Deeply disappointed

[crisi]

But people get their room before 4pm often. In most my trips I got it often after lunch. Why not say after 1pm if it means there is no guarantee anyway? Why after 4pm, a time that is reasonable after the normal hotel checkin? Why not after 2pm. Why not after 10am? The exact policy should then be anytime during the day.
And I may be wrong but it used to be "at 4pm", they later changed it "after 4pm" because creating confusion on the policy is easier than strive to improve the service.

BTW I have inquired MS about this and they said they cannot guarantee a room ready for 4pm, but they try to have rooms ready by that time.

Of course they get in earlier. And why - because they want to set the expectation that it won't be until at least 4pm. I suspect that 90% of the time rooms are ready by 4pm. But sometimes some of the staff calls in sick. Or they discover someone has smoked a lot of danky weed in the room and it needs a chemical freshener and some time to let the smell dissipate. Or someone's kid got sick all over the mattress and it needs to be steamed. Or bedbugs have arrived. And that can delay things by hours.

One thing Disney used to be very good at was managing expectations. They would tell you a line was 45 minutes, and it would be 35 and you'd be delighted. They'd tell you check in was after 4, and you'd be delighted with your 3pm availability. That's what after 4 is about. But it is after 4. Its always been after 4. DVC members should be aware they bought into a system that operates at very high capacity and sometimes after 4 means 6 - or even later - if there are hiccups in turning over rooms. And make backup plans. This is part of the reason that you can get a room for what ends up costing a member less than $100 a night - because we aren't paying for excess capacity in housekeeping or in rooms.

The real disappointment is when you wait and then the room still smells like someone held a kegger and it didn't get properly cleaned. THAT'S a problem. Waiting until 6pm for a very small minority of reservations - that's the model.

 

[ColonialMouse]

 

[Nice Work Pal]

There's a pandemic on, maybe you've heard about it? It's been in all the papers.

Disney is paying big signup bonuses and way above-normal wages for housekeepers, but there aren't enough willing workers in Central Florida.

Maybe they should have had the foresight to not just fire everyone without any plan in place for rehiring. It’s great they’re now offering signing bonuses and decent wages but that obviously still isn’t enough. Relative of mine who was at the park with me is a hiring director for a large company…she couldn’t believe they outright dropped so many employees and is laughing they’re having trouble filling roles now. D

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Maybe they should have had the foresight to not just fire everyone without any plan in place for rehiring. It’s great they’re now offering signing bonuses and decent wages but that obviously still isn’t enough. Relative of mine who was at the park with me is a hiring director for a large company…she couldn’t believe they outright dropped so many employees and is laughing they’re having trouble filling roles now. D

The housekeeping pipeline is almost entirely dependent on (legal) immigration. Disney has no control over border and immigration policy.

 

[Sandisw]

Like others have said, check in time is "after 4 PM". Having said that, when you start creeping up on 7 or 8 PM, then I think some compensation is warranted. Since we're talking DVC and villas, then it's not unreasonable to (hypothetically) assume the member was planning on preparing their own dinner in the villa that evening, and due to the delay, was forced to purchase the meal instead. I think a reasonable baseline compensation would be some set dollar amaount, multiplied by the number of registered guests in the party.

Now it's more likely most folks aren't planning on cooking dinner after a long travel day, but it at least provides a starting metric for placing some kind of value on the inconvenience.

I agree...except I think anything after 4:30 to 5:00 pm should result in some token level of compensation for guests. One thing that we have started doing when we check out before 11 am is make sure to let the front desk...or call mousekeeping...to tell them we are out so that they can start the cleaning process earlier for the next guest.

Now, I get right now we may need to be a little more flexible given the staff shortages many places are having but have to say I have been fortunate the past year as all 5 visits (at 10 different resorts) we had our rooms no later than 3:30 pm.

 

[KPeterso]

Was at VGC just last week. We did not get our room until 4:30, and had arrived before 9 AM. And we only got it then because the resort called to chat with me about it. They discovered one of the phones in our studio (still confused why 2 phones were needed in a studio) was dead (no dial tone), but they did not want to hold up getting us our room number for that and that we should expect Maintenance at some point to fix it (never came and still did not work when we checked out 4 days later).

I stayed 1 night at one of the All Stars a few years ago (either 2017 or 2018 I would guess) before moving to my DVC home for the rest of the visit. I flew out of CA at 3 PM for CA time (6 PM WDW time) and did not get my room number until after I was boarding my flight. Did not matter as I knew I would be getting in late, but would have been more annoyed if I had been waiting awhile. I should have looked over that room more though ---- there was no soap or tub mat in it at all. Discovered that very early the next AM. So it was late being ready and not properly cleaned/stocked.

 

[we"reofftoneverland]

DVC isn't a hotel, its a timeshare.
Check In is AFTER 4 on paperwork.
This is one of the huge reasons you shouldn't buy a timeshare without understanding what you are getting and if it will work for you. Its rare that you don't get in before 4, but it happens. We always have a backup plan ready to go - especially when we had little kids. I think last trip it was after 5 before we got our reservation information - but we were in Epcot, and didn't care too much.

Woah, why are you attacking me? Because you are cool with Disney having your room ready at 7pm verses 4pm? More power to you. I know what a timeshare is. And for the record we usually arrive at Disney in the evening because of our schedules and how we travel to Disney, so we don’t usually experience this 4pm or whatever baloney. With other hotels we do seem to arrive earlier, often before check in (which is usually 3pm in the non Disney timeshare world), just because of how our vacations are structured. And we’ve never had a problem elsewhere. But we have experienced Disney Dvc housekeeping knocking on our door the morning we are checking out as early as 8am. 9, 10 am sometimes, etc. And they are not usually polite. It happens enough that I am on edge the morning we leave at Disney every time now. This doesn’t happen other places. And it really pisses me off when they do that. We don’t push the envelope. We don’t overstay. But Disney pushes the envelope— a lot. If you’re fine checking in at 7pm and checking out at 9am the next morning, have at it. Enjoy your 14 hours in the room. But I’m not fine with it. And I have a right to my opinion too.

 

[mattburmeister]

Any update from the OP? I'd like to hear if this was the app saying the room wasn't ready or the front desk.

 

[MICKIMINI]

This is part of the reason that you can get a room for what ends up costing a member less than $100 a night - because we aren't paying for excess capacity in housekeeping or in rooms.

Respectfully, the $100 a night is MF's and does not take into account what we actually paid for the contract and is assuming a studio. We're 1 BR (us) or 2 BR + Studio with guests and stay for 10-14 nights so we are not as expensive as the one night guests as far as housekeeping is concerned. It has to be averaged out and since DVC sets the MFs they have run the numbers. We are also neat, wash all the dishes, make the beds and keep the place tidy, just like home so they don't have to clean up a mess before they clean. We keep our end of the deal and expect them to as well, with some forgiveness baked in, of course.

This is our well thought out rest and visit with our family, we spend a ton of money on all things Disney and the last thing we want or need is to be stressed out when we get there. More recently we've had 2 hours waits, a moldy shower, TV that sort of worked, minimal towels (I do wash daily) and it seems to always be something as of the past 5-7 years. We still love DVC but have seen the quality of everything go down over the years and it is sad to us more than anything.

 

[crisi]

Respectfully, the $100 a night is MF's and does not take into account what we actually paid for the contract and is assuming a studio. We're 1 BR (us) or 2 BR + Studio with guests and stay for 10-14 nights so we are not as expensive as the one night guests as far as housekeeping is concerned. It has to be averaged out and since DVC sets the MFs they have run the numbers. We are also neat, wash all the dishes, make the beds and keep the place tidy, just like home so they don't have to clean up a mess before they clean. We keep our end of the deal and expect them to as well, with some forgiveness baked in, of course.

This is our well thought out rest and visit with our family, we spend a ton of money on all things Disney and the last thing we want or need is to be stressed out when we get there. More recently we've had 2 hours waits, a moldy shower, TV that sort of worked, minimal towels (I do wash daily) and it seems to always be something as of the past 5-7 years. We still love DVC but have seen the quality of everything go down over the years and it is sad to us more than anything.

I figure my cost per night can be as low as $90 - if I book a room at OKW or BWV standard, including buy in costs and time value of money. It depends on when you bought. And its only dues paying for housekeeping, not the original buy in cost. And we get plenty of analysis on this board that comes out the same, even with fairly recent purchases.

I've actually seen the quality of housekeeping increase since we first bought in 2002. But quality of housekeeping really isn't the issue. The issue here is the capacity of the housekeeping staff and the behavior of other members as well as operating at capacity so there not being "extra" rooms so that they can leave a room empty waiting for carpet to dry. They are not staffed for being short staffed, or having to deep clean a room between guests - and they don't have the turn around time for a deep clean even with the five hours between 11am and 4pm - if carpets need to be cleaned and dried because my kid got sick all over the carpet, or the room needs to be fogged and ionized because the previous occupant ignored the non-smoking requirement - even if they get in there at 11am, its going to take that long for the room to be available.

I once ran a project to look at service times (different industry, but the model would be similar). Staffing for the turnaround our customers wanted increased our costs 30% - but we didn't have 30% budget and our customers weren't willing to pay for the increase. And staffing increases still wouldn't solve the "mousekeeping walks into a two bedroom at 2pm and discovers they will need hours to get rid of smells and stains." There is a point at which each incremental improvement costs much more than the previous improvement - and we are all already complaining about housekeeping costs skyrocketing. Let's say people get in their room after 4 5% of the time (I doubt it happens that often). Lets say to make that 4% housekeeping costs would go up 10%. From 4 to 3 another 20%. From 3 to 2 another 30%. From 2% to 1% another 40%. To have it never happen, lets say we had to increase housekeeping costs a total of 150% - and remove some rooms from the availability pool increasing Disney's stake in the resorts - lowering the amount of points available in the system. Are you willing to take on that cost? (I have no idea what the real numbers are, but I know that this exponential increase in cost is the model for this sort of service improvement.)

This rarely happens. Which means to make it never happen is likely to be really expensive. And which would you prefer - walking into a room that still smelled like cigarette smoke, or waiting until 6 to get into that room?

 

[Narcoossee11]

After my initial response above I was thinking about this thread and I remembered a time when my DH & I did a split stay between BW and BLT. On our last night at BW we had dinner in Canada sitting next to a nice couple, the tables were close together at that time. One of the people sitting next to us had been sick while at WDW, unfortunately for my DH he caught whatever our neighbor had. We checked out of BW early the next morning and took a taxi to BLT. I explained the situation to the person at the front desk and they got us into a room right away. It was about 10 AM in the morning, my DH crawled into the bed and pretty much didn't move from there for two days. We had a high level / lakeview room, all our requests were granted and my DH didn't have to sit on the couch in the lobby turning green. I was very thankful for that bit of Disney magic. I'm guessing it wouldn't have been good for anyone having a sick guest sitting in the lobby, that could have been a contributing factor to us getting our room so fast.

This is a reason why rooms are not ready early. The room that that couple check out of needed to be DEEP cleaned.

 

[bstafford]

This happened to us when we did a split stay last week. We were told by the front desk that both OKW and BLT were at 99% capacity. Add the shortage of workers to this and you’ve got yourself a longer than usual wait.
I don’t think owning has DVC has anything to do with it. Unfortunately it’s our post-Covid reality.

 

[bumbershoot]

This happens literally at no other hotel .... anywhere..... ever!

I'm glad it's never happened to you. My now-ex traveled worldwide half the year for 6 years, and often had checkins that were well beyond expectations. It happens.

I have seen people defending DVC on these boards countless times about this whole “after 4 policy”. It makes absolutely no sense and why people find it acceptable is beyond me.

It literally doesn't matter if we find it "acceptable." It happens, and it's a good idea to PLAN for it. Don't make big plans that involve changing clothes. Make sure the kids sleep on the plane or be mentally prepared for naps on pool chairs or in strollers, etc.

It's not about defending anything. It's about being realistic.

took a taxi to BLT. I explained the situation to the person at the front desk and they got us into a room right away.

I've consistently gotten Bay Lake rooms early. NOt sure why, but I am HAPPY every time it happens, and try to not *expect* it.

Absolutely no excuse to not have the villa ready by 4 pm, IMO, and this has been happening for years, well before the current ‘special’ issues.

It's not about excuses. It's about reasons. My aunt has worked housekeeping at a nice timeshare-like place. It is brutally hard work, and they could truly only do 3 or 4 rooms in their shift, it's that much work.

But people get their room before 4pm often.

Yep, and they should be happy and surprised when it happens.

Maybe they should have had the foresight to not just fire everyone without any plan in place for rehiring.

Ah yes, because companies were given so much time to figure it out. Letting people go allowed them to get unemployment.

Woah, why are you attacking me?

The person was calmly discussing it. No one attacked.

we usually arrive at Disney in the evening because of our schedules and how we travel to Disney, so we don’t usually experience this 4pm or whatever baloney.

Your room might be experiencing it, even though you don't.

But we have experienced Disney Dvc housekeeping knocking on our door the morning we are checking out as early as 8am. 9, 10 am sometimes, etc. And they are not usually polite.
It happens enough that I am on edge the morning we leave at Disney every time now.

That happened our first WDW DVC stay. It set the tone, and even next February when it will be over 10 years from that trip, I anticipate it specifically so it does NOT throw us off or keep me on edge. And if they don't do that, then I'm pleased, happy, and surprised. If you can get to that place, I recommend it.

 

[nerdboyrockstar]

The one time I stayed in a Poly DVC Studio, the room wasn't ready until 8pm. Never had that problem on the hotel side.

 

[lelew]

Woah, why are you attacking me? Because you are cool with Disney having your room ready at 7pm verses 4pm? More power to you. I know what a timeshare is. And for the record we usually arrive at Disney in the evening because of our schedules and how we travel to Disney, so we don’t usually experience this 4pm or whatever baloney. With other hotels we do seem to arrive earlier, often before check in (which is usually 3pm in the non Disney timeshare world), just because of how our vacations are structured. And we’ve never had a problem elsewhere. But we have experienced Disney Dvc housekeeping knocking on our door the morning we are checking out as early as 8am. 9, 10 am sometimes, etc. And they are not usually polite. It happens enough that I am on edge the morning we leave at Disney every time now. This doesn’t happen other places. And it really pisses me off when they do that. We don’t push the envelope. We don’t overstay. But Disney pushes the envelope— a lot. If you’re fine checking in at 7pm and checking out at 9am the next morning, have at it. Enjoy your 14 hours in the room. But I’m not fine with it. And I have a right to my opinion too.

I was just asking about this in another thread about why housekeeping was knocking on our door at 8am on checkout day last week. I book regular resorts through Disney and never had that happen but when I rented points for SSR this July and OKW last Aug. housekeeping came to clean our room well before 11am checkout.

 

[zavandor]

Of course they get in earlier. And why - because they want to set the expectation that it won't be until at least 4pm. I suspect that 90% of the time rooms are ready by 4pm. But sometimes some of the staff calls in sick. Or they discover someone has smoked a lot of danky weed in the room and it needs a chemical freshener and some time to let the smell dissipate. Or someone's kid got sick all over the mattress and it needs to be steamed. Or bedbugs have arrived. And that can delay things by hours.

One thing Disney used to be very good at was managing expectations. They would tell you a line was 45 minutes, and it would be 35 and you'd be delighted. They'd tell you check in was after 4, and you'd be delighted with your 3pm availability. That's what after 4 is about. But it is after 4. Its always been after 4. DVC members should be aware they bought into a system that operates at very high capacity and sometimes after 4 means 6 - or even later - if there are hiccups in turning over rooms. And make backup plans. This is part of the reason that you can get a room for what ends up costing a member less than $100 a night - because we aren't paying for excess capacity in housekeeping or in rooms.

The real disappointment is when you wait and then the room still smells like someone held a kegger and it didn't get properly cleaned. THAT'S a problem. Waiting until 6pm for a very small minority of reservations - that's the model.

I agree that all those are good reasons for a room to be ready late. I'm not questioning this.
But I also thing that when this happens there should be some form of compensation and that it should handled consistently.
Maybe if it's half hour it should be just an hapology, 1-2 hours a drink at the bar or comping the fees for an activity in the community hall. More than that a dinner. Something like that. And it shouldn't happen that the family making a scene at the front desk gets $200 dining credit and the family who says nothing gets nothing.

At WDW I am in Hakuna Matata mode, I try not to let small things ruin my vacation. But we shouldn't let the service fall below a certain level. So we should still politely complaint when a room is ready after 4pm, otherwise in the long term it will become normal to get the rooms ready whenever.
My point is: writing after 4pm is not a free for all. DVCMC contracts with the resorts when the checkin time is. And the contract should be that the vast majority of rooms are ready at 4pm (which I believe it happens) and when it doesn't happen they should try to make it right.

 

[jlb727]

I don’t even need compensation, I would have just preferred better communication on my last BCV trip. The front desk worker might have explained that they were short staffed or that the guest before us checked out late or there was an issue in the room that needed to be repaired, hence the long delay. I would have understood. Instead, I just got “sorry it’s not ready yet.” When I asked why, I was told it takes a long time to clean villas and they were working on it. Well, yeah. But I’m not one to make a scene or argue, so…

Also, they could have sent a couple texts at different intervals “we’re still working on it” or “your room will be ready soon, thanks for your patience ” to let me know we weren’t forgotten as we rode the Skyliner and walked around aimlessly for over 3 hours. We couldn’t go to EPCOT because we didn’t have a park reservation for that day. The tip to have the kids wear swimsuits under their clothes is great and I wish I would have thought of it! I guess we know how to plan differently in the future and we will assume the room will be ready hours late.

 

[pavicich]

Honestly, if this ever happens to me, I would be working out the price per hour and asking for that back. It is expensive to stay in those rooms. We are expected to be out on time, they should be expected to be ready by 4pm. That is reasonable. It it's not ready, Disney should be giving some sort of compensation. That way they would be more apt to be more organized in getting rooms cleaned on time.

If they did this based on points it would be points for the room/19 (total number of hours from 4pm-11am). Interesting!

 

[Ms.Minnie]

This is a reason why rooms are not ready early. The room that that couple check out of needed to be DEEP cleaned.

Not sure which couple checking out you are referring to but if it was us we were out of the room by 9am so mousekeeping had plenty of time to DEEP clean our room. As far as the the room at BLT goes, the person checking us in should have made a notation upon our checking in that one in our party was not well so when we checked out they could do another DEEP cleaning.

 

[Tiberella626]

I have not had this happen to me so I have no experience. However, from a business standpoint, maybe Disney shouldn't be opening more resorts until they can staff the ones they currently have open. I understand it's because they are desperate for money and will do anything to make a buck and save a dime. Just my thoughts.