If a stay has one guaranteed question, it is the WiFi. Every guest, every stay, usually within the first half hour — and unlike the bins or the boiler, they will not wait until morning to ask.
So it is worth being precise about where guests actually look, in order:
- The router itself. First instinct: pick up the router and read the sticker. If your network still runs on the ISP's printed default, this works — until the day the router is replaced and the sticker is wrong.
- Somewhere obvious near the router. A card, a frame, a label.
- The booking app message thread. Scrolling, scrolling…
- Texting you. The apologetic 9pm message.
The fix costs almost nothing: put the answer at stops 1 and 2, and make sure it also exists somewhere searchable for mid-stay ("what was it again?" happens every time a phone forgets a network).
Writing WiFi details that work first time
- Type them. Handwriting turns O into 0 and l into 1. If you enjoy fielding "the password doesn't work" messages, keep the chalkboard.
- Exact case. "Paddle2026" and "paddle2026" are different passwords. Say capitals out loud: "capital P".
- Name the right network. If the property broadcasts Boathouse-Guest and Boathouse-5G and BT-XKJ2M, say which one — or better, hide the ones guests shouldn't join.
- Say what it copes with. "Fibre — fine for streaming and video calls, weakest on the deck" prevents both disappointment and the follow-up question.
- A QR that joins the network is the smoothest version of all: modern phones join WiFi straight from a scanned code, no typing at all.
When the password changes
This is the quiet killer of printed WiFi cards: the ISP swaps the router, the password changes, and every card, chalkboard and laminated sheet in the property is now confidently wrong. Whatever you print, keep one editable source of truth and print from it — update once, reprint once, done.
In QuietStay the WiFi lives one tap from the guidebook's front page, the printable WiFi card generates from the same entry, and when you edit it the guidebook is right instantly. Paste your listing and see your own.