Tipping Mousekeeping

[butterfly]

Hi,
I'm a fairly new poster so forgive me if these guestions have been asked and answered. My DH and I will be staying at the PO French Quarter Sept, 2003. We are neat people, I usually semi-make the bed before I leave for the parks. Old habits are hard to break even on vacation. What is fair daily tip for DW housekeeping? I have always left $3 - $5 a day at other hotels.
And what are Mousekeeping envelopes? Do I print them on my computer printer? Where? How? Who?
Thanks and these boards are the best things since duct tape!

 

[goofy4tink]

Welcome to the Disboards. We have always left $5 for the three of us daily. We are also pretty neat too. So $2-3 would most likely be fine. And yes, mousekeeping envelopes can be printed out. I don't have the site name handy but someone will. We loved them and used them every day. In fact, I filled them and sealed them before we left home. Just one less thing to worry about. Have fun planning and reading these boards.

 

[wdwnut2]

Not the most techno saavy, so hope this will work. The website I have for mousekeeping envelopes is

http://users.adelphia.net/~heidiw

 

[butterfly]

Thanks, goofy4tink and wdwnut2, for your help.
I printed a Donald Duck envelope and he looks great. It was easy once I figured out how to put the envelope into the printer (vertically).
202 days to WDW. Yeah!

 

[katiemegcz]

Hi! We tipped $5.00 each day. I asked one of my Mousekeepers about tipping. She was very candid and said that many people don't tip until the last night, but you probably don't have the same Mousekeeper the whole time, so tip daily. We found that daily tipping seemed to inspire our Mousekeepers to do all sorts of special things-towel animals, extra toiletries, etc.

Two things to keep in mind-

If you can believe it, less than half of hotel guests ever tip their housekeepers! They are very pleased with a $5 tip, but any kind gesture is appreciated. We also kept our room tidy, and hung towel that were unused or clean, and kept all of the soiled towels in one place. She said that most families leave wet towels all over, throw garbage somewhere in the vicinity of the receptacle, and leave clothes over the floor, making it necessary for the Mousekeepers to move them to vacuum, which is uncomfotable. She said that this makes their day so much easier...Less stooping is a significant thing when you clean so many rooms each day.

Also, the Mousekeepers get paid very little per hour. Most have to take public transport into Disney, punch in, then take further transport to the resort they will be cleaning at. This adds over an hour of unpaid time to their days. And to eat lunch, they pay Disney prices. (Just a little peek into their days)

So, tip away! They truly deserve it!

 

[bweagle]

We tipped $1 per person per day on our previous two trips. Some may think that is cheap, but I think it may be more than they get from other guests. After leaving this tip, we received daily turn-down service at the Swan (I don't think that's a normal service is it?) And at ASMu the maid made wash rag animals for us daily!

 

[ducklite]

They do NOT pay Disney prices to eat lunch. Disney has cast cafeterias and break rooms all over the place, and they are definitely much cheaper than what the public pays. They also ahve the option of brown bagging it, just like many of us do. Additionally if a CM does choose to eat in an "onstage" restaurant, they get a discount at a lot of the places.

Very few CM's take public transit to work. Most of the resorts have cast parking onsite. Cast at the theme parks other than AK do have to park in a central cast lot and then transfer to a bus to get to their worksite.

That said, they do not make a high wage. Barely enough to live on. Barely. Tipping doesn't take much out of our pocket--heck we can afford to stay there, not many in housekeeping type positions could, and a few bucks a day makes a big difference to them.

Anne

 

[jeannej]

Mousekeepers aren't always poor people. Some of them make a decent living at it. My mother being one of them at one time.

One thing do not do. Do not tip the housekeepers on your credit card bill. They will never see the money.


jeannej

 

[DISNEYFANRI]

...3 of us in the room. I tipped $5/day.

Paula

 

[ducklite]

Originally posted by jeannej
One thing do not do. Do not tip the housekeepers on your credit card bill. They will never see the money.


jeannej

That's not even an option at WDW.

Anne

 

[berger50]

$1.00 per person per day - tip daily - mousekeepers change from day to day.
My mother-in-law wrote notes every day to the mousekeeper telling her what a great time she had had, where she had gone, what she had seen. The surprises when she got back to her room were amazing! Being treated that way must have meant much more to the mousekeeper than the actual tip!

 

[SandraC]

I tipped $1.00 per day per person. At CBR the Housekeepers were awesome! I wrote thank you notes each day to them. At CSR a year later, the Housekeepers were less than adequate, frankly I wasn't very happy with them. They complained all the time about other guests and didn't do a great job on our room. I still tipped the CSR Housekeepers. One day I forgot the tip and the room was left in a terrible state by the Housekeepers. They were not as Disneyfide as the CBR loves that took care of the rooms. All the CM's at CBR were incredible! S

 

[eyeoresonprozac]

WOW I just printed out the Mousekeeping tip envelopes. They look great. Since we try to not carry much cash, it's great to be able to count it out before we leave and have it sealed, ready to go! Thanks! I was a chambermaid through high school and college, so we leave our room spotless! We leave all dirty towels in a pile in the bathroom, gather the trash and tie it into a bag. When the housekeeper does not have to spend time collecting towels and trash, she's got more time for special extras!

 

[Pammy_from_WI]

We tend to tip $1 or $2 per person per day, depending on the service. We've also, in the past, had such wonderful service, that we've gotton our maid (typically had the same one each day, saw her everyday, that's how we knew) and at the end bought her a small gift and gave it to her personally, with a thank you card. I made the manager aware of this, so there would be no problems for her, when she tried to leave for the day (like thinking she was stealing something).

We've done this twice now, just because of the wonderful service we got, but most times we just leave the standard tip.

Pammy

 

[eeyore0062]

We also usually leave $5 per day for the mousekeepers at WDW. The norm is $1 per person, per day... but we usually expand on that. We also leave daily tips, in case our mousekeeper has a day off, someone else doesn't get her tip at the end.

Normally, we don't bother with the mousekeeping envelopes, and just leave the tip under the name card provided by the mousekeeper... we feel this is enough indication that the money is meant for her.

As for the room... my husband is the neat one, so it always takes him an extra 10 minutes to leave the room, because he makes the beds I keep telling him they just have to unmake them, anyway!

 

[Taddy]

On past trips dh and I tipped 2$/day. And always left little notes. We always got notes back and extra soap and towel animals..ha ha. we are extremely neat people but still tipped.

When we got back in 5 days(YAY!) we are bringing with us dh's 13 yr old sister, so we will tip an extra 1$/day. So 3$/day for 3 of us I think is fair.