No more towel characters

[wintotty]

Last November, our 2 daughters left their Anna and Elsa plush in the room. We came back form the park that day and found Mouse Keeper made them look like they are having a snow ball fight with towels. It was so cute, and made all of us smile. It's too bad we will not see this kind of "magic" anymore.

 

[bmonoski]

Yes, that will be sad. I loved seeing them arrange my kids' Disney stuffed toys, too.

 

[Dfan79]

Get the torches, we are going to burn down Bob Iger's house. No one takes away our towel animals and gets away with it. How am I going to enter a room without a towel animal? What am I going to look at regular towels...regular...towels???

I don't understand the choices either, (in a strong Russian accent) You get choice of clean rooms or towel animals. You can't have both.

What's next? Are they not going to give us gravity? Are we going just float around the resorts holding onto things, so we don't float into space?

 

[susabari]

I had no idea you could keep the towel animals. We just returned from 4 days at Port Orleans and had the mouse on the bed and a cute elephant left on the air conditioner. We just took a picture and left it there. My daughter really enjoys the animals, my son couldn't care less.

 

[KikiFan]

I'm taking my older sister for her first visit to disney... I'm gonna be so sad if she doesn't get at least one towel animal!

 

[Heather Fournier]

They did the towel animal on our first cruise in 2001.... going back again this December and it was one of the things we told our son we thought was fun to see....

 

[NavyDad]

Just received word from housekeeping and front desk management that their will no longer be anymore towel animals made in the disney world resort properties. Management said a focus survey stated guest would rather have cleaner rooms then towel characters. I'm lost on this but I just checked out of the cabins in Fort wilderness and saw supervision tell a 27 year employed housekeeper she would be reprimanded if she made any characters. Oh how the times have changed.

We stayed at Fort Wilderness Cabins pretty much the same time. Checked out June 27th. We only chose to have mousekeeping come in 1 or 2 days but we got one of the more eloborate towel decorations we have ever had.

When I stopped at the front office couple days later to ask for more towels a manager asked me how our mousekeeping had been and if we had any problems. I told him it was great - we just needed some more dry towels due to extra showers and stuff (I didn't notice the 6+ towels under the sink LOL). I told him our DD really liked the towel decoration left for us. He gave a big smile and said someting to the effect of "Our mousekeepers take great pride in bringing Disney Magic out here to the Frontier" or something like that.

Interesting...

 

[ChimCher-ee]

I haven't read the middle pages of this, so forgive me if this has been mentioned, but...

I think it has taken away one way for the cleaning staff to connect with the guests. We just got back from a 10-day trip, staying at AoA. Our first trip since the "no towel animal" policy. The maid actually left me a note (in response to a note from me requesting more towels) wishing our family a magical stay. I've never gotten notes before, maybe because there was another means to connect.

That said, every day this trip, we came "home" to DD's stuffies arranged in a playful way. I think we're not the only ones missing the animals...

(PS it never occurred to me to take them home, either, until last year, when for some reason we popped two into our suitcase, feeling very sheepish. They sit in our bathroom and I'm glad now that we have them.)

 

[Meldev]

My kids looked forward to returning to the room every night to see what display our Mousekeeper had for us just last fall! Towel animals and all of their stuffies playfully set up, complete with the kids sunglasses on at times!! We happily tipped - that's what I hope for in a disney resort!

 

[ArwenMarie]

I haven't read the middle pages of this, so forgive me if this has been mentioned, but...

I think it has taken away one way for the cleaning staff to connect with the guests. We just got back from a 10-day trip, staying at AoA. Our first trip since the "no towel animal" policy. The maid actually left me a note (in response to a note from me requesting more towels) wishing our family a magical stay. I've never gotten notes before, maybe because there was another means to connect.

That said, every day this trip, we came "home" to DD's stuffies arranged in a playful way. I think we're not the only ones missing the animals...

(PS it never occurred to me to take them home, either, until last year, when for some reason we popped two into our suitcase, feeling very sheepish. They sit in our bathroom and I'm glad now that we have them.)

That's nice she left a note. I do think this is going to end up hurting the housekeepers in terms of tips unfortunately, like you said, losing that way to connect.

 

[kaytieeldr]

Second, if it's strictly a function of cost...

A 7 night on the Fantasy in peak season for a standard non-veranda room costs around $650 a night depending on sailing dates. A verandah room is $806 per night. But, that includes the moral equivalent of the Premium Dining Plan. Pop, with a standard room, Park tickets with WP&M and Park Hopper and premium plan costs $449 a night. PORS with the same is $480 a night. Poly with the same is $889.

So, with that in mind, WDW pricing is close to in line with DCL pricing for a comparable experience, and less general overhead / fees (PORS doesn't have to pay port fees, and the like, for example)

Not a reasonable comparison. Even the few resorts guests who go all out and purchase the equivalent of an all-inclusive cruise aren't paying all the money to just a resort. Some of it goes to the parks, some to dining, some to play.

I'm actually happy they're getting rid of them. Anything to speed up the housekeeping staff, especially the slowpokes at OKW. Nothing like getting to the resort around 11am, leaving your luggage, going to enjoy a park or the marketplace. Then return around 3:45 and be left waiting around until 4:30-4:45 for the room to be ready (when checkin is 4pm).

Technically and officially, check-in is after 4 PM, not at 4. But have you tried letting the CM know you'd like an earlier-ready room? Or, knowing your unit won't be ready until later than 4, have you tried returning closer to the typical time the room is ready?

 

[ChimCher-ee]

An

That's nice she left a note. I do think this is going to end up hurting the housekeepers in terms of tips unfortunately, like you said, losing that way to connect.

Absolutely - - and I think it's for more than just tips, too. I don't ever leave a tip until the very end of my stay at any hotel (not sure if this is correct or common), so she was doing all this for someone who might not have been a good tipper at all, for all she knew!

By the way, are we supposed to tip every day?

 

[LeeAndRobin]

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.

 

[ArwenMarie]

An

Absolutely - - and I think it's for more than just tips, too. I don't ever leave a tip until the very end of my stay at any hotel (not sure if this is correct or common), so she was doing all this for someone who might not have been a good tipper at all, for all she knew!

By the way, are we supposed to tip every day?

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

 

[ArwenMarie]

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.

You don't have to tip. I wouldn't feel obligated if you don't think it is necessary. I tip because I think it's very hard work and actually, I do think what they get paid is too low. My mom was a domestic when she came to this country so I guess I have that perspective as well. And maybe my own, since I clean my own house and know how gross it can be sometimes lol.

 

[LeeAndRobin]

You don't have to tip.

I understand that. I'm just trying to understand the reason some people choose to tip.

 

[ArwenMarie]

I understand that. I'm just trying to understand the reason some people choose to tip.

I wrote more above in an edit, sorry about that

 

[LeeAndRobin]

You don't have to tip. I wouldn't feel obligated if you don't think it is necessary. I tip because I think it's very hard work and actually, I do think what they get paid is too low. My mom was a domestic when she came to this country so I guess I have that perspective as well. And maybe my own, since I clean my own house and know how gross it can be sometimes lol.

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.

 

[ChimCher-ee]

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.

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.

 

[seasheller]

Hey, I'm an old lady and I still enjoy the towel animals! That was half the fun just waiting to see what would be in the room. I also enjoyed walking to our room and seeing what other animals were displayed in windows of other guests. Maybe I'll go back to the Radisson where they had an amazing elephant towel animal in the bathroom - it was almost a foot high!