Does anyone think the wifi is horrible or is it just my family that thought it was horrible
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Walt Disney World Free Wi-Fi
- Thread starter Laughinplace
- Start date
I have not had great success with it. With everyone and their brother connecting into it there just does not seem to be enough bandwidth to go around. I have gotten to the point where I just turn off my wifi in the parks.
RonAnnArbor
Well-Known Member
It is horrible resort and theme park wide -- its not really designed for checking Facebook and other stuff....its specifically designed to use with My Disney Experience to reserve dining and fastpasses throughout the parks -- and that does not require a fast connection or streaming-media speeds....the "Free Wifi" currently is a bit of a misnomer. I turn it off and use my iPhone and iPad LTE service, which is (not kidding) 500% faster....
Disneyhead'71
Well-Known Member
So you lug an Andriod AND a tablet to the parks? I don't even take my point and shoot unless I am wearing cargo shorts.
G00fyDad
Well-Known Member
Sorry, I might not have been clear. I have not been to the parks since they came out with the "free WiFi". I am saying that when I am out and about, anywhere, and I want to get on the tablet internet I wifi tether to my phone for free. And yes, I take my tablet almost everywhere.
And when we go to the parks, since we have kids in tow, I always have a backpack with essentials in it. So my (light) laptop has always gone with me (not that I consider it essential). Now that I have a tablet, it will take the place of the laptop. Much lighter, and faster.
Disneyhead'71
Well-Known Member
I was going to ask if you have kids. When we hit the parks with a stroller and diaper bag, then a tablet would have been nothing. But now that they are teens, we travel light. I do sometimes carry my small camera bag but that is only when I am going to do construction updates for Orlando United and I need my DSLR and telephoto lens.
G00fyDad
Well-Known Member
Oh yeah. My daughter is 17 right now and she carry her own junk. LOL But my son is 9 and hates wet clothes, and my wife hates getting wet, but she loves the water rides
so ponchos are a necessity, for them. I am going to be getting a decent, less bulky, P&S for our next trip, but I want one with a decent zoom. Not just 5x.
WDWNooby
Well-Known Member
We thought the WiFi was pretty horrible as well. I didn't go with the expectations of it being stellar but was a bit disappointed that we couldn't connect long enough to update the family back home on our trip while we were there. We did however not have too many issues with our iPhone or DROID. We used them a ton in the parks for looking up wait times, etc. and they worked OK.
I didn't even attempt to do online check in with the airline but instead did that at the front desk. They have no issues with internet and of course can print your boarding passes for you.
I didn't even attempt to do online check in with the airline but instead did that at the front desk. They have no issues with internet
and of course can print your boarding passes for you.
Polydweller
Well-Known Member
It's the nature of wifi. It can only handle a finite number of concurrent users and that's far less than cellular. About 100 ith some newer tech but that's pushing it since wifi will slow at about 50% capacity. Think of 25,000 people in the park and the number of people trying to get access. This isn't the same as a coffee shop or your house where you don't come close to 50% capacity. And things get worse if some users try to stream video or send large picture files. Rule of thumb is, don't expect to be able to do everything you do at home when you are in a setting with as many potential users as in this situation. You won't be able to most times.
Secobd, basic rule of thumb will be the more guests in the park the more likely the service will be slow. In October it worked fine, slower at heavier times of day and ok at the resort. But it will time out your IP address lease so you do have to do the agreement screen occasionally. The wifi bars will make it look like you are connected but you will not have a dns address (essential) until you do the agreement again. If it really slows down then do the agreement thing again and its speeds up. Disconnecting like this is a standard way of trying to share the limited concurrent connections with as many people as they can.
Blame the wiif I standard for all of this. I know because I managed the setup of a wifi on a hospital campus that is almost exactly the size of MK that had all these issues.
Secobd, basic rule of thumb will be the more guests in the park the more likely the service will be slow. In October it worked fine, slower at heavier times of day and ok at the resort. But it will time out your IP address lease so you do have to do the agreement screen occasionally. The wifi bars will make it look like you are connected but you will not have a dns address (essential) until you do the agreement again. If it really slows down then do the agreement thing again and its speeds up. Disconnecting like this is a standard way of trying to share the limited concurrent connections with as many people as they can.
Blame the wiif I standard for all of this. I know because I managed the setup of a wifi on a hospital campus that is almost exactly the size of MK that had all these issues.
scbb11Sketch
Active Member
Well I had a different experience than the rest of you. I was at Epcot for New Year's Eve, AKA the busiest night of the year, and even with 80,000+ guests trying to connect to the wifi, I didn't have much of a problem throughout the entire park. There were one or two times towards the end of the night that it was slow but that was to be expected on such a busy night. Resort wifi worked great at Pop Century too. This was the first vacation since getting my iPhone 3 years ago that I haven't gone over on my data. So I thought it was great!
Susan Savia
Well-Known Member
it's worked pretty good for us this week. i have noticed a lot of folks crashing into one another not looking where their going while using their devices.
skipperg
Member
Our family was at WDW over Thanksgiving and overall the WiFi was decent in the parks. Had issues at our Resort, Pop Century. Had to call Disney Tech Support twice about the WiFi dropping out after several minutes. After the second call things really improved the rest of that week. Overall I would grade the service a C+
blueboxdoctor
Well-Known Member
Out of curiosity, how do you carry a tablet around all day, aren't they kind of well, big?
As for the wi-fi, it was good at the Polynesian (used it for FB and the like), and even at the parks it wasn't that bad. IDK, maybe it didn't bother me much, as I didn't really find the need to be surfing the net or get all up on my apps on vacation.
MarkTwain
Well-Known Member
Usually works for me fine. It can be very hit or miss though, depending on crowd levels. On New Years Eve it was like wifi wasn't even there; conversely, back in September I had a flawless Skype conversation with some friends back home from Innoventions Plaza. Just depends on where and when you use it.
G00fyDad
Well-Known Member
TheDisneyMagic
Well-Known Member
We used it with no problems throughout the whole of December with no issues, once every few days it would ask us all to re-accept the terms, once that was done there were no issues roaming between access points throughout the parks and Downtown Disney.
That was a mixture of Windows Phones / Android Phones in this family.
That was a mixture of Windows Phones / Android Phones in this family.