choklitcow,
That is what I thought, just wanted to confirm it. What I want to do is activate the phone but not buy Verizon's over priced data plan. I am in enough hot spots during the day where WiFi will serve me fine. I had a salesman tell me I could register my phone without the data plan if I bought the phone outright (which I have done) but had a Verizon tech tell me I couldn't. I'm not trying to get something for free, just trying to avoid giving Verizon $30 per phone above and beyond their over priced talk & text plan.
Do you have a current contract with Verizon? If so you may be able to just swap the phones on the plan and not have it add the data plan. I think I remember reading someone around here had a Verizon phone that had the cheaper data plan ($15/month I think). They swapped phones and now have their Droid on the cheaper data plan.