so as to make it as flat as possible (very easy to do if you're aware of it, otherwise you'll have to do a little wiggling and jiggling to get the envelope through the narrow slot on the yellow French mailbox.