A water park resort wins rave reviews – for its WiFi

A float in the lazy river. A ride down a water slide. A late-night dip in the heated pool. These attractions entice more than 100,000 guests every year to a Florida water park and hotel. But that’s not all the guests crave.

Fast, reliable WiFi has become one of the most important amenities for creating a positive guest experience. 65 percent of guests get online within seven minutes of check-in.

The 240-room resort knows this all too well. It hosts tech-savvy children and adults who arrive with multiple devices, expecting to stream movies and play online games on all of them. These activities require strong connectivity throughout the property. However, the resort’s digital infrastructure wasn’t delivering. The staff constantly fielded complaints about spotty WiFi availability and slow access speeds. The guests also aired those complaints online.

The resort knew it needed to take action. “When we noticed feedback on TripAdvisor about poor WiFi service, we knew that an overhaul of the digital infrastructure would have to become a priority,” says the resort’s director of revenue management and marketing.

The resort turned to Spectrum Enterprise.

Expertise to diagnose the challenges — and find the right solution

Spectrum Enterprise was already a trusted partner, providing the resort with reliable video and voice services. So when it came time to improve the resort’s WiFi capabilities, it was the provider of choice.

“Based on our previous experience with Spectrum Enterprise, we knew we could trust them to design a reliable connectivity solution that would help us satisfy and retain our customers,” says the resort’s general manager.

The Spectrum Enterprise team used its deep engineering expertise to determine why the existing network was so unreliable and discovered the resort’s concrete structure created a unique barricade. The signals generated by the 40 existing WiFi access points (APs) were not sufficient for penetrating the property’s walls.

The team added more than 100 APs to provide high-speed connectivity throughout the entire property. What’s more, a staggered design in which an AP was strategically placed in every other room ensures WiFi remains accessible throughout the resort even if a service disruption affects specific areas.

End-to-end solution management minimizes cost and resource requirements

The WiFi service is fully managed by Spectrum Enterprise so the resort does not incur the costs of purchasing, upgrading or maintaining equipment. The service is proactively monitored 24/7/365 by Spectrum Enterprise support personnel, enabling potential problems to be identified and addressed before the resort is even aware of them. And if guests do experience any difficulties with the service, they are routed directly to a Spectrum Enterprise technical support team member for assistance. This allows front desk staff to spend less time fielding complaints, and more time providing more personalized experiences for guests that boost satisfaction scores and loyalty.

The reviews change from negative to positive

Now, guests can easily stream movies, video chat, post Instagram pictures and more whether they’re in their rooms, at the resort restaurant, or poolside — and the resort’s online reviews have changed. “We consider the seamless, reliable WiFi connectivity and hands-on client service from Spectrum Enterprise to be critical factors in our success,” says the general manager.

Learn more about how reliable managed WiFi can improve the guest experience.