Actually, you can install Python on a hotel laptop pretty easy (the download isn't huge). Seth364's friend probably did that for the text game, since Codecademy's browser setup is great, but some beginners like having the real thing on their computer to tinker with later.
What kind of stuff are you into, like games or websites? When I had a free day in a hotel last year, I just googled "free coding for beginners" and found a site called freeCodeCamp. I started with their HTML lessons because making a basic webpage felt doable, lol. It's all in your browser so you don't need to install anything, which is perfect for a hotel laptop. I spent the afternoon trying to copy a simple site layout, and it actually kept me busy for hours.
Yeah my buddy was in that same spot. He messed around with Codecademy's free Python course one rainy weekend, said it was pretty straightforward. Ended up making a dumb little text adventure game.
Read somewhere that Python's actually a solid starting point cause the syntax reads almost like plain English. Your buddy's text adventure game thing tracks with what that article said about beginner projects. Makes sense why those free courses work for hotel downtime.