High Speed Internet at DVC Hilton Head

[garettdoyle]

Does anyone have information on whether or not DVC Hilton Head has high speed internet of any type? (in the room, business center, kiosk, etc). The last time I traveled to Hilton Head (I stayed at a Marriott property), I could not get a local ISP number for dial up. Unfortunately, I need to check e-mail for work, so I am trying to figure out the easiest option.

Thanks.

I'm heading to DVC HH April 25th for 8 nights. I've never stayed at the property before but I toured it last summer. It looks great. I am looking forward to the relaxing with the family.

 

[Halle]

I'm wondering the same thing.

 

[Disneyaholic]

The resort does not have any type of high speed Internet at this time.

There is Internet availablilty at Coligny Plaza, at what used to be the pharmacy there. (Now just a sundries store.) I don't know if you can bring your own laptop there or if you just use what's there.

Another option that some have used at HH is to get one of the free AOL disks -- that gives you a zillion free hours. At least it's a way to connect.

 

[RobDoc]

I have had no problem finding local ISP service at HH. Hargray (the local telephone company) is an ISP on the island.

They will provide dialup service during your stay. I think I paid Hargray $20 (they set it up over the phone and took a credit card), but there are others available- I think one was $15 for a week of service.

I have also tried the AOL disk, but it puts an amazing amount of "junk" on your computer and must be cancelled later.

Enjoy!

 

[Tommy]

I bought a pre-paid dial up internet access card at Kroger late last month. Took it back to DVC and installed the software on my laptop and then found that there was no local number for the card. It would have given me 720 minutes for $10, but if you have to use the 800 number instead of a local number you use 3 minutes for each minute on line. There was nothing that said anything about this on the outside of the card package.

 

[Cap]

There is NO high-speed internet at Disney's Hilton Head Resort. Disney uses Verizon as their dial tone provider, and limits the low cost local calls to a small number of exchange prefixs on Hilton Head only.

Warning, don't believe what the phone book in the room says about a larger local calling area. The put a Hargray phone book in the room, but don't use Hargray as the service provider. Always do a short call to the internet connection number, and then check with the Front Desk to see if it actually charged at the local call rate. I found out on Saturday that a "local" call was charged $7.54 on a per minute rate because it was not one of the few exchanges Disney calls "local".

Hargray is the main telephone provider on the island. They will sell you a week of dial-up access with a Hilton Head local number for $15. You get access to a modem pool that answers about 80% of the time, and really connects about 95% of the time that it answers (based on a sample of 25 calls this week).

Connect speeds are not great. The best I could get, at about 3 AM, was 36000.

Beware - I would strongly suggest you run a firewall if you connect through Hargray. I got probed several times on each call, sometimes from other units in Hargray's modem pool, and sometimes from the public Internet.

Hargray's office is about a mile down the road from Disney. The office is open weekdays and on Saturday until 4:00 PM. Saturday was extremely slow service - only two customer reps and about 15 people in line. It took over an hour for me to sign up.

If you "have to check your email for work", why not just go with AOL, use their added cost 800 number dial-up, and have work reimburse you?

PS - I asked when HH would be getting HS Internet and was told that was not planned, as Hargray had the monopoly on the island, did not intend to do broadband, and was pushing DSL.

 

[Disneyaholic]

There is actually an AOL dialup number that is a free call from DHHIR. It has the same prefix (341) as the resort.

 

[Halle]

Disneyholic, do you have the AOl number or could you advise me where to find it? Many thanks .

 

[garettdoyle]

Thanks everyone for your postings on this subject.

As a follow up, I was trying to use my ATT corporate account and ATT did not have a local number available for HH (summer 2003).

Installing another dialer on to my laptop for work is a pain, as it causes configuration issues with my other dialer. I also refuse to install AOL on any of my computers as it is nearly impossible to remove it later. Also, canceling your account with AOL is such a pain.

It would nice if DVC had some type of high speed available, even if it was just a kiosk, wifi hot spot or place I could plug in my laptop. I don't mind paying the $10 per day like most places charge. Frankly, even getting dial up to work is barely adequate, I really need high speed access. It will take hours to sync up my e-mail for work on dial up. I would also like to use the connection to upload some digital pictures but that is also painful on dial up.

If Disney wants DVC HH to be your home away from home, they need to have a high speed Internet option. At $10 per day per room or similiar cost structure, you would think they could make a few bucks at selling high speed Internet. Quick calculation, 100 rooms and assuming only 10% of the occupants purchased, that still is a lot of money (100 rooms x10% at $10 per day = $100 per day in revenue or $3000 per month).

Again, thanks everone for the feedback.

 

[GAIL HAYDEN]

I also refuse to install AOL on any of my computers as it is nearly impossible to remove it later. Also, canceling your account with AOL is such a pain.

AOL is very easy to remove, go to add/remove programs and remove it from there, and then do a search for AOL and delete the files. Gone, zip, done.
As to cancelling them, easy, tell them you want to be cancelled, don't listen to their extra special zoom zoom goes like hell offers, " just say no" .

why not get a cell phone and use that for your internet connection?

 

[Disneyaholic]

Originally posted by Halle
Disneyholic, do you have the AOl number or could you advise me where to find it? Many thanks .

The number I have stored on my computer is (843)341-9034. It worked the last time we were there (New Year's). But I would recommend checking before you try it, as the numbers sometimes change. When you open up AOL, click on "setup" (before you attempt to sign on). You just have to enter the area code and it will provide you with a list of numbers.

Be very careful, though. Anything with an 843 area code that is not on Hilton Head is considered long distance (even if it's just over the bridge in Bluffton!). The resort charges a considerable premium to call those numbers.