Wireless internet

My wife's dad has a boat in a marina in New Bern. He wants to use a laptop to leech the WiFi's coming from the local hotels. Only thing is, the laptop he wants to leave on the boat has a broken PCMCIA slot, therefore no way to use a wireless card. Not a built in centrino, either. Can you hardwire through the Ethernet connection to something to pick that signal up?

 

does it have usb? should be usb dongles for wifi. is he sure the connections aren't secure? i was on a cruise that had wireless and it was an open connection (meaning i could get access to the network), but they secured the portal so you had to pay to actually get a connection to the outside world. all the hotels at every stop we made had the same deal.

 

Thanks! I'll look for the USB dongles.
The 3 signals that I know of in the area just ask you to agree to the initial terms of service, and then you're on.

 

Most of the hotels I have stayed in use a sign in to access their wifi. However, once you know the sign ons, they rarely change.