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Earlier this summer, we took a five week trip. During this trip we did not stay in any timeshares and the most nights we spent anyplace was 4. Bottom-line is that we stayed in many different hotels/motels - from Motel 6 to four- star rated. One of our main criteria in a hotel (I’ll call all places hotels although some are really motels) was internet access. Because we were gone for so long, we needed internet access every few days to check and pay our bills and of course keep in touch with friends and family. In the past several years, I hadn’t spent much time in hotels except for a couple of nights traveling. I learned a lot in these five weeks and decided to share it here.
All internet access isn’t the same, or even good.
Although WiFi is the big buzz word right now, not all rooms in a WiFi hotel have good access, or even any access, because of where the router or internet access is located. I much preferred wired access to WiFi. (Some hotels have both.) I also plan to carry my own cable for wired access now as some places didn’t have it in the room and some places rented the cables.
If you have a problem in a hotel with internet access, don’t expect to get any help from the staff. (I had one exception where the front desk sent someone with their laptop to help us.)
The cost for internet access seems to correlate with the room cost. The costlier hotels charged the most for access and the cheaper hotels were free. (There were exceptions to this, of course.) One hotel wanted $14.00 per night for internet access. (We passed on that one.) Some charged a flat rate per stay. That was fine if you were staying several days there, but not so good if you were only staying a night.
If it is important to you, stress at check-in that you want a room with good internet access, then check it out before you unpack. (We ended up changing rooms because the neither the WiFi, nor the wired worked in that particular room.)
I used AAA books to look for hotels with internet access, but found many more had added it recently.
Have access to a dial-up account if all else fails. I keep AOL for this purpose, but our cable internet provided also has a dial-up and it uses the same numbers as AOL.
I hope this is helpful to someone.
Nancy
All internet access isn’t the same, or even good.
Although WiFi is the big buzz word right now, not all rooms in a WiFi hotel have good access, or even any access, because of where the router or internet access is located. I much preferred wired access to WiFi. (Some hotels have both.) I also plan to carry my own cable for wired access now as some places didn’t have it in the room and some places rented the cables.
If you have a problem in a hotel with internet access, don’t expect to get any help from the staff. (I had one exception where the front desk sent someone with their laptop to help us.)
The cost for internet access seems to correlate with the room cost. The costlier hotels charged the most for access and the cheaper hotels were free. (There were exceptions to this, of course.) One hotel wanted $14.00 per night for internet access. (We passed on that one.) Some charged a flat rate per stay. That was fine if you were staying several days there, but not so good if you were only staying a night.
If it is important to you, stress at check-in that you want a room with good internet access, then check it out before you unpack. (We ended up changing rooms because the neither the WiFi, nor the wired worked in that particular room.)
I used AAA books to look for hotels with internet access, but found many more had added it recently.
Have access to a dial-up account if all else fails. I keep AOL for this purpose, but our cable internet provided also has a dial-up and it uses the same numbers as AOL.
I hope this is helpful to someone.
Nancy
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