I have several questions but, lets start here.....
Where do I put my contact list.
It asks if I want to use the phone cloud or cloud phone. I've heard of it but is that my only option??
Is there a charge to use the cloud thing??
Your contacts will sync to Google account. During set up, the Verizon phone will ask you to set up Verizon cloud backup and sync apps. You can use Google automatically, or try to use Verizon's version of the similar.