Weird room check

[Brett Wyman]

When we were there last, February 2022, our 5 year old had an absolute meltdown when we tried to sunblock his face. Im sure it sounded like he was being beaten to those outside the room. Later in the day, after we were back from the parks, two "engineers" showed up to "test the new lock system" on our door. But there we empty rooms on the same hall(the refresh was just wrapping up). We are pretty sure we were being "Disney checked" which is fine by me if its for child safety.

 

[GoingSince1990]

When we were there last, February 2022, our 5 year old had an absolute meltdown when we tried to sunblock his face. Im sure it sounded like he was being beaten to those outside the room. Later in the day, after we were back from the parks, two "engineers" showed up to "test the new lock system" on our door. But there we empty rooms on the same hall(the refresh was just wrapping up). We are pretty sure we were being "Disney checked" which is fine by me if its for child safety.

My kids' teachers were always vigilant in that regard, asking them what happened when they showed up at school with a black eye or bruises, for example. But it's not obvious how Disney "engineers" could win a child's confidence, get their side of the story, and establish whether or not abuse had taken place, in the presence of the parents. And with loss of sleep and interrupted nap schedules, it is very common indeed to hear children crying at Disney, and it would be quite difficult to "Disney check" every such incident. I think that it is quite likely that they really were engineers, testing the lock system, especially given the number of times I have had to go to the front desk to get my key cards reprogrammed because they stopped working,

 

[SL6827]

I wonder how many guest are piling in more people into a room that is not on the reservation?

I know my sister-in-law plans to make her child a new 16-year old profile in her DME so that she won't have to pay the extra 18+ adult charge next year. Not sure how well that will work with her ticket though.

 

[Momager]

Insurance policy insures WDW is checking. Helps with any law suits

CM are looking for :
Drugs... You can not smoke MJ on private property
Selling drugs
Manufacturing drugs... Yes that has happened
Guns
Human trafficking ..again , yes here also
Room occupancy limit

Note to self: Make sure the "MJ" is tucked away.

 

[DisneyOma]

Room checks - could it have been in part because of this case:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/girl-in-disney-abuse-photos-safe/

 

[Lisa P.]

That article is from 2005. There are probably a lot of reasons that contributed to Disney initiating the checks. I do recall the timing coinciding with the 2017 Las Vegas concert mass shooting. There was plenty of discussion on these boards at the time, questioning why all resort rooms would require them and not just those rooms that overlook open gathering spaces. Anyway, it seems here to stay.

 

[emily nicole]

I have never experienced a room check while at WDW. I guess we are in the parks too much!

 

[Gizmo74]

I was at POR a couple weeks ago with my two teens. We closed down the park night before and was looking forward to sleeping in the next morning. I had the "Room Occupied" on the door and the security latch on. That did not stop housekeeping to try to enter the room. They kept on trying to push the door open with the latch on. It scared us to death since we were all sound asleep. I got up and got to the door only to find housekeeping to the next room over. I asked them what in the world were they doing and I had the sign on the door. They said security check. I was so mad at this point. Not five minutes later, the manager was knocking on the door. At that point, I turned on the lights, opened up the shades and told her to come in and check what she needed to check. I was so upset because the "check" was just a basic look at the room. I wanted to check out of the room and go home after that but my kids wanted to finish out the vacation. Also, on the previous two mornings, I received "welcome" texts from POR about the resort. I told the manager this was totally unnecessary sending texts at 6 AM. She said they never sends texts that early but I showed her my phone which had the text timestamp. She apologized and was going to look into that. So needless to say, our short stay at POR we never got to relax and sleep in.

This was our first time staying at POR as we are DVC and normally stay on points. There is a thread on the DVC boards about this same thing with aggressive house keeping. We stayed at BCV in June and NEVER had an issue. In fact, housekeeping left a voicemail asking if there was anything we needed. I think we were lucky that trip because others are complaining on the thread staying at the DVC villas. I understand they need to do checks but there has to be a better way on not disturbing guests especially while they are sleeping.

 

[Dug720]

Also, on the previous two mornings, I received "welcome" texts from POR about the resort. I told the manager this was totally unnecessary sending texts at 6 AM.

You can put your phone on Do Not Disturb - and set as "VIP" the numbers you would want getting through in the event of an emergency like kids, partner, etc. Then you don't have to worry about texts coming in at 6am because you'd never hear them.

 

[Figment Mom]

I was at POR a couple weeks ago with my two teens. We closed down the park night before and was looking forward to sleeping in the next morning. I had the "Room Occupied" on the door and the security latch on. That did not stop housekeeping to try to enter the room. They kept on trying to push the door open with the latch on. It scared us to death since we were all sound asleep. I got up and got to the door only to find housekeeping to the next room over. I asked them what in the world were they doing and I had the sign on the door. They said security check. I was so mad at this point. Not five minutes later, the manager was knocking on the door. At that point, I turned on the lights, opened up the shades and told her to come in and check what she needed to check. I was so upset because the "check" was just a basic look at the room. I wanted to check out of the room and go home after that but my kids wanted to finish out the vacation. Also, on the previous two mornings, I received "welcome" texts from POR about the resort. I told the manager this was totally unnecessary sending texts at 6 AM. She said they never sends texts that early but I showed her my phone which had the text timestamp. She apologized and was going to look into that. So needless to say, our short stay at POR we never got to relax and sleep in.

This was our first time staying at POR as we are DVC and normally stay on points. There is a thread on the DVC boards about this same thing with aggressive house keeping. We stayed at BCV in June and NEVER had an issue. In fact, housekeeping left a voicemail asking if there was anything we needed. I think we were lucky that trip because others are complaining on the thread staying at the DVC villas. I understand they need to do checks but there has to be a better way on not disturbing guests especially while they are sleeping.

We had regular housekeeping (not the security check) knock on our door at POP just after 8 am. We also had the occupied sign on the door. I was irked because it was the only day we were trying to sleep in.

It was our checkout day and she asked what time we were leaving. I told her we were leaving right at 11. At 10-something she knocked again.

I have never had this happen at any hotel before.

 

[lowlight]

They should put a camera in those new Disney Alexa devices they are putting into rooms soon. I would feel much safer then, and the only reason you wouldn’t want this is if you have something to hide. It’s for your own good. For. Your. Own. Good. Anything you can schedule around because of predictability or ask to come back at a later time isn’t for security. Now a camera that records 24/7, that is real security.

On a side note, the minute some actual criminal realizes he can just dress up like a housekeeper or pretend to be maintenance and force single women with small children in a hotel room to open the door for them for a security check without having to break the latch lock, the victim will likely end up with equal amounts of PTSD and millions of dollars. This practice has way more downsides than pluses if you know anything about actual physical security and crime deterrence.

 

[Andrew Head]

They should put a camera in those new Disney Alexa devices they are putting into rooms soon. I would feel much safer then, and the only reason you wouldn’t want this is if you have something to hide. It’s for your own good. For. Your. Own. Good. Anything you can schedule around because of predictability or ask to come back at a later time isn’t for security. Now a camera that records 24/7, that is real security.

This is sarcasm right? You can't seriously be advocating for security cameras INSIDE hotel rooms?

Maybe they should put one in the bathroom too since they check there? Maybe they could keep an eye on you while you shower to lower costs? "You better not be using too much shampoo in there!"