WirelessTrips.com Campground Review: Frankenmuth Jellystone Park, Frankenmuth, Michigan
This park had the screwiest WiFi setup I’ve ever seen. It worked fine and was cheap ($5 for your whole stay), but in order to get on the network you had to provide the MAC address (pronounced “mac”, like in MacIntosh, but it has nothing to do specifically with Apple computers) of your WiFi adapter.
Because I know just enough about computers to be dangerous, I know what a MAC address is. But 99% of RVers don’t. This was confirmed when I said to the clerk at the front desk “Most of your guests probably don’t know what a MAC address is, do they?” She concurred and promptly handed me a piece of paper with instructions on how to figure out your MAC address (Windows-only instructions, of course).
For the curious, a MAC address is a unique string of letters and numbers hard-wired into your WiFi adapter, kinda like a serial number. Here is the full definition, if you want to know more.
MAC address filtering (which is what this campground is doing) is commonly used in corporate environments for enhanced security. It helps assure that only authorized machines are accessing the network because even if you happen to have the proper password, the MAC address of your machine must be on the list as well. Otherwise you can’t get in.
MAC address filtering is not really a technique one would use for a network where you have lots of computers joining and leaving on a regular basis, as you would have at a campground.
I asked the next obvious question of the front desk clerk - “Why would you set up a public network like this?” She shrugged her shoulders and said, “That’s the way our computer guy set it up.”
As far as the campground itself - very nice and clean, an indoor pool, and, the best feature, it’s close to downtown Frankenmuth.
Frankenmuth is a neat little town done up bavarian style. It is well worth a spending a day strolling the streets. If you love German food, be sure to stop at The Bavarian Inn. We had an awesome meal there.
Oh, and by the way, here is how you figure out your MAC address.
Four out of five marshmallows
FrankenMuth Jellystone Park
1339 Weiss Street
Frankenmuth, MI, 48734
989-652-6668
Latitude: N 43 deg 18′53″
Longitude: W 83 deg 44′06″
http://www.frankenmuthjellystone.com/
April 13th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
Just a note that we upgraded our wifi. You now just get a user name and password from the office, open a browser and type it in. Hope this helps!