Housekeeping “Hassles” at Disney World
We’ve previously addressed Walt Disney World housekeeper shortages in What’s Up with Mousekeeping? That prompted a lot of questions about security checks and other policies. This takes a deeper dive into concerns about hassles and horror stories guests have had in resort rooms.
Unsurprisingly, there are also many fans who are skeptical of these claims, sharing that they’ve done many Walt Disney World resort stays over the years, and have never experienced anything like what’s described here. Others suggest putting up the “Do Not Disturb” sign as a simple way to resolve the problem. As always, it’s silly to assume that just because something has never happened to you, it is not occurring for anyone.
Generally speaking, you will not encounter the issues here if you don’t regularly take midday breaks or have housekeeping service your room. If you’re in the parks from 9 am to 7 pm, you won’t experience this issue. If you have your room cleaned, you also won’t experience it.
If you check either (not both) of those boxes, there’s a ~95% chance you’ll never experience the bulk of the issues discussed here, and have nothing to worry about. In other words, encountering these problems isn’t random, and there’s a reason why some guests have these issues every stay and others never experience them ever.
For “evidence” of the existence of these issues for some guests, see this viral reddit thread, which shares a horror story about what’s pretty much the worst-case scenario with room inspections. The chorus of top comments there offer their own experiences.
In fact, if you read through the comments here, you’ll find similar stories. Another common complaint is early morning departure day door knocks, waking them up prior to their 11 am checkout time. Over the last few years, readers have reported issues with this as frequently as the room inspections.
All of this sounds familiar. Here’s another more recent reddit thread, which shares more of the same. If you’re still not convinced, check out the reader comments below. Plenty more “evidence,” should you require it.
We thought it’d be worth revisiting this topic as of 2026 to see how things are going. We’ll start with departure day early wake-ups, and follow that up with room inspections…
Early Morning Departure Day Door Knocks
Over the years, we have experienced the ~9 am knocking on our departure day. This has happened despite having the “Room Occupied” sign on our door. (Although they’re often characterized as “Do Not Disturb” signs, that’s no longer what Disney uses–for reasons discussed in the room inspections section below.)
Each time this has occurred, it has been quickly and easily resolved by one of us politely letting the housekeeper know when we planned on leaving. In every single circumstance, they were overly apologetic.
We’re happy to report that this has not happened to us once in the last two years. Of course, we are a sample size of one, so we’d be well-advised to point to our own sentiment at the top of this post that it’s silly to assume that something not happening to us means it’s not happening to anyone.
With that said, we do dozens of hotel stays each year, most of which are split stays or single-night, so we have a lot more departures days than the average fans. We also do a couple of things to reduce the likelihood of this happening.
The first is waking up early. When I hear stories of housekeeping waking up guests at 9 am with knocks, that’s a foreign concept to me. I’ve already been up for several hours by 9 am. When I get up, I immediately open the curtains at Value and Moderate Resorts, so housekeeping can see into the room. If they see people inside, this presumably reduces the likelihood that they’ll knock on the door to see if you’ve left.
Additionally or alternatively, you can use the swing bar lock or latch if you don’t want people seeing into your room. This obviously will not stop the checkout day knocks from waking you up, but it will prevent someone from entering the room while you’re in the shower, for instance. Given that I often travel solo and there’s no one to answer the door when I’m in the shower, I always take this step.
It’s a good practice to use the latch whenever you’re inside the room, and this will also prevent security from barging in during midday inspections. Many of the horror stories on social media and the comments below involve precisely this scenario, and the easiest way to avoid that is the privacy latch. Disney will still “need” to send someone for a security inspection, but they’ll likely call your room to schedule it as a result.
The best practice of all is more guests using the new-ish “Express Room Checkout” feature in the My Disney Experience app. If you have a credit card on file—or you have a zero-dollar balance—it’s easy to check out of your room, with no need to stop by the Front Desk.
We’ve reliably received push notifications via the app prompting us to checkout, and more people using this feature means housekeeping should have better insight into which rooms are empty without knocking. They can then prioritize those rooms for cleaning, and leave the others until later in the morning.
Our experience on departure mornings has been downright positive in the last year-plus. The launch of this Express Room Checkout feature and its utilization by guests is probably the biggest explanation for that.
There have even been times when we’ve been running behind on checkout day and didn’t leave our rooms until shortly after 11 am. In those scenarios, not only did housekeepers not rush us out of the room, but they weren’t even lingering around in the hallways nearby. We probably could’ve stayed until closer to noon without issue. (To be clear, we’re not endorsing an informal late checkout as a strategy!)
The big reason we’re not endorsing this is because that it creates even more of a potential burden from already overburden housekeeping Cast Members. There’s a reason they are (or were) doing the early morning knocks, and it was out of necessity–not to agitate or anger guests. (It’s always a good idea to think about the why of something before being upset about it.)
Suffice to say, it was not the Cast Members doing the knocking who were/are the problem. It’s Disney not sufficiently staffing the position. Housekeepers all work one shift, from 8 am to 4:30 pm. They are assigned to clean a set number of rooms depending upon the resort tier, ranging from 16-18 rooms on average.
Checkout time is 11 am, which is halfway through that shift, so simply waiting for all rooms to empty with the day’s departures is not a viable approach. Although many guests leave earlier and do the Express Room Checkout, there are likely times when that’s still not enough guest rooms to clean before 11 am.
The “Room Occupied” sign is a signal, but even empty rooms can still have this up, making it an inconclusive one. Presumably, this is one unintended consequence of Disney’s Magical Express ending and why there was an uptick of these incidences. In any case, housekeepers are expected to have all of their rooms cleaned by 4:30 pm, regardless.
In an illuminating Twitter thread, Ben Wszalek, former WDW Housekeeping Manager shared that this is one of the only jobs at Walt Disney World that requires no English language knowledge whatsoever. A majority of housekeepers are from Puerto Rico or Haiti, many are older, and some have minimal formal education.
Wszalek put it best with this tweet: “Hskp are some of the most joyous, loyal, hard working people you’ll ever meet. Hskp offers great hours, decent pay, Disney benefits, and requires little education/experience. But it’s also an extremely demanding job. You probably couldn’t do it.”
To anyone who has interacted with housekeepers, most of this is likely obvious. As someone who drinks too much coffee, I’m often looking for their carts in the morning/midday/afternoon and asking if I can have more K-cups. Our conversations aren’t exactly long, but they are always exceedingly friendly and chipper. Same goes when we exchange morning pleasantries.
As Wszalek also points out, all of this can be a recipe for “messy interactions.” While we have never–not once–had anything but positive experiences with housekeepers, I do not doubt that this happens. You combine a language barrier with guests who might not exactly be pleasant about being woken up early and feel like they’re being pushed out of a room they paid $500+ per night for…it’s easy to envision scenarios where that ends poorly.
Regardless of the specifics of these interactions between guests and housekeepers, that misframes the issue. Whatever the problem and potential solution, the fault lies with Walt Disney World’s protocol and procedures. And as we’ve also said before, the frontline Cast Member with whom you’re interacting is not the one who implemented the policies with which you take issue, nor are they the ones pocketing the nightly room rate.
The housekeeper didn’t make the decision that resulted in them knocking on the door of occupied rooms at ~9 am. It’s fair to say they don’t enjoy confrontation with guests or waking people up early…they’re just trying to do their job. The root cause is management, which establishes standards, even unworkable ones, and fails to come up with creative solutions when it’s clear that there are issues.
Beyond Express Checkout, another solution to this issue is bringing back the “Service Your Way” gift card for declining housekeeping that began in ~2017 when the housekeeper shortage first cropped up.
That was discontinued when the hotels reopened post-COVID. That decision made sense at the time; occupancy was low and rooms didn’t need to be turned over the same day as departure. That is no longer the case, so this incentive should be brought back. It could also be offered for using the Express Checkout feature, giving Cast Members better visibility into which rooms are empty.
This would reduce utilization of housekeeping and improve guest satisfaction for some of the company’s costliest products. It’s a very small price to pay in the grand scheme of things, especially if it improves satisfaction or likelihood to return/recommend metrics.
Room Inspections
We’ve also received a lot of questions about the “Room Occupied” signs and room inspections at Walt Disney World resorts. This is actually nothing new. This policy started back in December 2017, and was first rolled out at the Polynesian Village Resort, Grand Floridian Resort & Spa, Contemporary Resort, and Bay Lake Tower.
At the time, the company declined to comment on why it swapped “Do Not Disturb” with “Room Occupied” signs at that handful of hotels. Walt Disney World only indicated that they made the decision for a variety of factors, including safety, security and the guest experience.
Since then, the policy has been extended to every room at Walt Disney World, Disneyland, and Disneyland Paris. Despite having similar inspections, the international resorts still use the industry standard “Do Not Disturb” signs. (Below is the one from Disneyland Hotel in Paris; you can see the notice of security inspections in smaller print.)
Walt Disney World has never officially acknowledged the reason for this change–even if it’s obvious based on the timing. The tighter security measures came a couple of months after the Las Vegas shooting from the Mandalay Bay casino-hotel tower.
Shortly after that, Hilton Hotels also changed its security policy. That chain now recommends that staffers alert a security or duty manager after 24 hours of consecutive Do Not Disturb sign usage. Wynn Resorts made a similar policy change, as did many others on the Vegas strip and in other high-rise locations that now require “welfare checks” after a certain amount of time.
Disney’s Room Occupied hanger states: “Disney Resort hotel and its staff reserve the right to enter your room, even when this sign is displayed, for maintenance, safety, security or any other purpose.” When the change was announced, the policy was that a hotel staffer must knock and identify themselves before entering if the “Room Occupied” sign is out. Arriving guests are/were supposed to be notified about the new right-to-entry guidelines, per the company.
Whenever the topic of these room inspections come up, Walt Disney World guests inevitably say that this happened despite them having the “Room Occupied” signs up. In reality, they have it backwards: the room inspections are occurring because they have those signs up!
Room inspections occur in the event that housekeeping reports being unable to service a room for a set amount of time. To the best of my knowledge/recollection, this is two days. It’s not always consistent, and as with anything, an element of human error is possible. Meaning that maybe you didn’t have the sign up, but a housekeeper marked that you did.
It also doesn’t help that most Walt Disney World resorts no longer have daily housekeeping. If you’re staying at a Value or Moderate Resort, even brief use of the “Room Occupied” sign might result in a room inspection. At a Disney Vacation Club resort, you may find that the safety checks are literally unavoidable.
Regardless, the easiest way to avoid triggering a room inspection is by not using the “Room Occupied” sign–or by using it sparingly. If you have small children who will want to take midday naps, this can be tricky. You might be inclined to put up the sign to ensure that your room isn’t being cleaned when you return to it. But on the other hand, you also should want to avoid having a room inspection interrupt naptime.
Back when the “Room Occupied” sign change was made and the random security inspections began, it was a hot and controversial topic among Walt Disney World fans. Some contended that safety should be the top priority, trumping privacy and all else. Others argued that the inspections were intrusive, occurred at inopportune times, and were often not handled in a tactful way by security.
This is just a brief summary of some of the many varied arguments for and against security checks. The debates spanned hundreds of pages on Walt Disney World forums, eliciting many impassioned responses. This is hardly a comprehensive recap of the pros & cons, but I’m not particularly keen on relitigating all of that.
What I will say is that I can see both sides of this. Security is paramount, but an unsupported cry of “security” cannot simply shut down all further conversation or counterpoints. It’s okay to have healthy skepticism, especially given how much of America’s post-9/11 history is dotted with security theater masquerading as actual safety measures.
There’s also the unfortunate reality that many corporate policies amount to legal liability CYA more than anything else. Implementing such policies at ground level rooms in the bayou at Port Orleans Riverside within steps of the parking lot does not strike me as narrowly tailored to accomplish any meaningful safety objectives. That’s not the same as a theme park view room in Bay Lake Tower.
Beyond the security policy on its face, there’s the human implementation. We have been subject to these security checks more times than I can count at Walt Disney World. Without fail, they almost always seem to coincide with midday breaks or afternoon naps.
They’re usually perfectly pleasant and brief, but about 1 of 10 times, that’s not the case. (Within the last year or so, we’ve had a few Cast Members politely inform us that they can’t inspect the room while it’s occupied, which is fine by us. We’ve given them a time we’d be out of the room and, presumably, they returned then.)
More than anything else, my quibbles with this policy are its ham-fistedness and inconsistency. To my recollection, we’ve never been advised of the policy at check-in. It often occurs during the middle of the day. The approaches vary widely, as does the demeanor of those doing the checks. (I don’t doubt guests are frequently rude to these Cast Members, but we have never been, and a little graciousness when demanding access to our room would be appreciated.)
In hundreds of hotel stays since October 2017, we’ve never had an issue with this anywhere but Walt Disney World. The checks have occurred in other real world hotels, but they’ve never been even a remote hassle. When it comes to both of the issues in this post and so many other things, it’s fair to ask: why is this not a widespread issue with hotels outside of Walt Disney World?
Ultimately, that’s where we land with both of these topics, as well as many other resort policies and protocol at Walt Disney World. For a company with such a massive room inventory and a reputation for guest service, Disney is surprisingly bad hotelier. There is minimal attention to detail from a hospitality perspective, as the focus is typically on efficiency above all else.
I love a lot of things about Walt Disney World, but do not view it as one of the world’s great operators of hotels. When you pay the big bucks for a resort at Walt Disney World, it’s for theme, location, transportation, and perks–not luxuriousness. Even the Deluxe Resorts cannot compete with similarly-situated real world hotels in that regard.
Hopefully this helped you understand how a couple of these housekeeping policies work, and ways you can attempt to avoid running into the worst of the issues. Again, it’s not the fault of the frontline Cast Members who are simply following the orders of their leaders–it’s a top-down problem. Management sees impressive occupancy numbers and knows that they don’t need to do better, even if there are obvious and remediable points of friction for guests.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
What are your thoughts about the “Room Occupied” signs, security checks, and ~9 am departure day door knocks? Think Walt Disney World could come up with better and more guest-friendly solutions to all of this, or are the complainers overreacting? What have been your recent experiences with housekeeping or security in hotels at Walt Disney World–and beyond? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
I was in a Facebook group for people staying at Art of Animation during our trip in January. One of the people in that group claimed that someone opened the door to their suite at 7 AM on the day of their checkout, poked their head in while their kids were sleeping on the Murphy bed a few feet away, said “wakey wakey”, and closed the door.
I have no idea if this is actually true, but if it was, I would pity the poor front desk cast member that would be facing my wrath if that happened to me. We pay far too much for these rooms to be harassed by staff for using them.
For what it’s worth, I worked as a house cleaner for a national park, high occupancy resort hotel long, long ago back in 1991. That hotel (all of their in park locations), because of the occupancy turnover daily, had the same policy for us way back then.
Resort hotels are just a different animal then the normal ‘ol Marriott I travel and stay in for work. It’s pretty much a 50/50 scenario for the staff… if they don’t knock and start in on early departure rooms (which draws complaints), then on the other end they get complaints and full lobbies of people complaining because they can’t get into their rooms.
I might have missed it, but I believe most hotels have an external indicator of some kind when a door is locked from the inside so housekeeping knows if there is someone still in the room without knocking. I guess ‘ol Disney’s cracker box room size hotels must not be that advanced.
When my wife and I travel, we always let the front desk know we’re out. They always appreciate it and let us know that. Our room is picked up, trash where it belongs, and the towels and linens piled up for easier work. Just be kind to these workers, don’t be a pig, and don’t ever expect someone “ owes” you their service regardless of what you paid for the room. At Disney, we let the housekeeper near our room know we’re out.
“There’s also the unfortunate reality that many corporate policies amount to overly conservative legal liability CYA more than anything else.”
You hit the nail on the head of the true reason for the security checks. Massive lawsuits after the sad event in Las Vegas.
I meant to comment on how accurate your immigration comments are to the housekeeping and other labor shortages in the other post. These insights are why I read this blog – very thorough and intelligent analysis on the silly topic of all things Disney. Thanks as always Tom.
This is just a bad system. We often swim for a couple hours on check out morning, and arrived back at our room at 10:15 to shower and change. The housekeeper was there and had already cleaned the bathrooms, which made me feel bad because she obviously would have to do it all over after we showered. We also had to wait for her to finish changing the sheets as she had just stripped the beds, which was super awkward standing there freezing in our wet swimsuits. So she wasted our time and we wasted hers, all because we took Disney at its word that the room was ours until 11. At online check in, you let the resort know what time you are arriving—why don’t they just add a question for what time you expect to leave and have that be a required part of online check in? I would happily tell them an earlier time when I expect to be leaving the room early for a flight or a last day at the parks, and a later time when we are planning on staying at the resort that last morning.
Though I read your articles often, I rarely comment. Apologies! I currently work in a hotel as a housekeeping Supervisor and have for a few years so I felt the need to comment on this one. While everything you are saying is 100% true, there are a few additional things I would like to point out. Housekeeping all over the US is crazy understaffed! I have housekeepers doing the work of 3 or 4 people, and the job is very labour intensive. People are not checking out, they are getting more rude and violent by the day, and many have a lack of respect for anyone. Parents seem to be the worst IMHO. I’ll have a day when I have 200 people to check out, with 5 housekeepers and no one will leave or check out until they are forced to (some even brandishing guns or cussing at me beacuse I knocked when they were supposed to already be gone). So then I have nothing for the housekeepers to do in the morning, and mega hustle to get done on time. We have a lax 12:00 out and 3:00 in time, and many arrive early. It’s a huge struggle to get the rooms clean in that 3 hour window, so I do encourage knocking if there is no DND sign, it is after 10:30am, and the room is quiet. You pretty much have to. The same guest complaining about knocking 1 minute after they are supposed to be out are the ones arriving at 7am to check in when there are literally zero vacant rooms. The rooms are often trashed, sometimes to the point of being unrentable. The worst part is no one tells you they broke the mirror, flushed toys down the toilet, peed on the bed, and vomited in the closet! People are just WILD. And I work in a more upscale location that isn’t in a bad area. The pay isn’t as great as it could be for backbreaking stressful work, extreme guests (literally had someone 3 separate times rub human feces on the walls), and people who don’t quite understand it takes time to clean the rooms. Please be nice to the housekeepers, we are doing our best. Also, please check out and tip if possible. You can call, go to the front desk, use an app (when available), or even tell a random staff member you’re leaving. Much appreciated.
I cannot imagine a job where i would lose faith in humanity more quickly than this one. Hats off to you and all housekeepers for what you put up with…
Thanks for sharing your experience!
I’ve definitely noticed housekeeper shortages elsewhere, and I assume everywhere has the same issues due to reduced immigration. The biggest differentiating factor seems like it would be occupancy rates. Hotels that have lower loads could presumably take a day to turn over some of the rooms.
We are going for 10 days in May, 2 rooms. With the lack of housekeeping and every other day trash, I’ve already decided to find a housekeeping cart and ask for towels and bed linens and clean the rooms myself.
If you do that, get ready for the security checks as you will be pegged as refusing service. We once turned housekeeping away, just asked for towels, as we were showering and not one hour later a manager was at our door to check our room as “we were refusing housekeeping”.
We stayed at the Boardwalk Villas last week. Our room was not ready to check in until 7:30pm! After inquiring why it took so long was told the carpet had to be shampooed and they were trying to dry it as fast as possible. I guessing the place was sold out or they just could have moved us to a different room. They came daily to remove trash with the DND on the door. We experienced no knock on the door at check out day and we stayed until 11.
The easiest solution is adding check out / left room to the app. But I have found Disney is unable to do many techie things that would make guest and employees work better together.
We had issues with the midday checks prior to Covid. We had a toddler, which Disney knew, and would come back to the room for her to nap. One time, they knocked incessantly (I was in the shower, toddler was napping) and then called the room and woke the toddler. Another time they walked in as I was stepping out of the shower. We started leaving a post it note on the door that read “Shhhh our toddler is napping. We will leave the room around 4:30. Please come back.” Every time thereafter, I can only assume the checks were made either before or after nap time. We went on a handful of trips after our 2 room check experiences and used the post it every time and never were interrupted again.
The post-it note seems like a good solution, but cannot believe it has to come to that. Oof.
Post-it is my plan for July. I have a teen with health issues that needs to sleep late (not check out day just during the trip). It was a huge issue last trip. I’m planning to post what time we will be out of the room! My kids sleep late and we stay out till 1am. I don’t want to be woken at 8:30. However I do have compassion for these hard workers trying to do their jobs! They are put in a hard position. The best housekeeping we’ve had since covid (we’ve done 6 resort stays between Disney and Universal in the past 18 months) was Portofino. CBR was the worst. We have All Star Movies, CBR, Swan Reserve and Riviera coming up soon so I’ll have to see how those are. I was okay with no housekeeping during my stay and that would free up workers for check outs. Maybe they should go back to that!
Leave it up to good ole Post-It’s to save the day! I now plan on doing this exact same thing on our next trip in September’s with our 1 year old, so I appreciate the tip! What I don’t understand: don’t a good portion (the majority?) of people use the Disney app, especially with Genie+ now? It’ll show you exactly where someone is! You can tell if they’re at the resort or at a park, etc., so why don’t they use that same technology in the housekeeping and security departments? It could be something simple, like a checkpoint at the lobby that catches your presence like the on-ride cameras do. I know that’s more complicated than a simple knock on the door, but it’d save a lot of complaints!
I am a Hilton Diamond member for over a decade and stay 45+ nights a year around the world from a Hampton Inn to the Waldorf Astoria. If Hilton implemented a security check policy, I have never experienced or heard about it in my Diamond forums I frequently read. I have also very, very rarely ever experienced a door knock from housekeeping early on check out day or any other day for that matter. Why does it seem like Disney is only hotelier experiencing these issues? I mean, Disney doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel here to fix their issues. Also, not every room they are cleaning is a checkout room. Do those last and give people their last morning at the hotel undisturbed. Considering most people like to do parks in the morning, chances are there are more than enough rooms to clean before doing the checkout rooms.
I am a person who tends to stay in my room till checkout to enjoy the last morning of my trip and I would be pretty pissed if I had someone knocking at door to clean, especially if it didn’t happen the rest of the trip. We are going to Disney in Aug or Oct and I have the Waldorf booked. No way am I paying $600+ a night for a room and service that isn’t even as good as a Hampton Inn. I’ll stick to the real luxury brands.
Here’s info on Hilton’s policy change: https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/roadwarriorvoices/2018/01/02/hilton-changes-its-do-not-disturb-sign-policy/997772001/
The reason you haven’t noticed it is, presumably, because they are better at doing it. 😉
I highly doubt Hilton, Wynn, and Disney are the only chains doing this as a matter of policy. The rest probably just are not publicizing it externally. We’ve only ever had issues with it at Disney.
Here is my own personal experience:
October 2019 at Copper Creek, housekeeping knocked on our door no less than 4 times between 8 and 10 o’clock on our checkout day.
The 1st 3 times they were politely informed that we were in the process of packing to move over to Boardwalk.
The 4th time (and probably why there wasn’t a 5th time) they were met at the door by a frazzled mum…. they didn’t come back.
Cast members also have to start early with their cleaning because check-in for Guests starts at 3pm. Combine that with Guests that want to check out late or just ignore the 11am check out and stay longer as well as Guests trying to get in their rooms earlier. Knocking on doors that early isn’t anything new, probably just not enough talk on social media for more people to notice it happening. Someone is getting their door knocked on at 9am because that CM has to start somewhere!
They really are making this too complicated! As others have mentioned, it only requires communication between the guest and the resort. I would venture a guess that as micro-managed as most WDW tend to be, almost everyone knows to the minute when they intend to checkout, probably long before they check-in. Ask the guest at check-in, create a list, and request that the guest advise of any change to the plan. Have an instruction that as a follow up, every guest should push a single button on the app that initiates the checkout process. Have the housekeepers report first to the guests that have hit the checkout button, after that, to the rooms that have indicated that they intended to checkout but may have overlooked checking out on the app, and lastly the rooms where no plan was communicated.
If Disney wanted a non-costly way to get people’s check-out times, they could also add it to the check-in form on MDE. A lot of people know when they’re leaving on check-out day because they have flights/ADRs/plans to rope drop/plans to catch up on sleep and relax in the room until 10:59:59 (I would never… ;)). And, of course, a quick call to the front desk or ability to change it in the app would be easy if someone’s plans change. We use one of the app-based services to hire our dog-sitter, and it always asks for the time we’ll be back, with the option to say an exact time, give a window, or leave it blank if we don’t know. It seems like it would be pretty easy to add, and then Disney could create a schedule for Mousekeeping accordingly. Although as someone who always declined Mousekeeping, I would selfishly love for the gift cards to come back.
“I’ve said this before, but all Americans should be “required” to work for a year in a service industry so they “learn” how to treat others.” <— This!
Also, the photo of Yacht Club at night is beautiful.
Agreed! I’m an engineer now but my time as a cashier taught me so much about people…
I’ve always said that all young adults should be required to take a gap year, but broken into semesters: 1) doing something that gives back to the community- military, EMT, police, nursing, etc. (I’m talking basic, entry-level training here) 2) working retail during the holiday season 3) food service, whether in the kitchen, hosting, or serving 4) a summer off to decide what you really want to do with your life before you begin college. You get “college credit” for these things as a prerequisite before you can start your courses.
Hi Tom:
I would like to address the housekeeper subject. I was a housekeeper for a few years at our resort, until we were in a position to hire it out. We had a checkout time of 10am and a check in of 3pm. We had to turn over whole cabins/houses before 3 pm.
We never had a problem with any guest over staying their visit. Some guests left very early in the AM, and a few others left close to 10 am. We found that these things evened themselves out.
I don’t agree with banging on guests doors at 8 or 8:30, or anytime before check out at 11am ! The room is paid for up til then. I know, you can’t turn over rooms quickly if alot of people stay longer. But, I feel most leave earlier due to flights or just wanting to get on the road early. There is No Reason, IMO, to disturb a guest before the checkout time of 11am!
It is no surprise to management that these things occur, and Management should be the ones who handle this with their employees. They need to have enough to cover what needs to be done. I am aware that they are having hiring problems. Then it is up to management to let guests know that they would like to know before hand when they might be leaving so they can schedule their workers.
The bottom line is that no one should be knocking on doors early or urging guests out before they are ready.
As far as room checks, we have had one horrible experience with them for which management made many adjustments to make our experience wonderful. These things happen. Again, management needs to be on the ball and address problems quickly.
This seems like a problem technology and incentives can mitigate. We always get to a park early on checkout day, so our room is cleared out by rope drop; a little coordination between housekeeping, guests and the front desk could go a long way.
And/But! I’m staying clear of WDW related complaints on social media for a few days.
Many hotels (especially in Asia) have “do not disturb” lights that are turned on with a button inside the room, and turn off automatically when the door opens. Problem resolved.
I don’t think they should have changed from the DND verbiage. I don’t really have a view on room checks but if these are required they could take place despite the DND signage. “Room occupied” is meaningless.
While we haven’t visited as often as most on here, we’ve never encountered a security check or morning knock in our 14 visits. Now, we normally leave early for parks or departure so that may have mitigated the issue, but we’ve had family return to the resorts for midday breaks without incident.
I understand the “I’ve paid good money to be here” opinion but I think it’s wrong. I treat the Cast Members at WDW the same way I do those at the Ritz, and leave the same tip for housekeeping. To me, you’re doing me a favor by cleaning up after me and providing me with a roof for the night. The fact you’re doing almost the same job in a different location doesn’t matter to me.
I hope we move into a kinder society as these staffing shortages are righted. Until that happens, I look forward to my upcoming Sept trip and having a week without housecleaning.