Pete, probably $120 per day will get us the clean restrooms and parks again.

hookedonears · Mar 1, 2015

The restrooms at Disney use to be some of the few public restrooms in the entire world that you didn't dread going into. There was never a hint of an odor, and as Pete said, you could eat off of the floors, it was always cool, especially during the hot summers, there was never any paper on the floor and everything always seemed to be sparkling clean. I may be wrong, but I believe each or the restrooms use to have full time custodial staff assigned to each. Or at least there was always someone in there cleaning when ever I went in.

What happened? Cost cutting. In an effort to cut cost and keep park ticket prices down, Disney farmed out it's custodial staff to a third party contractor. I guess we just have to ask, are we be willing to pay $115-$120 per day for park tickets, in order to have the clean parks and restrooms again. I don't think Disney believes we are.

OKW Lover · Mar 1, 2015

I can't see that an extra $15-20/guest/day would be required to fund clean restrooms. That's a huge number. Perhaps something more on the order of $0.10 guest/day might be more in line?

hookedonears · Mar 1, 2015

OKW Lover said:
I can't see that an extra $15-20/guest/day would be required to fund clean restrooms. That's a huge number. Perhaps something more on the order of $0.10 guest/day might be more in line?

Your right. I guess I should have expanded my original post. My number was not limited to restrooms. WDW in its entirety. Resorts, parks etc. Litter on the grounds, general maintenance of the parks and resorts and especially expediting the construction projects littering the grounds. It's my understanding that after closing time of the parks in years gone by, an army of cast members would descend on each park, cleaning, painting and refurbishing what could be refurbished. There was never these ongoing attractions closures throughout the parks and cranes detracting from the guest experience. Due to the massive expansion of WDW, the general maintenance and cleaning of the parks has become a massive undertaking requiring a significant amount of the annual budget. Unfortunately (IMO) due to cost cutting (or the maintenance/cleaning budgets have not kept pace with demand), it doesn't appear to be getting its needed share.

GAN · Mar 1, 2015

OKW Lover said:
I can't see that an extra $15-20/guest/day would be required to fund clean restrooms. That's a huge number. Perhaps something more on the order of $0.10 guest/day might be more in line?

How about they just take the .10 out of the $100 !

OKW Lover · Mar 1, 2015

GAN said:
How about they just take the .10 out of the $100 !

Perhaps that was already factored into the price increase.

GAN · Mar 1, 2015

OKW Lover said:
Perhaps that was already factored into the price increase.

You'll probably be there before me ....please report back!

OKW Lover · Mar 1, 2015

GAN said:
You'll probably be there before me ....please report back!

Sorry, I should have used the "tongue-in-cheek" emoticon. :duck:

AndyPok1 · Mar 1, 2015

hookedonears said:
In an effort to cut cost and keep park ticket prices down, Disney farmed out it's custodial staff to a third party contractor.

Uh what? Custodial cast are still blue badges. Valet and some 3rd shift housekeeping was contracted out a few years ago.

HubbDave · Mar 1, 2015

The huge attendance numbers IMHO are one of the big reasons. They have not kept up the staff numbers to reflect the growth in attendance. Plus many workers are making a little above minimum wage and don't put in the effort. Hopefully as Disney boosts wages, more pride can be put into efforts.

kbelle8995 · Mar 2, 2015

Don't boost cost. They can clean the bathroom's on $105. Pay CM's more and get more of them.

piccolopat · Mar 2, 2015

Here's a thought - why don't people just pick up after themselves? There really is no excuse for leaving a bathroom stall a mess after you use it or to drop your trash on the ground instead of putting it into one of the receptacles. Yes, Disney can and probably should put more resources into making sure the parks are as pristine as they used to be, put I can't help but wonder how much of the mess is due to Disney cutbacks and how much is just an increase in guests who don't care.

Badgerfan · Mar 2, 2015

Piccolopat, I agree that people should pick up after themselves. However, I don't think this is a problem that has just now gotten worse. Back in the late 80's and early 90's I worked a summer job for my town's park and rec dept. One of my responsibilities was to travel to all of our cities parks and clean the restrooms. I can say with 100 % accuracy that people making big messes in restrooms have been going on for a LONG time.

Now, I was ONE person in charge of cleaning ALL restrooms from every park in the entire town. So, if you happened to use a restroom that I had not yet reached that day, your perception of the restroom and how people respect it is going to be quite different than if you walked into a restroom that I just got done cleaning for the day. You are always going to have a certain amount of the population that are slobs and disrespectful, but I don't think that number goes way up or down, it may change a bit, but people tend to be who they are good or bad. The difference in how many people see a clean vs. dirty restroom, is in the effort and resources used. In my case, many people probably saw dirty restrooms because of lack of resources (one person responsible for the ENTIRE town's park systems restrooms). If my town hired 4 or 5 people to do the same job, don't you think the restrooms would be cleaned quicker and more often. You would still have the same number of slobs, but with a larger workforce we would be able to keep on top of it, and you would never see the messes that we see. It would change your perception a bit, no?

From my experience, I have to say that Disney cutbacks is the overwhelming reason why their restrooms are in the state they are in now compared to there cleanliness of the past.

hookedonears · Mar 2, 2015

kbelle8995 said:
Don't boost cost. They can clean the bathroom's on $105. Pay CM's more and get more of them.

I agree, there needs to be more of them, and there needs to be better training for the ones they've got, plus the new ones.

hookedonears · Mar 2, 2015

AndyPok1 said:
Uh what? Custodial cast are still blue badges. Valet and some 3rd shift housekeeping was contracted out a few years ago.

Obviously, I was given bad information.

kbelle8995 · Mar 4, 2015

hookedonears said:
I agree, there needs to be more of them, and there needs to be better training for the ones they've got, plus the new ones.

I agree with that too.

piccolopat · Mar 6, 2015

Badgerfan said:
...From my experience, I have to say that Disney cutbacks is the overwhelming reason why their restrooms are in the state they are in now compared to there cleanliness of the past.

Yes, things would probably be better with more restroom attendants. However I don't understand why people can't treat a public restroom like they do with their own bathroom at home. If they did, the Disney cutbacks wouldn't matter as much. I commute to work by train and it's amazing how many people leave all sorts of trash behind (newspapers, junk mail, beer cans, banana peels, just about anything). These people are probably the same people that complain how dirty the trains are.

Badgerfan · Mar 7, 2015

piccolopat said:
Yes, things would probably be better with more restroom attendants. However I don't understand why people can't treat a public restroom like they do with their own bathroom at home. If they did, the Disney cutbacks wouldn't matter as much. I commute to work by train and it's amazing how many people leave all sorts of trash behind (newspapers, junk mail, beer cans, banana peels, just about anything). These people are probably the same people that complain how dirty the trains are.

I completely agree with you. The lack of respect by some is very annoying. However, I think we will always be stuck with a certain amount of people that just don't "get it" or care. Unfortunately, I think the only reasonable way Disney can combat against these unreasonable slobs is to increase their staffing levels. Disney used to be on top of the matter, but as park attendance continues to rise, they need to adjust accordingly as well.

lost*in*cyberspace · Mar 8, 2015

piccolopat said:
Yes, things would probably be better with more restroom attendants. However I don't understand why people can't treat a public restroom like they do with their own bathroom at home. If they did, the Disney cutbacks wouldn't matter as much. I commute to work by train and it's amazing how many people leave all sorts of trash behind (newspapers, junk mail, beer cans, banana peels, just about anything). These people are probably the same people that complain how dirty the trains are.

The problem is, slobs are slobs, whether at home or in public. If they leave a mess in a public place, they probably do so at home.

BugsDaddy · Mar 8, 2015

I am not sure that raising ticket prices is a good solution to this problem or completely explainable to the customer base. Customers already expect clean bathrooms and parks for the amount of money they are paying. The primary issue is that Disney does not recognize this as a problem since it is currently not affecting their bottom line.

kbelle8995 · Mar 9, 2015

Unfortunately, as long as Disney is able to make money without adding additinal staff and cleaning their parks more efficiently, the dirty bathrooms and parks are going to continue.
I used to never leave a Disney park feeling dirty but in recent years I have.

And the fact that people just drop their trash where they want has been going on for decades. We had non pollution commercials and pick up your litter going back since I can remember which was the 70's. The fact is that Disney has more people in their parks does not help matters. More CM's are needed. We used to see Custodial all the times at the parks and in recent years they have decreased at least visually.

Pete, probably $120 per day will get us the clean restrooms and parks again.

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