OKW Housekeeping Issue

[dominiondad]

The housekeeper is an employee of the hotel, and the hotel reserves the right to enter your room at any time for any reason. Its in the fine print of any hotel reservation. So, I agree with PP that it's not accurate to say they "shouldn't have been there". I do believe it was a mistake in this instance, but even if it weren't, there's not much of a leg to stand on since the housekeeper has the right to enter regardless.

I'm not an attorney, but I suspect the hotel's right to enter a room is conditional. If there is a medical emergency, security threat, maintenance issue, etc..., they can enter. I'm not sure it applies to a situation where housekeeping is not providing services during the stay, but enters erroneously due to a bad assumption.

In this case, I thinks its a no harm - no foul situation. But I think WDW should be made aware that they risk creating a liability. If something did come up missing, or something of the guest was broken or thrown away, WDW would be in a difficult situation. If I was the manager of that hotel, I would want to know that my staff is entering rooms prematurely.

 

[nkereina]

I'm not an attorney, but I suspect the hotel's right to enter a room is conditional. If there is a medical emergency, security threat, maintenance issue, etc..., they can enter. I'm not sure it applies to a situation where housekeeping is not providing services during the stay, but enters erroneously due to a bad assumption.

In this case, I thinks its a no harm - no foul situation. But I think WDW should be made aware that they risk creating a liability. If something did come up missing, or something of the guest was broken or thrown away, WDW would be in a difficult situation. If I was the manager of that hotel, I would want to know that my staff is entering rooms prematurely.

Things come up missing or broken all the time, due to mistakes by housekeepers or mistakes by guests. I've read several instances here of kids' toys or blankets being erroneously left in the bedding and being tossed out by housekeeping when making the bed because they didn't realize it was there. Things like this happen all the time because everyone is human. The hotel has the right to compensate a guest on a case by case basis if they feel the housekeeper truly made a mistake.

I am no attorney either, but I have worked in hotels for a long time. You should read the fine print sometime. You are a guest on the property of the hotel. While a hotel strives for a good guest experience, they still have rights that may impose on a guest's privacy if they need to enact them. I don't want to go too off topic, but this is in the same vein as the security checks. If a person doesn't like someone having the authority to enter their room, perhaps staying at an AirBnB would be better for them.

Lastly, I can't see a General Manager or a Housekeeping manager punishing a housekeeper by entering a room too early on check-out day. This likely happens a lot - most people just aren't bothered enough to complain about it.

 

[dominiondad]

One more thing to provide some perspective. We returned from WDW last Sunday after an 8 day trip. We stayed at the CBR. During our stay, the guests in the room next to ours decided they needed to do laundry. In an effort to dry their clothes, the hung them on the railing outside of their room and ours. These clothes included women's lacy underwear, bras, and mens underwear. In total, the laundry covered three entire sections of railings. I wasn't a big fan of walking out of my room to the sight of underwear. We were on our way to the main pool area, so I stopped by the front desk and asked if the hotel could swing by and have the items removed. When we returned hours later, everything was still there. I waited another hour, then called the front desk. I was told that the resort had gone to the room and knocked, but nobody answered. Therefore the hotel called and left a message in the room asking the guests to remove the iems. The hotel then told me that they are prohibited from touching a guests property and therefore can't remove the items themselves (I had suggested bagging everything up and leaving it in the room). If WDW can't clean up underwear hanging in a common area, it seems inconsistent that its ok to enter a room to clean that is still being used when the guest doesn't want housekeeping present.

 

[nkereina]

The hotel then told me that they are prohibited from touching a guests property and therefore can't remove the items themselves (I had suggested bagging everything up and leaving it in the room).

I suspect a Cast Member told you this to get you off the phone, quite frankly. If CMs were prohibited from touching guests' property, they would not be permitted to deliver and store luggage, move items in the room to vacuum or clean surfaces, or use kids' toys/sunglasses/hats to make the towel animals.

From the hotel's perspective, they need to walk a line between appeasing you and the guest you're complaining about. They appeased you by saying they notified the guest to remove the items, and they avoided escalating the issue with the offending guest by leaving the items be.

 

[dominiondad]

I suspect a Cast Member told you this to get you off the phone, quite frankly. If CMs were prohibited from touching guests' property, they would not be permitted to deliver and store luggage, move items in the room to vacuum or clean surfaces, or use kids' toys/sunglasses/hats to make the towel animals.

From the hotel's perspective, they need to walk a line between appeasing you and the guest you're complaining about. They appeased you by saying they notified the guest to remove the items, and they avoided escalating the issue with the offending guest by leaving the items be.

Sorry, but I don't see the need to appease a guest that has hung their underwear in a common area. I can't imagine there are many people who think that is appropriate.

 

[nkereina]

Sorry, but I don't see the need to appease a guest that has hung their underwear in a common area. I can't imagine there are many people who think that is appropriate.

Might not be appropriate, but people hang stuff there all the time (i.e. pool towels, bathing suits). I'm not sure if there are explicit rules on this, but I do agree its bold/rude of a guest to do it. Regardless, hotels don't want to rock the boat with guests unless the situation is dire, which this one is not. They gave the guest a chance to remedy it themselves by requesting the items be removed. That would be the first step anywhere, because the hotel removing it themselves may be perceived as an unnecessary escalation.

 

[dominiondad]

There is a specific rule. Under Prohibited Activities it states "Hanging any clothing, towels, bedding or similar items over or on balconies at a Disney Resort hotel or from fire supression sprinklers". We are getting off topic a bit, but my points remaims, if Disney is willing to use their discretion and allow underwear to hang on a hotel railing for hours, they could use that same discretion when they think a room has been vacated and enter to clean it. When they see personal effects, they should immediately back out. If they aren't going to touch personal items left on a public railing, they certainly shouldn't be touching personal items in a room that was locked and out of view (unless its dire). If Disney's priority is to appease guests, I would suggest Disney failed to do so with the OP and it's OK for the OP to tell Disney the same.

I'm not entirely opposed to a hand's-off approach like Disney did in my situation, but I think entering a room early without the guest's consent isn't consistent with such an approach.

 

[nkereina]

When they see personal effects, they should immediately back out.

From the housekeeper's perspective, people check out prior to 11am all the time at WDW. People have early flights, or they leave the room early on check-out day to go to the parks before they leave. Most people do not notify the desk when they are checking out, so the housekeeper has to either wait until 11am - which means they won't be turning their rooms over on time and those checking in will have to wait - or the housekeeper has to use their own discretion when they believe they saw people leaving the room for good so they can get their job done. DVC rooms take much longer to turnover than a standard hotel room.

In the OP's case, it sounds as if the housekeeper witnessed the people loading up their car and thought they were done. As previously mentioned, people leave personal effects in the room all the time after they check-out because they want them discarded. This is particularly common in DVC rooms where people grocery shop and cook meals. I don't think we know how much time actually elapsed between the housekeeper entering and the guests returning - perhaps the housekeeper didn't even have time to notice items of value were still present. Either way, the best way to avoid this in the future is to hang the "Room Occupied" sign on the door until they are completely done with the room. Its a lesson learned for both sides, but not one that should result in a complaint or compensation when there was nothing discarded or missing.

 

[Deb & Bill]

I have checked in earlier, but only after coordinating with the hotel and getting their concurrance. I would never just show up at the room and go in.

I maintain the CM shouldn't have been there. I could be wrong, but my understanding is that the OP wasn't receiving housekeeping during the stay, therefore there is no reason for housekeeping staff to be in the room until after the stay is complete. The guest didn't expect housekeeping to show up later in the stay, the guest expected housekeeping to never show up during the stay.

At DVC resorts, Housekeeping enters the villa every day at a minimum to collect the trash.

 

[Jennasis]

I have checked in earlier, but only after coordinating with the hotel and getting their concurrance. I would never just show up at the room and go in.

I maintain the CM shouldn't have been there. I could be wrong, but my understanding is that the OP wasn't receiving housekeeping during the stay, therefore there is no reason for housekeeping staff to be in the room until after the stay is complete. The guest didn't expect housekeeping to show up later in the stay, the guest expected housekeeping to never show up during the stay.

Even in a DVC room housekeeping comes in DAILY to remove trash.

 

[piccolopat]

I don't view the housekeeper's actions as a mistake. Because it was check out day, the housekeeper witnessed the occupants leaving and there was no room occupied sign on the door, it was reasonable to think the room was vacated.

 

[smadath]

I'm not seeing that OP gave an exact time that this happened,, just that it was way before the 11am checkout. Correct me if I'm wrong, but once the room is officially cleaned by housekeeping, isn't it released for the next guest? If someone is checking in early, isn't it possible that they could be given the room before the previous guests have left?

 

[snappy]

Even with the room occupied sign up, if the housekeeper knocked and no one answered, what would have prevented her from going in and start the cleaning process? I think all the sign does is cause them to knock and perhaps pause before opening and entering. If minimal things had been left in the room by the guest when bringing her suitcases to the car, I think it’s possible she would have proceeded with her cleaning.

 

[hertamaniac]

DVC rooms take longer to clean, and OKW is all DVC rooms.

If housekeeping waited until 11am to clean all of the rooms where guests checked out, check-in time wouldn't be until 8pm.

Excellent points. We, for one, were thrilled when we checked-in to our 2 bedroom villa before noon; it gave us plenty of time to go to Publix for groceries.

 

[Beer Me]

Because you can leave without explicitly checking out housekeeping is forced to make these assumptions. As others have mentioned, it would be extremely inefficient to wait until check out time to start cleaning.

What else should they do?

 

[RAD]

If I haven't left the room, for good, I hang out the 'room occupied' sign. I never completely remove my things until I'm ready to go! That way, if the housekeeper does enter, she/he will see that the room is still occupied and come back.

The wife and I do this for any hotel room we're in, we only remove it once we're actually gone.

 

[Jennasis]

Wish there was a button you could press through the app or on your tv that would alert the system that you were vacating the room.

 

[Melissa Perez]

Wish there was a button you could press through the app or on your tv that would alert the system that you were vacating the room.

That's a great idea and I think exists for other hotel apps! If not - time to call a patent attorney

 

[kaytieeldr]

I maintain the CM shouldn't have been there. I could be wrong, but my understanding is that the OP wasn't receiving housekeeping during the stay,

I disagree that the last morning of the stay, within hours* of official checkout time, when the party appeared to have left (and forgotten some items) could in any reasonable way be viewed as during the stay.

I do see the OP stated it wasn't yet 11 AM. That's the time by (not at) which the occupant needs to have checked out. With guests from all over the world, and flights departing as early as 6 AM, it's entirely reasonable to think the virtually emptied room is empty.

*Three hours, I believe, as some posters have mentioned housekeeping knocking on the door as early as 8 AM.

 

[kaytieeldr]

Wish there was a button you could press through the app or on your tv that would alert the system that you were vacating the room.

Or a way to contact the Front Desk, either in person or by phone...except of course you have people who won't bother to notify.