Free 'in-room' wireless internet starting at most Walt Disney World Resorts today

[PhilharMagician]

I also wanted to post an update on the wi-fi at SSR. I was there last friday and couldn't get a signal. I tried the lobby, the food court, the lounges, and couldn't find anything. I finally found one for half a second by the pool before I lost it. Does anyone know where you have to go to get a signal?

Very strange that you had no signal. While I cannot say what is going on with the wireless @ SSR, I can say that both Kidani and Bay Lake had great WIFI signal in the rooms, lobby and pool area. I have to assume that the wireless went down for some reason @ SSR. :shrug:

 

[cblodg]

Had great WiFi at Beach Club. Every now and again I would drop the signal/have to turn off my WiFi, turn it back on and agree to the terms again. Other than that, speed seemed decent.

 

[jcldtrek]

for what you pay at the deluxe resorts, they should have been giving the free wifi years ago lol. wonder if they'll eventually pass that luxury on to us cheaper folk that stay at moderate or value resorts

 

[PhilharMagician]

Had great WiFi at Beach Club. Every now and again I would drop the signal/have to turn off my WiFi, turn it back on and agree to the terms again. Other than that, speed seemed decent.

Kidani required you to agree to terms after 4 days of contineous connection. BLT did not require you to reconnect. I stayed connected for 7 days without interuption. It sounds like differant resorts have differant rules?

 

[SMZ MD]

just got back from Kidani and wireless access was great. Quick and easy and did not have any drops at all!!! So much better than being wired to the wall. worked great for the driod and Kindle too!!

 

[JimJam]

I had it when i was there around thanksgiving

 

[mrerk]

I am hoping that is just a case of more people being logged on at CSR due to conventions and Disney will address the issue by increasing bandwidth. 1 mbps speeds are borderline useless for anything outside of basic email.

Sorry, I had to laugh at this. :ROFLOL: Remember when we were switching our 14.4 modems for 28.8 and then 56k and how blazingly fast that seemed?

BTW, we had the free wireless at VWL in early October, just before it was publicly announced. Just happened to stumble on it. Never thought to do a speedtest though.

 

[Master Yoda]

Sorry, I had to laugh at this. :ROFLOL: Remember when we were switching our 14.4 modems for 28.8 and then 56k and how blazingly fast that seemed?

BTW, we had the free wireless at VWL in early October, just before it was publicly announced. Just happened to stumble on it. Never thought to do a speedtest though.

Oh those were the days. I remember when I went from a 28.8 to the first broadband. It used an external modem encased in metal with 3" tall cooling fins on the top. The thing must have weighed 10 lbs. Speed was just around a meg and it was like switching from a 76 Chevette to an Enzo Ferrari. The first big file I ever downloaded with it was a 122 mb expansion for Wing Commander Secret Wars. The estimated download time on a 28.8 was something like 25 hours. I snagged it in just under 19 minutes. Today we would be livid it it took more than 2.:lol:

 

[prberk]

Oh those were the days. I remember when I went from a 28.8 to the first broadband. It used an external modem encased in metal with 3" tall cooling fins on the top. The thing must have weighed 10 lbs. Speed was just around a meg and it was like switching from a 76 Chevette to an Enzo Ferrari. The first big file I ever downloaded with it was a 122 mb expansion for Wing Commander Secret Wars. The estimated download time on a 28.8 was something like 25 hours. I snagged it in just under 19 minutes. Today we would be livid it it took more than 2.:lol:

Isn't it amazing what we take for granted?

 

[tecowdw]

I was at Villas Wilderness Lodge during Thanksgiving and the wireless connectivity was terrible. It would drop very frequently! Enough to make it not worth the effort.

Didn't have any problem at Boardwalk Villas in October - it worked great there.

I stayed at a Hyatt one weekend not too long ago and was shocked that they wanted to charge me $10 for the wireless.


It is amazing how we've come to expect free wireless everywhere we go nowadays.

 

[Biff215]

Just got back from WL. Had nothing but problems with the wifi. The iPad dropped the connected every minute or so. Only solution was to turn wifi on and off through the settings, but that only gave another small window of time. It seemed like if you stopped moving on the web for more than a few seconds that it dropped you. Had a little better success on my iPhone but not much. Having to switch back to 3G so often actually caused me to go over on my lousy 200 mb data plan, which was the first time in 12+ months of owning the phone!

I usually upload all of our vacation pictures to Picasa each day to share with friends and family at home. I could only get one or two pictures uploaded before the connection would drop each time. I finally gave up even though some people were very disappointed with me!

On the plus side, we were surprised by a free upgrade to club level with a MK view. Can't really let lousy wifi ruin that...

Looking forward to the summer back on DVC points. I'm assuming we can still get the free wired connection, or is that gone now?

 

[GenerationX]

Just a quick report on some disappointing speed tests from the free wifi at Coronado. We stayed to Coronado over the weekend and speedtest.net numbers never peaked over 1.1 mbps. I was hoping that this was just the result of a peak load over the weekend but I have a friend still at Coronado and is getting similar to lower numbers if the test will run at all.

I ran tests on the Monday and Tuesday before Thanksgiving from room 6546 using Firefox. My upload/download times were always around 1.6 mbps.

Oh those were the days. I remember when I went from a 28.8 to the first broadband. It used an external modem encased in metal with 3" tall cooling fins on the top. The thing must have weighed 10 lbs. Speed was just around a meg and it was like switching from a 76 Chevette to an Enzo Ferrari. The first big file I ever downloaded with it was a 122 mb expansion for Wing Commander Secret Wars. The estimated download time on a 28.8 was something like 25 hours. I snagged it in just under 19 minutes. Today we would be livid it it took more than 2.:lol:

When I was kid, my dad had an acoustic coupler modem (early 1980s). You actually had to dial the number, wait for the long beep, then put the desk phone's handset into the modem. It was incredibly high-tech at the time (Dad worked for a software firm). When he wasn't using it for work, he'd let me dial-in to their HP3000 and run Zork.

 

[unkadug]

I ran tests on the Monday and Tuesday before Thanksgiving from room 6546 using Firefox. My upload/download times were always around 1.6 mbps.


When I was kid, my dad had an acoustic coupler modem (early 1980s). You actually had to dial the number, wait for the long beep, then put the desk phone's handset into the modem. It was incredibly high-tech at the time (Dad worked for a software firm). When he wasn't using it for work, he'd let me dial-in to their HP3000 and run Zork.

Ahh yes, I remember those days. We also saved programs onto paper punch tape!

 

[Master Yoda]

I ran tests on the Monday and Tuesday before Thanksgiving from room 6546 using Firefox. My upload/download times were always around 1.6 mbps.


When I was kid, my dad had an acoustic coupler modem (early 1980s). You actually had to dial the number, wait for the long beep, then put the desk phone's handset into the modem. It was incredibly high-tech at the time (Dad worked for a software firm). When he wasn't using it for work, he'd let me dial-in to their HP3000 and run Zork.

I do so love waxing nostalgic about technology. It really helps to know where we came from to appreciate what we have. When I hear someone complaining about only getting 3G speeds on their smart phone I just want to grab them and yell "Do you realize that you are freaking using a Star Trek device!":lol:

 

[TheAmazingBobbo]

Oh those were the days. I remember when I went from a 28.8 to the first broadband. It used an external modem encased in metal with 3" tall cooling fins on the top. The thing must have weighed 10 lbs. Speed was just around a meg and it was like switching from a 76 Chevette to an Enzo Ferrari. The first big file I ever downloaded with it was a 122 mb expansion for Wing Commander Secret Wars. The estimated download time on a 28.8 was something like 25 hours. I snagged it in just under 19 minutes. Today we would be livid it it took more than 2.

I specifically remember saying over an IM one day to a friend "HEY, GET ON NAPSTER, ITS BLAZING TODAY AT 7.9 kb/s!"... AHHHH 1998 internet, how I miss you...

 

[Clever Name]

I remember when we only had 300 baud and we thought that was fast! And we liked it! Nobody whinned about getting 600 baud. When the first 1200 baud and 2400 baud modems became available, they cost $800.00 and were made by some new whipper snapper company named Hayes. :wave:

 

[NoChesterHester]

Any more expansion of the system to other resorts?