Control volume on Disney hotel room TV (Apple TV)

[sethschroeder]

I forgot as we took off last year how to make it work and when I searched I didn't find anything except it wouldn't.

You actually can though and once I remembered wanted to post this.

How to get your Apple TV (or other streaming devices to work)

1) Power on TV

2) Disconnect the Hdmi cable and the other little plug on the back right side of the TV (don't worry plugging them back in sets everything back for the next guest)

3) Connect your streaming device to the Hdmi cable area that you unplugged (it's the bottom one)

4) Go to your device settings and set TV volume control to Hdmi or CEC. (Apple TV this is under settings -> remotes)

5) You can now control volume and see your content

6) each time you start the TV the volume will be 100 so turn that down each time

This should work for any device with HDMI/CEC control options.

 

[AprilsZoo]

I could’ve used this little tutorial a few weeks ago when I wanted to set up my own streaming device on a TV at the Hilton in Harrisburg PA.

I tried everything I could think of, and even asked maintenance for help when they came up to fix a different issue.

 

[muppets3d]

How do you deal with the captive portal? The Google TV stick I used didn't have a browser so the captive portal never came up to connect to the wifi. I got tired of fooling with it so I just used Google Cast to stream from my phone to the TV itself, no stick. It was fairly unreliable but I eventually got it to work.

 

[sethschroeder]

How do you deal with the captive portal?

There is a couple options:

Best option is purchase a travel router:
https://a.co/d/61js7CK

Suggested with no extra hardware:
Hotspot from phone (depending on your device you can even share wifi internet so you are not hitting phone data)

Not suggested but possible:
Spoof MAC address on your laptop to what the streaming device will be and do the captivate portal


The travel router is the very best option. Essentially you connect your phone or laptop through it to accept the hotels "accept term and connect" and it gives access to your router. You can even set your travel router as the same network and password as home if you want and your devices would then autocconnect.

 

[eticketplease]

We have been able to get this to work reliably as you described but I wish there was an override for the volume. If you turn it on early in the am or late at night and forget to immediately turn it down it is loud lol

 

[Moonspinner]

I forgot as we took off last year how to make it work and when I searched I didn't find anything except it wouldn't.

You actually can though and once I remembered wanted to post this.

How to get your Apple TV (or other streaming devices to work)

1) Power on TV

2) Disconnect the Hdmi cable and the other little plug on the back right side of the TV (don't worry plugging them back in sets everything back for the next guest)

3) Connect your streaming device to the Hdmi cable area that you unplugged (it's the bottom one)

4) Go to your device settings and set TV volume control to Hdmi or CEC. (Apple TV this is under settings -> remotes)

5) You can now control volume and see your content

6) each time you start the TV the volume will be 100 so turn that down each time

This should work for any device with HDMI/CEC control options.

Will this work for Switch?

 

[eticketplease]

Will this work for Switch?

Yes and no.

In my experience when you do these steps the Disney remote doesn’t always work. In turn you would be able to see the game but volume would be at 100%

 

[Steelers0854]

How do you deal with the captive portal? The Google TV stick I used didn't have a browser so the captive portal never came up to connect to the wifi. I got tired of fooling with it so I just used Google Cast to stream from my phone to the TV itself, no stick. It was fairly unreliable but I eventually got it to work.

I know you mentioned about Google devices, but im hoping that this new feature in iOS 26 will also work with AppleTV and solve this problem.

https://www.macrumors.com/2025/07/02/ios-26-captive-wifi-feature/

 

[eticketplease]

I know you mentioned about Google devices, but im hoping that this new feature in iOS 26 will also work with AppleTV and solve this problem.

https://www.macrumors.com/2025/07/02/ios-26-captive-wifi-feature/

I don't have any problem with firesticks connecting to the wifi and I think AppleTV's are able to accept the WDW Resort wifi accept button already but it would be nice if TVos supports that.

 

[sethschroeder]

Will this work for Switch?

You could try doing it with a streaming device then changing the Hdmi plug over to the switch.

 

[Moonspinner]

Yes and no.

In my experience when you do these steps the Disney remote doesn’t always work. In turn you would be able to see the game but volume would be at 100%

You could try doing it with a streaming device then changing the Hdmi plug over to the switch.

I will get them to try that next time. I just asked one of our teens if he had found a work around (I couldn’t remember— I just remembered that after Disney switched out the TVs they had trouble hooking up the switch). He said they ended up hooking the switch up to the hdmi and then attaching a JBL speaker to the switch to control the volume. I’m not tech savvy, so I’m not sure how this would work exactly but he said it did.