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View Full Version : question about Carousel Inn's internet access



AngelBear
07-27-2006, 07:50 PM
Not sure if this is the right place to be asking, but here goes...

I know they have cheap internet access in the breakfast room, but we're trying to decide if it's worth it to take a laptop on our trip.

Is there any kind of internet access we could use the laptop with, and if so, how much does it cost? Some sites are saying there is in-room dial up, others say there's nothing, some say surcharge...

Thanks!

Malcon10t
07-27-2006, 09:35 PM
Not sure if this is the right place to be asking, but here goes...

I know they have cheap internet access in the breakfast room, but we're trying to decide if it's worth it to take a laptop on our trip.

Is there any kind of internet access we could use the laptop with, and if so, how much does it cost? Some sites are saying there is in-room dial up, others say there's nothing, some say surcharge...

Thanks!
There is no internet access other than dial up. The Marriot Fairfield Inn and the BW Park Place Inn both have wireless internet for free. If you stay ing the right rooms at the Camelot Inn (towards the rear of the building) and the Park Vue and Anaheim Desert Inn (front of the building) you can usually get the wireless feed from these other 2 hotels.

AngelBear
07-27-2006, 10:30 PM
Alrighty. I don't mind dial-up.
Would you happen to know, is this in-room access, and is it free? Or is the only access from the kiosk in the breakfast room?
We've already booked our room at the Carousel, so there's no switching hotels at this point.

bradk
07-28-2006, 07:27 AM
the convenience store in the tropicana next door offers internet access (and computers) for $10 for 60 mins.

Andrew
07-28-2006, 09:18 AM
To answer the OP's question: The Carousel does not provide in-room Internet access. If you have a laptop with a modem and a dial-up number for your ISP, of course you can use that at standard hotel phone rates.

There is pay-per-minute Internet kiosk in the penthouse breakfast room. It's usable for checking email or getting directions but not much else.

If you bring your own laptop with WiFi, take a break in any of the lounges or lobby areas in the DLR hotels; they all feature free WiFi Internet access.

AngelBear
07-28-2006, 09:53 AM
Ok, thanks.
We were hoping to maybe do a little business during a couple off-days, so we would need information from our personal computer, so I don't think the kiosk will work. But I will definitely keep the DL hotels in mind.
Thanks again!

SHOMan
07-28-2006, 01:56 PM
We stayed at the Camelot Inn in late June and found that there are many free wireless access points available on Harbour Blvd. iBahn was the one I used, they let you use it a day at a time for free. It is not associated with the hotels.

I never had to use the dial-up account I purchased for the trip at all. My Toshiba has a radar-like display that shows all of the access points around you, and I had never seen so many hot spots in one place before. Your wireless configuration software will tell you whether or not the access point is secured or not.

ghoofie
07-28-2006, 03:51 PM
The Candy Cane has free internet access.

One thing to keep in mind....if you need VPN access from
your laptop...few hotels will let you access VPN, but you
can access the internet.

tonytone
07-31-2006, 10:24 AM
There is no internet access other than dial up. The Marriot Fairfield Inn and the BW Park Place Inn both have wireless internet for free. If you stay ing the right rooms at the Camelot Inn (towards the rear of the building) and the Park Vue and Anaheim Desert Inn (front of the building) you can usually get the wireless feed from these other 2 hotels.
Is the wireless access at Fairfield truly free (i.e., no additional/hidden cost)? I ask because when I attempted to connect, I was prompted to go to their website to "register" (or something along those lines), and thought I read something on that page about "payment"... :confused:

Malcon10t
07-31-2006, 10:26 AM
Is the wireless access at Fairfield truly free (i.e., no additional/hidden cost)? I ask because when I attempted to connect, I was prompted to go to their website to "register" (or something along those lines), and thought I read something on that page about "payment"... :confused:We've done this numerous times, and it was always free. We generally stay at the Park Inn (now Camelot) and get a room towards the back. You register, but they never ask for a CC.

Opus1guy
07-31-2006, 10:47 AM
One thing to keep in mind....if you need VPN access from
your laptop...few hotels will let you access VPN, but you
can access the internet.

While I've heard about the rare hotel somehow blocking VPN's, or their Router's firewall interfering with VPN connections...I've never once encountered that in any hotel in the world. Once I have connected to the internet, I've never had any problem accessing my VPN (personalVPN from WiTopia). And I stay around 100 nights a year in hotels. I'm in one right now and this post is being made via my VPN.

Same with public WiFi hotspots such as coffeeshops...never had a problem with my VPN.

Most of the major hotel ISP's (like Wayport for example) main portal login page actually mentions that VPNs will work, as do many of the smaller ones too (like SkyRiver). Even the independent "open" WiFi's I've encountered at smaller hotels and motels have never blocked my VPN.

I'm just lucky, I guess.

Andrew
07-31-2006, 11:28 AM
Generally the VPN issues are not caused by hotels actively blocking, but by private IP address allocation collision. For example, if your VPN wants to give you a private address in the 192.168.1.xxx range and then your hotel's DHCP assigns you an address in the same range, you'll find it difficult if not impossible to connect to your VPN. Since you can't predict what IP address range the hotel's Internet access will provide--but they're usually in very common ranges, it seems to be best to arrange for your VPN to use address schemes other than those very common ranges.

eyeorelover
07-31-2006, 11:54 AM
We just stayed at the Carousel from July 4th-15th and in our room there was a little ad saying you could now get wireless access in your room. Since it was an obvious ad that looked like you would have to pay more for it, and since I didn't need to do any serious work on the internet, I just used dial-up to get on-line on our laptop during our stay. But I did want to clarify, if it does help the OP out any, that they do offer it somehow in the rooms - I'm sure you can call the front desk for more info. However, if they are still doing all the brick construction work on the parking lot you may want to re-consider them as well.

Opus1guy
07-31-2006, 12:23 PM
Generally the VPN issues are not caused by hotels actively blocking, but by private IP address allocation collision. For example, if your VPN wants to give you a private address in the 192.168.1.xxx range and then your hotel's DHCP assigns you an address in the same range, you'll find it difficult if not impossible to connect to your VPN. Since you can't predict what IP address range the hotel's Internet access will provide--but they're usually in very common ranges, it seems to be best to arrange for your VPN to use address schemes other than those very common ranges.

Well, my VPN doesn't use anything like those common private IP ranges...so I guess that's why I never have a problem! Yea personalVPN! :)