Blumie

While I applaud Ritz Carlton for installing wifi throughout their hotels, I have experienced a decent amount of problems with their service, provided by a vendor called Guest-Tek. (I think Marriott uses Guest-Tek, too.) By working with Guest-Tek's help desk, I figured out that programs running in the background that try to access the internet during the Guest-Tek registration process -- in my case Norton anti-virus and Skype -- conflicts with Guest-Tek's firewall (which their help desk described to me as a "firewall on steroids"). Even once I disable these programs, however, I constantly time out during the registration process and have to start over.

At most properties, once I've successfully completed the registration process, I'm usually ok, but at the RC Marina del Rey over the last two days, I found the service basically unusabe. Even though I had a fine connection, the system continually disconnected and reconnected me, and pages continually timed out while attempting to load them.

Have others experienced problems? I've found the service to be incredibly frustrating. And at $9.95-$12.95/day, that should not be the case.

(BTW, although the help desk rep very nicely tried to blame me and my computer for all of the problems I was experiencing, I am able to use t-mobile and other wifi services around the world without any difficulty, so I doubt that I'm the problem.)

BeantownFlyer

Here at the Ritz in South Beach, and I had no problem - until I saw they wanted to charge me $9.95/day and I clicked cancel. Using my Verizon Wireless card instead - the $60/mo pays for itself in 5-6 nights of usage each month, and of course I can fire it up anywhere.

Speed is not quite as good as wifi - but the EVDO Rev A that they have rolled out quietly is pretty good.

By the way, was pleased to see that St. Thomas is including internet access in their obnoxious resort fee ($45/nt). But at least it avoids the $30/day that they were charging in Cancun (and Grand Cayman too?) for internet access alone!

DrivingRain

Pardon my hijacking of this thread...

but if I recall correctly both Blumie and BeantownFlyer usually take annual Christmas vacas at Caribbean resorts. I think in another thread early last year we all tried to help brainstorm where your respective holidays should be spent. So...where did you decide and how was it?

Blumie

I did a tour of four RC properties. Here is my brief report:

Sarasota: I started with two nights at the RC Sarasota. This is a great property, and a great value, and I would have stayed here longer had the weather been better. The big disadvantage of this property is that it's not on the beach, but they do shuttle you to their own beach club on the beach. In all of my times at this hotel, however, I've never checked out the beach cub. Can anyone report on it?

Key Biscayne: We then drove across the state and spent four nights at the RC Key Biscayne. I did not like the property as much as I did on my prior visit to this property, but the weather cooperated for the most part and we had a really nice time.

New Orleans: I then ditched the family and spent a couple of nights at the recently-reopened RC New Orleans. Although it's hard to imagine that service at a hotel in New Orleans can ever reach the level of other RC properties (although the Windsor Court in New Orleans does manage it), I did like this hotel much better than I did the last time I stayed there, pre-Katrina.

Marina del Rey: I finished my holiday with two nights at the RC MDR to attend the Rose Bowl. This property has benefited from a recent renovation. It's still not my favorite RC, but it's a nice property nonetheless.

I apologize for the lack of substance in my review. I'm happy to provide more specifics if anyone has any questions.

DrivingRain

SRQ Beach Club:
If you dont mind the shuttle (I always just drive over)...it is one of the best beach arrangements for a hotel.

Beautiful changing rooms, excellent beachside restaurant and a very nice beach.

I think they are building RC residences on the beach site, but that did not bother me any when I was there just over 1 year ago...which, speaking of Michigan football, was the day of that great Michigan/USC game. Griese was calling that game and the next day I ran into him on the elevators up to the suites at Raymond James Stadium at the Bucs/Resdskins game. That day his son, former Michigan QB Brian Griese suffered a season-ending knee injury. Anyway...I digress.

RC SRQ is right at the top of luxury for $$$ in the U.S. It's nearly perfrect for an inexepensive, yet luxurious 3 day weekend. Any more days than that and you'll want to go exploring outside of the resort and beach club...and there is not much to see. As nice as SRQ is now vs. a few years ago, it's still not Naples.

Blumie

We actually considered cancelling Key Biscayne and staying longer at Sarasota because Key Biscayne was costing us twice as much. We didn't because we were inside of the cancellation deadline, which turned out to be a good thing, because the weather on the east coast was much better than on the west.

But I agree with you that the Sarasota property is one of the best luxury values out there for a shorter stay.

If you drive to the Beach Club yourself, is there a place to park?

BTW, you must have been watching a different Rose Bowl than I did, because the one I watched sucked (except for the beautiful day and the 50-yard-line seats on the sunny side of the stadium!).

DrivingRain

I meant the 2005 regular season USC/Notre Dame game. My fault. Early October I believe. It was a classic.

BeantownFlyer

We opted for the RC St. Thomas. It was a great stay. I had stayed there about 4 years ago when their club lounge first opened and it was spectacular. Then returned about 3 years ago and it was awful - poor service, domestic "chanpagne" and poor food spread in the lounge, and the rest of the resort service was about the same.

This visit there was no club lounge - they have converted that building to the timeshare phase - although a new club and suites expansion is underway.

The hotel, which had 140 rooms, is down to 100 rooms as two buildings are off line and being expanded. Fortunately they stopped all construction for Christmas week, so there was no noise. When they are done they will have 180 rooms. It seemed that they had full staffing, and with the smaller room count nothing was crowded. Not sure what it will be like with the extra rooms though.

Lots of upgrades at the property, from new room case goods, flat panel tvs and finally - nice linens with the pillow top bedding.

Not sure where we'll head next year - probably between St. Thomas and Grand Cayman.