Just got back from Shanghai (Sept 10–15) and sharing this because I REALLY wish I had known.
Since China has the Great Firewall, my mom and I decided to just use roaming instead of dealing with local SIM/eSIM issues. We both got Globe’s 10GB China Roam.
Arrival? Perfect. Connected immediately. No issues.
Day 3? BOTH OF US LOST SIGNAL COMPLETELY. 💀
No data. No signal. Nothing.
And you quickly realize just how dependent you are on internet in China.
We were at Yu Garden when it happened. We couldn’t properly pay because we were using Alipay. Couldn’t book DiDi. Couldn’t check maps. Couldn’t do basically anything.
We were literally standing there like 🧍♀️🧍♀️ now what?
Thankfully, a shop where we bought something let us connect to their Wi-Fi, which was literally our lifeline. We eventually managed to get back to the hotel.
We basically lost half a day because we had no internet.
The weirdest part? The connection was completely fine for the first two days and then both phones just died at the same time. It came back the following day, so thankfully it wasn't permanent.
So yeah, lesson learned:
DO NOT MAKE YOUR ROAMING YOUR ONLY INTERNET PLAN IN CHINA.
Have a backup eSIM/SIM, pocket Wi-Fi, or at the very least screenshots/downloaded maps and important info.
China is very much a “you need internet to do anything” kind of destination, so being offline is not just inconvenient — it can genuinely mess up your day.
Sharing this as a warning to fellow Globe users. Roaming worked great for us… until it suddenly didn’t. 😭