I am a Platinum Premier member who usually stays at Courtyard's, J.W.'s, etc. but rarely at Fairfield Inns. Around the LA area though there are 2 Fairfields that are very nice and of high quality. One is in Anaheim Hills, and here is the problem there. The first time I was there I was placed in a top floor room (as I always request) which had high speed internet access. No problem. I came back for another stay and was appropriately placed in a top floor room; however, there was NO internet access (only data ports for slow dialup through the telephone). I called the front desk to inquire. It turns out that at this property, only half the rooms are equipped with high-speed, and there are NO plans to equip the other rooms. For my stay tonight, three days ago I explicitly noted in my reservation that I wanted top floor WITH high-speed. On arrival tonight I was given BOTTOM floor with high speed. So my point is this, if high speed matters to you and you don't know the property, and even if it advertises itself as having high-speed, you might want to make sure that ALL rooms are so equipped. Needless to say I am annnoyed. Being a Platinum Premier I basically live on the road, and having high-speed is mandatory. The foregoing has not been an issue at Courtyards or J.W.'s (with the exception of my stay at the Waikiki Beach property in December which was being upgraded to free in-room high-speed) since all rooms seem to be equipped. The bottom line at this property is that it cannot seem to guarantee rooms (top floor at least) with high speed access. I would note that the other very nice Fairfield around LA in Placentia does not have this problem as all rooms are equipped. As this is my first post and I have been reading this forum for six months, I want to thank everybody for the great info I've obtained here.

Welcome to FT and the Marriott forum.....

Thanks for the head's up; we haven't seen this nuance at the FF's and other select service properties we've stayed at.

Did you do any netstumbling while at this FF? I've found many FF's have wi-fi broadband, as well as wired broadband. I saw this nuance this past weekend at a NYC CY, in that there was a STSN wi-fi net up, as well as the Zum wired network. I also stumbled a couple of private nets across the street in an office building, as well as some computer-computer networks in the hotel.

If I were a road warrior, I'd likely take a networked room in such a property, then make my concerns known for future visits. You can always go to another vendor, since FF has lots of competition at their price point.

Good luck!

Pat

Thanks for your reply. My laptop has 802.11g and I always try to "sniff out" wifi signals at a property. My personal experience has been that high speed in a room is generally free and is wired in some way, but if you want to use wifi in a room or in a lobby, say at a CY, then there is a connection charge of about $8.95 or $9.95. Even when there is WIFI in a lobby, many times there is no signal in a room. However, at the other decent Fairfield in Placentia which I mentioned, all access, even in the rooms, is WIFI and is free. The other point behind my post is that it never occurred to me that I might have to ask if "all" rooms at a particular property had high-speed. I assumed, incorrectly it turns out, that high speed access meant high speed access is all rooms. I have sent a detailed email to Marriott about this, since on the Marriott website this property's info simply states it has high speed in the rooms, but does not mention that it is only in about HALF the rooms as I was told by the front desk. I was also told that there are no plans to add it to the other half. There clearly should be a notice or disclaimer about this in the property into. Thanks for letting me rant a bit..Best wishes to all and happy travelling.

Yikes! The HIEA issue reared its head with us coincidentally in this very area. To save about 30 bucks I was a fool and booked a stay here, which was that much cheaper than even the next FI up. Bad idea. I had to move twice to get a room that didn't smell like a horrible cig+ who knows. Their response, well, sometimes people smoke in the rooms. Yeah it is called rennovation sometime after 1982. It was run like a bad Holiday Inn Express, tacky cereal dispensers which passed for breakfast, receptionists that napped on a couch out of sight behind security windows, room doors that were practically in the parking lot. Anyway, needless, etc, internet was only one issue. Said it was included but that meant wireless in the lobby, not in the rooms. Yikes, like I wanted to hang there. I don't think I am going to gamble on a property I haven't seen reviewed again. Be afraid of this property! Marriott, please scrape your name off this place or fix it up!

I have stayed in FI in Alabama, California, Minnesota, Mississippi and South Carolina about 12 weeks so far this year and these properties advertise wireless high speed but have anything but high speed.

I'm in SC this week and the first room I was in had a very poor connection and I moved to a different room (for another reason) with no wireless connection, but at least I have a RJ45 cable in this room.

Last week I was in MN and was on the FI wireless network trying to make a reservation for this week at another FI and the website just hung. I ended up calling on the phone.

I can never access the Delta website from FI. Flyertalk is often too slow to bother with.

Would CY have a better wireless set up? If not, I'll change chains simply over this matter.

ps. AIM simply isn't available. Why do they block it?

And I just killed a giant bug in my room, maybe it's time to upgrade out of Fairfield Inn.

I've noticed computer to computer networks also appearing as available. Does this do us any good connecting to the net?

Courtyards have been better for speed in my experience than FF. However you will still run into the occasional CY with some "blacked out rooms". the only time I have seen this at a CY though is when they are 100% wireless, some rooms just don't get the same signal as others. Overall I have found the CY to be better for my business travel. However I get an exp acct that covers breakfast...to me that's the only reason to stay at a FF. Most of the CY's have the dangling wire from the desk in your room with either a Zum, or STSN box sitting on the desk. Occasionally you'll see a Wayport wireless net in addition to or instead of the wires.

Best of luck.

Hasn't done me any good but YMMV. I have a Mac and sometimes Wintel computers and Macs don't get along (most folks have Wintel laptops). Depends on how the networked laptop is configured and if it has wired/cellular access.

Perhaps one of the network gurus here can give you a better answer. I'm just a machinist

Pat

Or.... if you want to reduce the number of bugs, then maybe its time to stop using Microsoft products.

It was just way too tempting to let that opportunity go by untouched.

Oh this was a real live bug alright, about an inch long, 3/4 inch wide, lots of legs...

And I have about as much leeway in what software I use as I do what airlines and hotels I use.... If I don't like what my company picks for me, I can use any, if I pay for them myself!

I know that this is not the way you want to solve your "no wireless signal" problems but it is a solution that might save you some frustration in the future.

http://www.edigitalwireless.com/detail.aspx?ID=2

http://www.engeniustelephones.com/Ca...WAVC8&PID=5622


Engenious has a 200mw PCMCIA wireless card that has over twice the amount of power as other wireless cards. The cards you pick up at Best Buy (Linksys/D-Link/Netgear) have under 100mw of output power.

The next time you get put in a room with weak signal or even no signal, just fire this baby up and you'll probably pick up the signal from the hotel next door (which could be on a faster circuit). I've sat in many a hotel with the Internet down mooching signal from the hotel next door.

This won't solve your speed issues. Most of the FFI/Hampton/Choice type hotels only have a business DSL circuit in them and when you get 10 or 20 users on the circuit it slows to a crawl. All you can do is pray that your neighbors aren't downloading a ton of MP3's.

Thanks for the info Pyg. I have a couple of questions about this, I am a computer dummy.

If I purchase one of those above, is the one that is $100 much better than the cheaper one?

I have a Dell Latitude D600 with the standard high speed wireless card. Can I simply replace that with one of the ones you mention?

Thanks!

To my knowledge, it is the exact same card. In fact, $65.00 for that card is the cheapest I have ever seen. I have never ordered from that paticular company nor have I ever heard of them before. My advice is to just do your homework before ordering.

I can't guarentee you that it will work, but it SHOULD work just fine As long as your Dell has a PCMCIA slot. You should be able to just replace your current wireless card with an Engenious card.

I have another question on FI High Speed (Golden Tree).

I checked in Monday, had no problems with the connection on Monday evening or Tuesday morning. Cuuld not connect at all Tuesday evening, I kept getting a message that the server was down, page not found. There is a CY next door and I walked over there and was able to connect to their network. I called the Golden Tree number and they assured me that the FI hotel wasn't having any problems. Tonight I was online for anout 45 minutes and the connection dropped and it took awhile for me to get back on.

Does FI or Golden Tree limit the number of users that can be on at once?

Next week I'm going to try the Courtyard. The FI high speed is just too unpredictible for me.