Shades of Green Resort the Armed Forces Recreation Center at Walt Disney World provides Free WiFi to their resort guests.
However the service isn’t that great!
In room WiFi speeds are very low. This could impact your ability to:
- Make Lightning Lane Multi Pass and Single Pass Purchases
- Sign Up for Virtual Queues
When trying to make that important reservation at 7 a.m. is not the time to find out that you have unusable service!
What To Do?
It is important to note that the more devices attempting to use an individual WiFi node/system they lower the throughput for everyone.
If you have time prior (preferably the evening before) do some speed tests of the the Shades of Green WiFi and your cellular service in several locations.
First try your room, then the lobby area. Try these on WiFi and cellular.
Then try outdoor areas on cellular:
- Out the nearest exit to your room
- Walk a bit away from the building
- The Front Parking Lot
- The Top Level of the Parking Garage
Try to find where you have the best speed. Anything at or above 50 Mbps should be good for making reservations.
Note, this will probably be the parking lot…
This will be your spot for making Lightning Land Multi and Single Pass reservations and Virtual Queue Boarding Group reservations
Your Intel Reports
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Please report back in the comment section below your experiences with Shades of Green WiFi and cellular service there. And if you have any issues or great luck with your reservations!
This article was written by Steve Bell, founder of Military Disney Tips.
Steve is a retired U.S. military member who has been visiting the Disney Parks since 1971 and writing about Disney military discounts and vacations for the military community for over 18 years.
Read Steve’s Full Bio | Follow Military Disney Tips on Facebook
Hi Steve!
Great advice to check different areas ahead of time, I 2nd this based on our experiences at Shades of Green.
We were in WDW last week and I had low expectations of recently getting the Virtual Queue from the resort due to spotty service. We had already gotten the extra evening hours VQ on a Monday at 6 p.m. (while already at Epcot) for Guardians, so for this 7 a.m. attempt, it was more of a “nice if we could get” rather than “must-do” for us. Keeping that in mind, simply going out onto the balcony worked.
We were located at the way back of the Magnolia wing facing the road where the golf carts head out in the morning. Data wasn’t loading all the time inside the room so I figured I’d give the balcony a whirl. Wifi experience for us has never been great, so I didn’t even test that this trip.
At 6:55 a.m. I went out and had maybe 2 bars for cellular (Verizon), but still managed to get Group 2! Additional tips to help compensate for poor service, recommend:
• Being familiar with the process ahead of time because every split second can matter
• Closing all other apps
• Clearing cache on Disney app
• Editing and selecting group before the clock turns 7 a.m. (e.g. we only had 2 out of 4 people who were riding – this had changed since I was last in WDW)
• Having more than one person try if possible
• Being ready with fast fingers 🙂
We did not use Genie+ so have no experience with that for wifi vs data.
Other areas we’ve found helpful in the Magnolia wing were the seating areas near windows. Last year all of us (not just my party) using this strategy were successful in getting a boarding group with cellular data.
(Tip: If you get a low VQ group, prepare to scoot out and get over to the park ASAP. Our group was actually called 20 minutes before Early Entry even started. We were either still on the Shades bus or at the TTC when our group was called. I hadn’t anticipated that! I’m not sure how strict that hour return time is?)
Thanks Steve for the recent posts! I’m going to use your map to help choose our room for our next trip since (for the first time) wasn’t too thrilled with the location/view.
Leigh
Hey there Leigh,
Thanks for the awesome intel and tips!!!