If you've got an android phone I believe you can share wifi from that via the USB.

i.e. Connect to wifi with phone then plug it into the pi via USB and share its connection.

(And yeah you can create a wifi hotspot easily in networkmanager but I'm pretty sure you need two nics there too).

Didn't pack a cable. Definitely could have easily done ICS then.

I'll probably be staying in more and more hotels in the future so I think I'll get together a bit of a "hotel pack" with a cheap small dd-wrt capable AP/router.

Yup that works - I've done it when using my pi in uni.

Sounds like that will probably be the easiest option. I'll try that tonight.

This thread is a little bit old, but my 1520 can act as a hot spot for up to 8 devices via wifi.  I don't know what is normal.