Vegas connection problem

any techie people know why my laptop won't connect to either our wireless or LAN in our Vegas gaff, stays as 'local only' rather than 'local and internet'? Laptop if pretty new Sony Vaio, connects pretty perfectly everywhere else, tho I seem to remember this has happened in random hotels and they've told me how to fix it, messing with the connection option in internet explorer and IP addresses and stuff (very technical this). Karl has almost same laptop, both running Vista, and his is fine. I have a kinda wireless dongle thing from last year which connects to local and internet, but it was only valid for 30 days last year, and I bought it via jesse may who persuaded the geeza in the shop to use his wife's details to allow us to buy them as we weren't residents so not sure I Can go back to that....any ideas?

Having to borrow Karl's laptop to abuse the shreddies is not cool....