No more towel characters

[Odelay]

Of course cleaning a room can be gross... but that is their job. It is certainly much less gross than the job of your garbageman or any number of other low-paying jobs I could name. However, maids seem to be the only low-paying (but still at or above minimum wage) jobs that people feel the need to tip.

Delivery people (furniture, food, or really anything), hairdressers, taxi drivers. There any number of people that many feel are deserving of a tip when they provide excellent service.

 

[BlackMagicWoman]

We just returned from a 14 night stay at 4 different resorts. We received zero towel animals. But to make up for it, we found a dirty sock between the sheets on our Fort Wilderness bunk bed.

Its part of a new initiative they are rolling out as a pilot: Dirty Sock Animals.

 

[JaxDad]

We spent five nights at a SpringHill Suites in Pigeon Forge, TN and had towel animals every day! The maid would even incorporate my daughter's stuffed animals with the towel animals. I tracked her down personally and thanked her and handed her a nice tip.

 

[dixiegirl]

I tip every day just in case it is different people.

We do the same - we know from experience that we have had different mousekeepers during our trip.

 

[dixiegirl]

Trying to make sense if this here and the only thing I can come up with is, maybe Muslims have complained (some believe animals are dirty or something). I hope that's not the reason because that would end my live for the Dis

I think it probably has a lot more to do with time constraints/volume of rooms to clean and staffing levels and also guests' expectations of getting a towel animal. They used to be a wonderful surprise if you happen to get one. Now you see those posts on the boards that guests expect to get towel animals everyday and if they don't it's the end of the world. I've had trips where I got one or two and I've had trips where I received none - still had fabulous trips regardless.

 

[DizFanFamily]

We just returned from a trip and stayed at POR. We saw one room that had towel swans in the windows, but we did not get any towel animals, or even a rolled mickey head on the bed. I would also say the cleaning was quite sub-par. We were there for a week and I dont' think our room was vacuumed once while we were there. I was quite disappointed and mentioned as much on my guest survey.

 

[SalutemyShorts]

We just returned from a trip and stayed at POR. We saw one room that had towel swans in the windows, but we did not get any towel animals, or even a rolled mickey head on the bed. I would also say the cleaning was quite sub-par. We were there for a week and I dont' think our room was vacuumed once while we were there. I was quite disappointed and mentioned as much on my guest survey.

And therein lies the problem. People expect something and are upset when they don't receive it. There are 30,000 hotel rooms in Disney, and I find it ridiculous that some people seem to think that maids should have to place one in every single room.

 

[SalutemyShorts]

I think it probably has a lot more to do with time constraints/volume of rooms to clean and staffing levels and also guests' expectations of getting a towel animal. They used to be a wonderful surprise if you happen to get one. Now you see those posts on the boards that guests expect to get towel animals everyday and if they don't it's the end of the world. I've had trips where I got one or two and I've had trips where I received none - still had fabulous trips regardless.

I have to imagine that person was trolling, haha.

 

[DizFanFamily]

I was not implying that I expected a towel animal, however I did expect my room to be vacuumed once in the week I was there. I was merely posting as I thought you might find it interesting that I did see swan towels in one room's window - I do not know that the animals have completely gone away, but perhaps are more reserved for special occasions, such as a honeymoon. I don't post often, but will be more reserved in my notes in the future as I was only hoping to share, not to receive criticism.

 

[SalutemyShorts]

I was not implying that I expected a towel animal, however I did expect my room to be vacuumed once in the week I was there. I was merely posting as I thought you might find it interesting that I did see swan towels in one room's window - I do not know that the animals have completely gone away, but perhaps are more reserved for special occasions, such as a honeymoon. I don't post often, but will be more reserved in my notes in the future as I was only hoping to share, not to receive criticism.

I actually need to apologize for this one, I misread what you posted. I read it as you said you noted you were disappointed with the no towel animals thing. So again, sorry, completely my fault on misreading that.

 

[ryansstitch]

Delivery people (furniture, food, or really anything), hairdressers, taxi drivers. There any number of people that many feel are deserving of a tip when they provide excellent service.

Hairdressers on the whole are not low paid. I have a few friends that are hairdressers and they make into the triple digits per head. BEFORE tip. When I used to informally do hair in college, I made about $40 an hour. And unlike what I do now that I have a few degrees. Back then I had no paperwork or liabilities afterward! I need a tip now!

 

[BLAZEY]

Having travelled in large groups for teams events I am appalled at the state some people leave the room for housekeeping to clean up each day. I always make sure that the towels are hung up (we don't need clean towels each day and try and straighten up the bed, keep our personal belongings, out of sight and dirty clothes in the pop up hamper). Every time I have met housekeeping in the halls they always either thank us for keeping the room tidy, or ask to ensure that we have everything we need. I am pretty sure this is because we leave the room in a fairly clean state which make their job much easier and faster. This is just not a disney hotel either.

 

[andiraye]

Aren't servers going to start earning minimum wage soon (I thought I read that somewhere)? I wonder if we will continue tipping them because it's ingrained.

I can't explain why I tip the maid service, wait staff and my hairdresser, but not the Starbucks crew, for example, except it's what I'm used to. When I was a teenager, I waitressed summers in a tourist restaurant. If your shift included the "to go" counter, you just lived with it - - no tip jars way back when.

But I want to show the maid service that I appreciate them taking care of things I usually take care of myself.

Responding to this whole thread about why it is customary to tip some and not others. First, I do think people tip lots of service providers (sanitation workers, postal workers, newspaper delivery people), it is just that we tip once a year at holiday time, which is not a possibility with people you only come into contact with once or twice. Second, I think why we do tip hotel housekeepers and bell hops probably comes out of the history of hotels -- back in the day people in these jobs were not paid a minimum wage and the people receiving the services were by and large relatively wealthy. I'm not saying it isn't arbitrary, but I think it's an explanation.

 

[auntsister]

I am sad to see this....It doesn't matter to the rest of our party but I am taking my 6 y/o DGS for the first time, was looking forward to his surprise when we returned and found the towel anima. In past visits we didn't always get a towel animal everyday and it is no big deal, enjoyed them when they did. The best towel animals ever were on my Norwegian cruise in Hawaii, they were really impressive!

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Wow. Disney Cruise gives you elaborate animals every day (like nothing that I've seen WDW do in a long time) AND they keep the rooms immaculate (and my steward even noticed I liked my ice bucket filled nightly and took care of that on his own) plus TWO service cycles daily.

Wonder how they do that and WDW cant?

Well, aside from lazy management and unmotivated mousekeepers that are indistinguishable from the ones who work at Motel 6 or Red Roof Inn.

I haven't read through the whole thread yet but...
DCL is a foreign-flagged ship (Bahamas) therefore doesn't have to adhere to American labor laws such as minimum wage and overtime pay. CMs on the ship work 16 hours/day for around 8 months straight, with rarely time off, then flown to their home country for approx. 2 months off. Then their contract starts over.
This would never be possible with American labor laws.

Yes, I agree they are amazing! We'll cruise DCL vs park crowds & lines any day!

 

[OrangeCountyCommuter]

I tip for service.

If the dresser in my hotel room has enough dust on it for me to write "dust me" and you never get rid of that... guess what? NO TIP

(Disney's Grand Floridian LOL!)

 

[Eoghann]

Responding to this whole thread about why it is customary to tip some and not others. First, I do think people tip lots of service providers (sanitation workers, postal workers, newspaper delivery people), it is just that we tip once a year at holiday time, which is not a possibility with people you only come into contact with once or twice. Second, I think why we do tip hotel housekeepers and bell hops probably comes out of the history of hotels -- back in the day people in these jobs were not paid a minimum wage and the people receiving the services were by and large relatively wealthy. I'm not saying it isn't arbitrary, but I think it's an explanation.

I strongly dislike tipping and how commonplace it is in the US. From my perspective it's used as an excuse for companies not to pay people properly in the first place.

I don't tip the cleaners at Disney and honestly until this thread it never even occurred to me I should. Then again I prefer the cleaners to stay out of my room. I don't need new towels on a daily basis.

 

[eXo]

This thread reminds me of 3rd grade (no, I'm not calling anyone immature... just listen!)

We had a substitute teacher who would have us all sit quietly for the last 30-45 minutes of class. I guess he had nothing better for us to do. He would sit at his desk and fold origami cranes that flapped their wings when you pulled their tail.

It took him about 5 minutes to fold one, at which point he would pick a student who he thought was being the quietest and give them the swan to play with. This continued until the bell rang. The problem here was everyone was quiet. Everyone was well behaved. So the process of picking who got one appeared to be arbitrary. I did not like this. So I went to the library after school and found an origami book and checked it out. I found a page on how to make a flapping crane and practiced the rest of the night.

The next day after we finished our lessons he started the process of having us sit there in silence while he folded bloody paper cranes again. I whipped out a sheet of paper and began folding as well. Soon enough I had my own flapping crane. Since I still had a a lot of time to kill, I continually made more and more and kept handing them out. Pretty soon being quiet was not a pre-requisite to receiving a paper crane and his plot to have us just sit there all afternoon was shot.

The moral of the story is, when someone makes something that you like but you don't get it for whatever reason, then one option is to figure out how to make it yourself. Now, I'm not suggesting you make towel animals just for you. But a few folks have talked about their kids really looking forward to it. So fold it up before you leave, and as one parent herds the kids out the door the other can plop it down on the bed. Even better - do it at home before the trip. Suddenly mom or dad is pretty awesome because they can make towel animals just like the ones at Disney.

TLDR: make your own friggin towel animals.

 

[Planogirl]

At the risk of being labeled a caveman or worse, I can't understand why maids are tipped at all. I fully understand why servers are tipped... they make less than the minimum wage, and are expected to make up the difference in tips. Maids are paid at least minimum. To me, tipping a maid would be the same as tipping anyone else making minimum wage (i.e. not something I'm gonna ever do). Do you tip everyone who makes minimum wage that you encounter in life? If not, why do you tip maids? Another way to look at it is why are you tipping only maids when there are lots of others making minimum wage? Don't tell me it's because the maids perform a "service". Do you tip your garbage man? The meter reader for the water dept.? Your postman? (I know some people do tip the postman... never understood that one either).

Perhaps I should put a tip jar out on my desk. After all, like most of us, I feel I'm underpaid.

Some of these are not minimum wage.

Payscale.com says that garbage men make an average of $15.79 an hour and a meter reader makes $14.34 an hour on average. I'm sure that a postman makes more.

I say just tip if you wish and don't if you don't wish to. I do sometimes tip housekeepers but I do so because I enjoy it.

 

[Jon84]

Some of these are not minimum wage.

Payscale.com says that garbage men make an average of $15.79 an hour and a meter reader makes $14.34 an hour on average. I'm sure that a postman makes more.

I say just tip if you wish and don't if you don't wish to. I do sometimes tip housekeepers but I do so because I enjoy it.

Good info.

I usually tip at the end of my stay. I don't want anything fancy so don't go bribing them into doing anything out of the necessary.