Anyone else notice that the wifi at resorts is poor?

[Tropics]

When we were at the Poly at the end of January the free wifi was great. We never had any problems and was in fact much, much, much better than paid wifi at a hotel in Tampa that we were at after the Poly. The parks on the other hand were awful! I could not get a connection in any of the parks to check on ride times during any of the three days that we were in the parks (MK, AK and EP).

 

[bwang123]

We went in December and the wifi at AKV, AKL and the parks worked great. The Sunday we were in the resort, I was even able to stream the Houston Texans game so I am sure i stole some of the shared bandwidth from others connecting to the same access point. So, i appologize for your 10 year old not being able to watch Justin Bieber videos on Youtube.

Usage will be determined by how many people are connected to a specific access point (usually time of day dictates this), what type of devices and what they are doing while connected to that specific access point. That is why you see so many differrent experiences. This happens everywhere when large number of people are connecting to wifi. Similar to when you are at a football game and phone service stinks because so many people in one area are trying to use a limited amount of capacity.

 

[tarak]

i appologize for your 10 year old not being able to watch Justin Bieber videos on Youtube.

Wow - that seems unnecessarily rude.

I'm at Kidani Village suffering with you. Even my 10-year-old was complaining when trying to use her MacBook.

We were in a one BR villa at Kidani end of January. The wifi was extremely unreliable. Bad in the bedroom, but sometimes it worked on the balcony. Pretty spotty at the Mara, too. Outside the lobby waiting for the bus, it was fine. Never had a problem in the parks, though.

 

[pamkat1820]

When we stayed at POR I had high for the WIFI.

 

[pamkat1820]

Sorry - I hit send by accident.


I had high hopes for the wifi. We were in a remote area of the resort, and I could never get on. I ended up getting frustrated and using my iPhone instead.

 

[elaine amj]

I stayed at Pop in August last year. The free wifi was dreadful. I was able to make dining reservations off my tablet the first day, and then never again (although I was able to browse online on the Dis, etc - just not a strong enough connection to make dining reservations!). I was trying to get a Narcoossee reservation and ended up walking over to a guest service counter at least 1x a day for 7-8 days until I finally got the ressie I wanted. Would have been easier to stalk to the ressie from my own device in my own room!

I have to add - free wifi at MK was dreadful then too. I got a signal - intermittently.

 

[klmall]

Bad experiences in December 2011 at the Poly and even worse at All Star Sports last June!

The Poly was very slow but I could read and send email; forget uploading anything!

I couldn't even get a strong enough connection at ASSports to read email.

 

[grimley1968]

Wow - that seems unnecessarily rude.

Agreed. It seems more and more on here (and just about anywhere on the internet these days) that people post things to pick fights, under the cover of anonymity. Totally unnecessary comment about someone else's child.

I didn't know WDW had gotten rid of the paid ethernet option. It was expensive, but I was always able to do my work tasks quickly that way (even using a VPN and remote desktop, which is pretty bandwidth-intensive), even though it meant I was essentially paying for about 23 hours of internet I wasn't going to use. I hope WDW is reading the surveys. It shouldn't be that difficult to add more wireless access points and a little more broadband throughput on the back end. Hopefully they will soon.

 

[kkmauch]

Last November we stayed at OKW and the connection was PERFECT! Quick and steady. However, iphones and ipads wouldn't stay connected as we moved through different parts of OKW (from one GV to another or from the quiet pool to the main pool).

 

[cluvsdisney]

Of course it's going to to be slow. You have to think of ow many people are trying to get online. If you need to get online, do so while people are in bed or at the parks.

This was my experience as well. The mornings and early evening were rough but middle of the day and later at night were not too bad.

 

[Dizzytime]

During our 10 night stay at BC last month the wifi could not have been better, was even able to stream video/movies. Go figure.

 

[Bell30012]

We decided to extend our trip by an extra day or two. I considered calling WDW about another resort but I needed to get some work done this morning and would need reliable internet, my 3G device was getting spotty coverage in the room and even in these early morning hours, I couldn't keep internet access at AKL. We are at Country Inn & Suites, tonight.

Many of us that vacation still have work that needs to be done while we are away. This is why we willingly paid for a connection when staying on WDW property.

My 10-year-old was trying to use her MacBook to upload all the photos that she took during the day on her iPhone. She wanted her grandmother to see all the fun she was having. She also wanted to talk to friends via Skype. Some kids have more to do than watch Justin's videos.