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Gild Hall Now Charging $10 for Practically Dial-Up Internet Speeds
| July 1, 2009 at 2:02 PM | 0 Comments
Yikes. We stumbled upon this shot on Flickr and were not pleased to lay our eyes upon it — though we were grateful that our own WiFi connections were, um, at least fast enough to load Flickr in a timely fashion.
This is a screenshot from guest evoque, who apparently stayed at Gild Hall and had to fork over a 10-er in order to connect to the WiFi network. At a speed of 512k. Slow. Lame. Boo. The caption on the shot reads:
$10/day for a blazing 512k/512k WiFi connection — it's more Internet side road than Internet superhighway.
And we all know that people who are down with clever wordplay deserve faster WiFi, right? Regardless, this could have been forgivable — except that we haven't forgotten that Thompson Hotels' WiFi used to be totally free, and they just started charging for it this year. Ugh. If you're going to make us pay for this stuff, at least give us a decent connection to work with.
[Photo: Evoque]
Tags: WiFi Hell / Marriott Hotels / Berlin Hotels / Hotel WiFi / International Hotel WiFi / → All Tags
The Marriott Berlin Charges $530 For WiFi Access
| May 26, 2009 at 3:43 PM | 0 Comments
In an ideal, globally-connected world, all hotels would have free and fast WiFi. This is however not a perfect world, and so traveling across borders with the intention of checking your email or uploading pictures to your Flickr is often a bigger headache that it should be.
Our most recent instance of entering Hotel WiFi Hell occurred during our 3-night stay at the centrally-located and business traveler-happy Marriott Berlin. After enjoying free and freeflowing access at a much cheaper hotel elsewhere in the city for our first few days in Berlin, we were admittedly spoiled. Nonetheless, we found the internet plan at the Marriott too exorbitant for any visitor:
· One hour of access (common areas): € 6.95 ($9.72)
· One hour of access (in room): € 5.95 ($8.32)
· 24 hours: € 19.95 ($27.91)
· One week: € 99.75 ($139.56)
· One month: € 379.05 ($530.33)
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Internet Charges at Holiday Inn Hong Kong Are Just Wrong
| April 10, 2009 at 2:27 PM | 0 Comments
Oh noes. Say what you will about Holiday Inns, but HI's Internet is usually, these days, fairly fast and totally free. Well, 'round these parts, anyway. We're sad to hear from Canadian blogger Andrew Currie that, over in Hong Kong, that's notsomuch the case. He documents his Internet troubles at the Holiday Inn Hong Kong Golden Mile:
Unlimited access set me back $160 HKD per day, or about $25 CAD. At this price you might think I'd be tempted to leave my laptop packed and use my phone exclusively, but even with Opera Mini paring down the average full web page to a paltry 50K or so I would still pay 5¢/kB in data roaming charges — or in other words, for the same cost per day I'd only be able to pull down a mere 10 web pages on my phone!
For an extra $40 HKD/day ($6.25 CAD) I could supposedly access the hotel-wide WiFi via my phone — a great idea for reading the morning news over breakfast in the restaurant, except that interTouch uses some kind of stupid web redirect to log in to their network, likely designed with laptops only in mind.
Boo. Oh, and to translate that to US dollars: that daily Internet charge of 160 HKD works out to just over $20, while the 40 HKD WiFi charge comes out to around $5. And the worldwide free WiFi crusade continues.
[Photo: Andrew Currie]
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Atlanta Marriott Marquis Thinks Guests Can Still Expense Everything
| April 6, 2009 at 2:45 PM | 5 Comments
It's always shocking when a major hotel like the recently-renovated Atlanta Marriott Marquis isn't super convenient for business travelers. In this time of recessionary layoffs and cutbacks, the business and conference hotel is still obnoxiously charging for Internet connectivity. How hard it is to switch from broadband to WiFi, Mister Bill Marriott?
At $12.95 for noon-to-noon service in the rooms and then a discounted $9.95 around the food court on the reception and marquis levels, charging on top of the $159 to $221.95 a night for a king size bed in a city view room still seems cruel and unusual.
Guests hunched over their laptops outside the in-hotel Starbucks were not happy. We actually found some working connections not provided by the Marriott Marquis. Interestingly, from inside the Marriott Marquis we got free service from the Hyatt Regency Atlanta just across the street.
Tags: Hotel WiFi / Snapshot / W Hotels / WiFi Hell / → All Tags
This Post Cost Us $17
| April 3, 2009 at 5:11 PM | 16 Comments
One day of WiFi at W - The Court in NYC costs $16.95.
In the words of Twitterer wildedge: that's called Wi-F.U.
That is all.
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When the WiFi is So Bad, You Need to Switch Rooms
| March 30, 2009 at 3:40 PM | 0 Comments
Last night we landed in Las Vegas during a wind storm. After releasing our death grips on our seatmate and the armrest we thought our worries were over. We could now go on and enjoy Las Vegas as we were meant to.
We scored a great deal at the Mirage for $70 a night in one of those lovely renovated rooms we liked so much on our last visit. And after checking out the signs of life on the casino floor (there were plenty!), we headed up to our room to get connected.
After grumbling about the $14.99 WiFi charge, we hopped onto the WiFi network but to our dismay found the connection to be so terrible that we dragged our laptop over to the desk and plugged in the ethernet cable (free in the nightstand drawer.)
Yet while the casino floor may have been bustling below us, there was no sign of life on the internet in our room.
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Park Inn London Charges £15 for WiFi
| March 16, 2009 at 12:31 PM | 1 Comment
Perhaps we have been spoiled by the mid-market hotel WiFi situations over here in the United States. See, when we score a room in a mid-priced chain hotel where the rates run in the $100 neighborhood, we've come to expect free WiFi to be thrown into the deal.
This isn't really an unfair expectation: after doing our Annual WiFi Report for several years now, we've found the most exorbitant WiFi charges to come at us from the luxe chains, while many of the mid-market brands 'round these parts let us climb onto the Internet for free.
And so naturally, we were stunned to see that the newly revamped Park Inn London, Russell Square (whose rooms start at a totally decent 69 GBP, or about $97 USD) charges these sorts of prices for WiFi.
This screenshot comes to us via Flickr user sofiaGK, who noted that the "charges seem a bit excessive" — and, um, we have to agree.
The hotel claims to be "celebrating functionality and fun" — and 15 GBP for 24 hours of WiFi is neither functional nor fun.
[Photo: sofiagk]
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Has Free WiFi at Thompson Hotels Gone Bye-Bye?
| March 2, 2009 at 9:16 AM | 5 Comments
Thompson giveth — and then they taketh away. Just as we thought hotel chains were making some major progress on the free WiFi front, it saddens us deeply to report a major setback: The boutique-chic Thompson hotel chain, whose head honcho has spoken up in the past about the importance of free wireless internet, now seems to be charging guests to get online. Oh dear.
During our own stays at Thompson properties, we'd always been impressed with the ease at which we could get online to rave about the WiFi situation; the connection was fast and free and fab. But on a recent stay at the newest Thompson property, Smyth Tribeca, we were charged $10.95 per day of Internet. We did not in any way enjoy this, but we figured it was just a Smyth thing.
Tags: WiFi Hell / Hotel Internet / Marriott Hotels / Virginia Hotels / Washington DC Hotels / → All Tags
We Can Maybe Live With Wired, If the Wire's Long Enough
| February 23, 2009 at 9:16 AM | 0 Comments
The WiFi blues strike again. Or more correctly, the lack-of-Wifi blues are what hit self-confessed geek Wayan Vota who threw his hands in the air at the internet access hell of the Marriott Centerville near Washington DC.
This hotel, admittedly, only claims to have guest rooms with wired internet access; WiFi is reserved for public areas. But wired could be okay, if it wasn't for one problem:
This 4 Star hotel only offers 6 feet of Ethernet cable in its rooms. No Wifi, just a too short cable that I was the third person in line to complain about. Marriott, do not be so cheap. If you cannot manage Wifi, at least give us 10 foot cords so we can hack from bed.
Hear, hear. We're guessing slightly longer cables are not going to break the bank as much as all those complaining people not bothering to stay there again.
[Photo: Wayan Vota]
Tags: International Hotel WiFi / WiFi Hell / Expedia / → All Tags
In Solidarity with Expedia for Free Wi-Fi For All
| February 11, 2009 at 3:31 PM | 2 Comments
Expedia totally has our back: Like us, they’ve started railing against hotels to offer free Wi-Fi. After a study that examined its top destinations for UK travelers, the booking site concluded that budget hotels are more likely to offer free Wi-Fi than expensive ones.
The good news for those of us on this side of the pond is that U.S. rates were found to be cheaper here (but mark our words, we won’t rest until it’s FREE everywhere!). The lowest rates Expedia found were in Florida, where average rates are reportedly just over $1 an hour. In New York, rates average around $3 an hour. Of course, those are just averages, meaning plenty of places still rate gouge with the best of ’em.
But that’s nothing compared to Venice, the city with the most expensive rates (at least among the destinations Expedia examined), averaging roughly $9.50 an hour. More offensive rates: around $8 an hour in Madrid and $7.50 in Paris.
The take-away tip? Look for hotels with lower star ratings, which are more likely to offer free Wi-Fi. (Five-star hotels are the worst, charging up to $27 an hour for the basic right of Internet access.)
In the words of Alison Couper, communications director for Expedia: "In the 21st century, getting online while you travel should be simple and cost effective — instead it seems it is confusing and overpriced.”
Amen, sister.
Tags: WiFi Hell / Toronto Hotels / Toronto Film Festival Hotels / Hotel News / → All Tags
WiFi Hell for Toronto Film Festival Guests at Sutton Place
| September 8, 2008 at 12:37 PM | 0 Comments
We cannot imagine anything worse than being a journalist covering the Toronto Film Festival right now, staying at the Sutton Place where there are, apparently, some serious WiFi issues happening.
Imagine having an assignment to do and no Internet-ical resources to tap into. Worse: imagine no way to send emails (because we're in Canada and out of our domestic cell coverage area, obvi) and a burning need to blog about the horrible films we've watched -- and the amazing/equally horrible celebrities we've just seen. Disaster.
Tags: NYT Hotel Reviews / Bordeaux Hotels / WiFi Hell / → All Tags
Futuristic Bordeaux Hotel Functions As If Hungover
| August 26, 2008 at 9:15 AM | 0 Comments
When in Bordeaux, though some might enjoy more classical or idyllically French things, or wine, some might go avant-garde. But the New York Times wouldn't.
The marginally positive review in "Check-in, Check-out," of the sleek and new Seeko'o Hotel uses most of its word count to list technical, um, difficulties, that were not addressed during the course of the reviewer's stay. Seth Sherwood writes:
My room, No. 101, a “junior suite” was really just a semispacious hotel room (for 180 euros). The “business center,” similarly, was a lone Internet-linked computer in the lobby. Moreover, the room smelled of cigarettes and looked out on a row of decrepit buildings.
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