travel: April 2008 Archives
I'm heading off to Dublin shortly to catch a flight to London where I'll be for the next couple of days.
I haven't been in London, apart from its airports, for about 15 years, so I'm looking forward to the trip.
Tomorrow evening I'm meant to be going to Top Cats, which is a networking event organised by Paul Walsh of Segala. Of course, as I mentioned previously, there are a few other things on in London this week, so I'll be trying to fit as much in as possible.
Unfortunately I won't make it to London in time for the Nominet AGM, but I'm sure that I'll be able to hear all about it later! (On a sidenote my recent post on ccTLDs made it onto CircleID!)
I haven't been in London, apart from its airports, for about 15 years, so I'm looking forward to the trip.
Tomorrow evening I'm meant to be going to Top Cats, which is a networking event organised by Paul Walsh of Segala. Of course, as I mentioned previously, there are a few other things on in London this week, so I'll be trying to fit as much in as possible.
Unfortunately I won't make it to London in time for the Nominet AGM, but I'm sure that I'll be able to hear all about it later! (On a sidenote my recent post on ccTLDs made it onto CircleID!)
As I'm heading over to London later this week, and I'm a bit disorganised, I only got round to booking a hotel this evening.
I'm heading across for a mixture of business and pleasure, so my laptop will be an obligatory accessory.
With that in mind I needed to find a hotel that offered wifi (or even wired) internet access. There are plenty of hotels in London with wifi, so that shouldn't be an issue.
Unfortunately a lot of the hotels are charging rather high rates for using their wireless. If I were to stay 3 nights in some of the hotels and pay their internet levy I'd be adding quite a bit onto my bill.
Fortunately there are at least two hotel chains that actually cater for travellers like me.
Both the Best Western group of hotels and the Radisson group offer free wireless in their properties, so you won't get any unpleasant surprises on checkout!
The thing that gets me is that the free wifi vs. paid wifi choice does not seem to be linked to the hotel's star rating or nightly rate. It's not as if you're guaranteed to get wifi in a 4 star or unlikely to get it in a 1 star.
And the rates for the wireless internet access vary a lot. From my "shopping" this evening I've seen prices from as low as £1/hour to £14/hour. Is the £14/hour gold plated access or something? Doubtful!
Then again, it's the same issue in Dublin.
If you are flying out of Dublin airport Bewley's offers free internet access, but if you're staying in some of the city centre hotels you can pay up to 30 euro a day (in one case we had to pay close to 100 euro!)
I'm heading across for a mixture of business and pleasure, so my laptop will be an obligatory accessory.
With that in mind I needed to find a hotel that offered wifi (or even wired) internet access. There are plenty of hotels in London with wifi, so that shouldn't be an issue.
Unfortunately a lot of the hotels are charging rather high rates for using their wireless. If I were to stay 3 nights in some of the hotels and pay their internet levy I'd be adding quite a bit onto my bill.
Fortunately there are at least two hotel chains that actually cater for travellers like me.
Both the Best Western group of hotels and the Radisson group offer free wireless in their properties, so you won't get any unpleasant surprises on checkout!
The thing that gets me is that the free wifi vs. paid wifi choice does not seem to be linked to the hotel's star rating or nightly rate. It's not as if you're guaranteed to get wifi in a 4 star or unlikely to get it in a 1 star.
And the rates for the wireless internet access vary a lot. From my "shopping" this evening I've seen prices from as low as £1/hour to £14/hour. Is the £14/hour gold plated access or something? Doubtful!
Then again, it's the same issue in Dublin.
If you are flying out of Dublin airport Bewley's offers free internet access, but if you're staying in some of the city centre hotels you can pay up to 30 euro a day (in one case we had to pay close to 100 euro!)
