internet access

[rst43us]

I recently stayed at Disney in the Beach Club Resort and was chagrined to find that I had to pay ten; yes ten; dollars a day for internet access! I can see this for visitors, but for us who have invested in the resorts by buying points? It seems very nickel and dime to me . Especially when I can go to La Qinta Inns or Motel 6 and get it for free!!

Anyone else have this experience?

rst43us

 

[Dean]

We had this discussion recently. Two thoughts. One is that many hotel chains charge around the same thing, Hyatt comes to mind. The other is that this is not run by Disney but contracted out. I know resorts where the charge is $18 per day. You can always use your home system for internet access if they have a dial up option.

 

[CarolA]

I use it and pay for it, but WHY should everyone else's dues go up so that mine should be FREE.

And did you notice that the "free" places you listed were the BUDGET hotels.... here's a hint it's FREE at the Fairfield and $10 a day at a full service Marriott.... The el cheapos are using it to entice you to stay there. Disney doesn't need to appeal to business travelers by giving free interent. (And of course at my last Fairfield Inn it was worth EXACTLY what I paid for it NOTHING... Click page, resign in, click again, resign in etc....)

 

[DebbieB]

I stayed at a Hilton in Glendale CA last week, it was $9.95 per 24 hour period. Since it is contracted out, to give it free to members would mean it would have to be paid for out of dues. I personally think dial up is fine for checking mail, a little surfing and is only 35 cents per call (the Hilton charged $1.00 for up to 60 minutes local call, then charged 10 cents per minute!).

As Carol said, the budget hotels absorb the cost. DVC cannot do that, it would have to come out of dues.

 

[bigsmooth]

Some hotels that charge for Internet access have a better infrastructure as well with more bandwidth, designed to scale if large numbers of users are accessing it. I can guarantee that at a budget hotel if everyone decided to pull out their laptop at the same time, your access experience would be very poor. I don't mind paying it. And if you have a laptop with wireless access, many hotels offer free wireless access in their lobbies to keep people from venturing away from the hotel for meetings. I believe the Swan & Dolphin used to do this (they did one time I went there for a conference, although they may have just done it for the conference).

 

[mickg7dyd]

Hi,
I stayed at a Marriott Vacation Club in Palm Desert last June and each room had wired and wireless internet access both were free and worked perfectly well throughout the stay. At the BWV AGM last December Jim Lewis did state that internet access was an area where DVC could have done better and he was expecting the charge to decrease as some of the cost of the initial investment was recouped.

Mick.

 

[tigger2on]

In 2004, i was able to take my laptop ( I have WIFI) and get free internet in the lobby area. I was also able to get it at Sanford Airport as well. I did however also pay the $10/day during the last 3 trips to WDW.
I'm a laptop junkie... need to see my email, messageboards etc.

 

[CarolA]

I got it free once at SSR, but that was because my building was "new" and it was in testing....It worked fine however.

 

[rinkwide]

...this is not run by Disney but contracted out...

Yes, and hopefully said company's exclusivity agreement (for building the infrastructure) will run out (or get bought out) and members can then get the perk of fee access.

 

[dvc_john]

I use it and pay for it, but WHY should everyone else's dues go up so that mine should be FREE.

This stock answer is really getting old, so I'll repeat my stock answer, which is also really getting old. There is a whole host of amenities that I don't use, but still pay for in my dues. Maybe we should just have a member vote on which amenities should be included in dues, and which should be fee based!

eg, does anyone think Magical Express is really free, and that no dues are being used to pay for it. Here's a hint: Transportation costs for OKW went up approx 23% from 2005 budget to 2006 budget. Just maybe part of that is for Magical Express.

 

[rinkwide]

This stock answer is really getting old.

Besides, the expense isn't even relevant. Once the wiring is in place (and often even if it's not (WiFi)), providing high-speed access costs a hotel almost nothing. Think about it; Could Super 8 afford to give it away if it wasn't dirt cheap?

 

[Debbie H]

we were in DL at The Grand Californian and it was free. I think it is ridiculous that anyone would have to pay for it. Believe me, they're making their profit from us...We don't use Magical Express, we don't use the buses, we don't use the slide, etc.......

 

[minniemoms]

We were just at DL hotel in Jan and it was free there also. I don't want dues to go up, but really, at the newer resorts, you would think they would put it in, like they do at the DL resorts...

 

[RAD]

Besides, the expense isn't even relevant. Once the wiring is in place (and often even if it's not (WiFi)), providing high-speed access costs a hotel almost nothing. Think about it; Could Super 8 afford to give it away if it wasn't dirt cheap?

Well, I wouldn't say almost free. They need to pay for access to the internet and I would assume that they'd have at lease a DS-3 (45Mbps) which would cost them a few thousand dollars per month, if they're up in the OC-X range then tens of thousands per month. They'd also need to pay for the interbuilding connection from the all the resorts back to where they connect to the net. They also would probably have some annual maintenance charges for at least their core hardware. Then there's also the expense of support staff to keep it all running and to answer user quesstions.

My question is what deal WDW/DVC worked out with the provider. Did they say come in and wire everything up for no charge to us and you keep all the $'s. Or is WDW/DVC getting a cut of the usage charges and if yes why isn't this income source showing up in our annual statments as income?

 

[CarolA]

Besides, the expense isn't even relevant. Once the wiring is in place (and often even if it's not (WiFi)), providing high-speed access costs a hotel almost nothing. Think about it; Could Super 8 afford to give it away if it wasn't dirt cheap?

There are on going costs and here's where you get the BIG difference between Fairfield for free and the Marriott for $10.

1. At the Fairfield you call the front desk for help. The clerk knows nothing and gives you a number to call. However, since Fairfield wants to do this cheap the support guy is a 12 year old who doesn't really care. If something in your room is broken, it gets fixed SOMEDAY (Someday could be a while, the Fairfield in Columbus, GA told me the guy comes once a month or so and they "try" to write down someplace at the front desk the rooms with issues)

2. At the Marriott, there is a toll free number with 24 hour service and generally things get fixed faster.

I have done free and paid, personally it's like a lot of things you get what you pay for. Free tends to be much less reliable then paid.

Folks have already written DVC, Disney is not getting "pay backs" right now so you aren't going to see an income stream on the DVC books from this.

 

[Doctor P]

I travel extensively for both business and pleasure (I average about 40-50 hotel nights a year) and take my laptop on almost every trip. The general rule of thumb that seems to hold is: if it is free, it is generally poor service. Just in the past 6 months I have stayed in 8 different hotel chains, all with different types of Internet service. I complained about Internet service at one of the hotels that offered it for free and they said they knew they had a problem--they said that they were on their third provider and that they were paying $10,000 per month for access alone in a hotel of only about 100 rooms and felt they should be able to provide better access for what they were spending. I agree with those who have said that upscale hotels generally require you to pay for access and they also tend to have better service (with more options for connection). The $9.95 per day that I usually pay at those hotels is well worth it for the quality of service. So, I don't mind paying, don't expect it to be free, and think that it is an expensive amenity to provide (especially when they are still paying for the infrastructure).

 

[Lisa1976]

When you say they charge you $10 a day, for example on a two week trip would i have to pay for the full two weeks or do they bill you per day, how do they know when you are using it or not?

So if i only used one hour in a day I would still have to pay the $10 but would be able to use it again that same day?

 

[Doctor P]

I have not paid for access at Disney, but there are generally three models out there that I am familiar with for Internet access. 1) Pay by the minute for your usage, with an unlimited length of stay package available at a single fixed rate (e.g., Disney Cruise Line uses this pricing in their Internet cafes, and the Vienna Marriott used this when I was there a few years ago); 2) Pay by the day (you can skip days) with the day beginning at noon and ending at noon the next day; 3) pay by the 24 hour day with your day beginning at the time you first sign in. I like #3 best because I can usually work my Internet access such that I only pay for one day for each two nights I stay (I will generally sign on at about 8:00-9:00 pm and work the first night until late at night and then the next night I will work early and quit before my 24 hours is up). Again, you only pay by the days you use and you can stop and sign back in later as long as you are within your day period.

 

[JudicialTyranny]

When you say they charge you $10 a day, for example on a two week trip would i have to pay for the full two weeks or do they bill you per day, how do they know when you are using it or not?

So if i only used one hour in a day I would still have to pay the $10 but would be able to use it again that same day?

Yes, its a 24-hour period. Some of them work like this - you connect your PC to the network with a cable and when you open your web browser, you get redirected to a page where it tells you that you need to purchase the access.

You verify that you want access and then it "knows" that you bought access for a 24-hour period. It is probably tracking this via the MAC address of your network card. The MAC address is a unique number encoded into every network card. (It has nothing to do with "Apple" MAC - MAC = Media Access Control.)

After 24 hours, you'll then get sent back to the screen where you need to acknowledge you want to purchase access again.

 

[JudicialTyranny]

For those that need Internet access during vacation or travel, check to see if you can get access via your cell phone and what your cell phone plan provides.

I have Verizon as my cell phone provider and my phone (LG VX7100) supports "1xRTT" data connections (sometimes called "3G").

I bought the data cable for my phone and I can connect it to my laptop and use it as a "modem". With the 1xRTT capability, I get speeds around 100K bps. The newer "EVDO" phones get an even faster connection.

No ISP is necessary and the usage comes out of my normal monthly plan minutes. It's also smart about connecting and disconnecting - as I'm reading an e-mail or a web page, it detects no activity and disconnects and reconnects again (which only takes a second or two - it's not like dialing a phone number). So this keeps down the number of minutes used.

It works very well, assuming you are in an area with coverage.