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WiFi at Vacation Village at Parkway

AwayWeGo

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[triennial - points]
$ $ $ $

Not free.

I meant to bring home the information sheet that includes the wi-fi rates, & I may actually have got home with it -- I just haven't got my hands on it since we unpacked. (We were there January 4 - 11, 2009 -- had a nice time.)

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​
 

viejoverde

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thanks, for the heads up. is hard to believe some of the resorts charge for it when most motels have it free.
 

AwayWeGo

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[triennial - points]
Free Wi-Fi Is Not Yet Universal, But It May Be The Wave Of The Future -- Or Not.

is hard to believe some of the resorts charge for it when most motels have it free.
The timeshare where we stayed the week after our Vacation Village At Parkway week has free wi-fi -- Club Intrawest Sandestin, on the Florida Panhandle.

Evidently it's newish -- the free part, I mean, not the actual wi-fi. The in-room service directory on 1 page quotes a fee for wi-fi & on another page says the wi-fi is complimentary. The person I asked at the front desk said it's free.

As more & more people come to expect universal high-speed wireless Internet service, more & more timeshare resorts may decide to fold its costs into the owners' annual fee payments. That is, even when wi-fi is "free" it isn't really free & somebody -- e.g., timeshare owners -- ends up paying for the cost of the equipment, the installation, the maintenance, & the service.

What might happen is that personal technology could outrun & overtake today's wi-fi, just as cell phones have superseded conventional hard-wire timeshare telephones. Sure, the units still have phones -- are required to have them, if only for emergency 9-1-1 call capability -- but more & more timeshare vacationers talk via their own cell phones rather than by the in-room hard-wire telephones.

The way technology is progressing, personal computers & iPhones, etc., with their own independent wireless Internet connections (satellite, cell tower, etc.) may outnumber wi-fi portable computers before long, rendering obsolete all the investment the timeshares committed toward installing wi-fi. Just a thought, not a hard & fast forecast -- & just 1 more concern for the timeshare HOA-BODs to grapple with as they work to keep improving the timeshares while making sure every dollar spent returns lasting value to the individual owners.

BTW, the in-room phones at Club Intrawest Sandestin charge 75¢ per minute for calls to toll-free ("800," etc.) numbers. Placing local calls from the in-unit hard-wire phones also costs a little something. We made no calls from the in-unit phones & received no calls other than a polite invitation (which we declined) to take the in-house timeshare sales presentation.

Nothing is free. (Or everything is free, depending on how you think of it.) Thus it's not so much a matter of what does & what doesn't generate costs. It's more a matter of who benefits & who pays. So it goes.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​
 

shmuggee

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Just to add...

...to what Alan said:


We just checked in today at Parkway in Kissimmee.

Wifi is $29.95 plus tax for the week ($5.99 a day).

Local calls: $.75

800 calls: $.75
 

Dori

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This is a pure cash grab. What possible reason could there be for charging for local or toll-free numbers? Grrr!

Dori
 

rickandcindy23

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VV also charges to use the safe. :rolleyes:

When the best timeshares in Orlando include internet service, I don't see any reason to use those that charge. Vistana, Marriott, Hiltons are all free.

Disney charges, but I still exchange there when I can. I hope they consider dropping the fee at some point.

Our dinky little, non-rated timeshare in Colorado has free WiFi with excellent signal all over the "resort." The cost was very minimal, with several hot spots around the complex.
 

gjw007

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This is a pure cash grab. What possible reason could there be for charging for local or toll-free numbers? Grrr!

Dori

It is not quite that simply. Although I am suspicious of resorts in many ways for the amount they charge, many times it is simply a matter of having those who use the service pay for the service. Internet connectivity falls in that line of thinking. When the resort provides free to the guest Internet, it isn't free, it is the owners at the resort paying for it. My problem with the charges are that they seem excessive in most cases but those who feel they need (myself at times when taking an online course) have felt they needed to pay to have the access.

Telephone switchboard equipment is expensive and again the mentality is that those who use it should pay for it. Unlike Internet access, this, in my opinion, should be free as it is something that most people feel is essential, if only for emergency purposes (Internet activity is not essential). I understand the mentality on having those who use it pay for it but since this must be put in the first place, there is no additional charge to the resort, and local/non-charged calls should be provided free.
 

Kozman

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WiFi Internet Charges

I think competition will soon make WiFi free in most resorts. I'm currently at Orlando International (Wyndham) and they now have free in room wireless. The front desk said they just quit charging $30 per week last week. All the recent Wyndhams I've been to have free in room internet. Nashville, Smokey Mountain, now Orlando International. I suspect it has become the corporate policy.

Isn't wireless at Massanutten something like $50 per week?
 

Sea Six

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We'll see if wifi ends up the better deal than 3G cellular. At these prices, you'd have to be nuts to take wifi over cellular wireless. It just depends on where you are and what they charge. Personally, I am in favor of the cellular solution since it is available for much longer ranges, and doesn't incur the cost on the local establishments (Starbucks), especially considering the extremely limited coverage areas of wifi. It's yet another VHS vs BETA technological issue, and as you know, by this time, they BOTH lost out to DVD. And then the Blue-Ray came out. Oh, that's right - HD DVD came out first before Blue Ray killed that technology. DVD wasn't so great after all, was it? Get the message? There is no winner - there are always options. I've been an engineer in these systems for decades, and in my opinion, the system that puts the cost on the BIG companies, like Verizon, AT&T, etc, will make more sense economically than the local micro-structure networks that wifi requires. Wifi is a band-aid solution to an arterial trauma. Once the cellular network can support more bandwidth than your other networks can provide, why would you even consider anything else? Cellular signals are EVERYWHERE!!!! By the way, I still have my first 8-track player. And don't think for one minute that whatever you have today won't be as obsolete 2 years from now. You'll hear around October what the next technology is - just in time for the Christmas updates!
 

Dori

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Last week, Kozman and I met on the patio of Silver Lake, while using the free WiFi offered in the lobby and the pool area! It was great to meet a fellow TUGger.

Dori
 

Kozman

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Last week, Kozman and I met on the patio of Silver Lake, while using the free WiFi offered in the lobby and the pool area! It was great to meet a fellow TUGger.

Dori

Likewise Dori. It was a pleasant surprise!! I hope to meet more Tuggers in the future.

BTW, I discovered that I could get their WiFi from my room if I placed my laptop on my bedroom window sill. So, no more having to freeze myself out by the pool! Too bad I didn't find out until 2 days before check out! LOL!
 

wise one

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We were at VV@Pkwy last October and they had a room above the checkin with computers on a first come basis that had free internet and supposedly free wifi in that area.

Don't they do this anymore?
 

AwayWeGo

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[triennial - points]
Computer Room At Vacation Village At Parkway.

We were at VV@Pkwy last October and they had a room above the checkin with computers on a first come basis that had free internet and supposedly free wifi in that area.

Don't they do this anymore?
The computer room is still there -- had a half-dozen or so people waiting in line every time I went up there to see about logging on for a 15-minute Internet session.

That was in January 2009.

Don't know about the wf-fi situation.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​
 

spiceycat

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Disney charges, but I still exchange there when I can. I hope they consider dropping the fee at some point.

DVC members get free internet. So like valet parking don't think DVC or Disney will give it to exchangers.
 

spiceycat

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...to what Alan said:


We just checked in today at Parkway in Kissimmee.

haven't been to VV in a while - it is still nice. Are the rooms still in top shape?
going in May with the RCI special.
 

AwayWeGo

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Still A Nice Timeshare Resort.

Are the rooms still in top shape?
Our 1BR partial-kitchen "B" unit with washer-dryer was shipshape in January.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​
 

Kozman

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Last week, Kozman and I met on the patio of Silver Lake, while using the free WiFi offered in the lobby and the pool area! It was great to meet a fellow TUGger.

Dori

I'm back at Silver Lake and discovered they have a new internet provider. Now wireless wifi is available in all rooms. The change is that it is no longer free for owners like it was last year. Now they include the internet as part of an activity card for $20 for owners. The charge is $25 for non owners. This is a case where the service has gone down over time versus my maintenance fee that continues to go up.
 

Dori

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We are at VV @ Parkway right now and the cost for WiFi is $49.99 per week. Ouch!

Dori
 

Kozman

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We are at VV @ Parkway right now and the cost for WiFi is $49.99 per week. Ouch!

Dori

Unbelievable! I've been spoiled by the free wireless at all Wyndham resorts that have it. If they wanted $49.99, I'd be on dial-up or sitting at a hot spot like McDonald's!

Are there many Tuggers from last weeks get together still in Kissimmee? I hope everyone had a great time.
 

Mel

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Telephone switchboard equipment is expensive and again the mentality is that those who use it should pay for it. Unlike Internet access, this, in my opinion, should be free as it is something that most people feel is essential, if only for emergency purposes (Internet activity is not essential). I understand the mentality on having those who use it pay for it but since this must be put in the first place, there is no additional charge to the resort, and local/non-charged calls should be provided free.
If telephone service at a resort was billed the way it is for your home phone, I might agree, but resports are busniesses, and have business phone service, not residential.

If resorts could use residential services, not only could they provide "free" local calls, but they could also (for an extra $10 per unit week) have free long distance. But business phone service isn't billed that way. The resort has to pay for every one of those local calls, plus maintan the switchboard equipment. I recall growing up how we had unlimited local calling on our home phone - at a higher base cost than paying per per message unit. Some neighbors hardly used their phones, so they opted for message units, which were cheaper for them. No different than cell phone plans now - you pay a certain fee for a set number of minutes per month, or play a higher flat fee for unlimited. As an owner, I don't want to pay for unlimited phone service when it's not necessary. (Kind of like the argument about local cable or satellite TV).
 
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