I have a World Edition, and this fall I'm going on a cruise in the Med. I don't care about receiving phone calls (hey, this is a vacation), but I would like to access e-mail if absolutely necessary. My question is, will I be able to do this (at least while in ports) without purchasing an Alltell SIM card that charges for every individual e-mail I receive, and without purchasing a European SIM card? Will my phone, as is, be able to send and receive e-mails to and from the States?

Your device work using CDMA at the states, but will need GSM in order to work at Europe, and the only way to get that is with a SIM card, either from your carrier here or a carrier at Europe, but in some cases pre-paid SIM cards does not offer blackberry service, and you will need to remove your account on your BIS from you current carrier and configure it with the European carrier in order to get messages with that SIM

Regards