At VWL now.....NOT HAPPY!!!

[dzorn]

But all these things happened when they checked in. Daily mousekeeping and follow up by their supervisor before the room is release should have caught most if not all of these issues. I also find it hard to believe that no one had complained about these issues for this room before. Remember, she also stated half of the room was not cleaned and there were dirty dishes in the cabinets. I do aggree that things break and should get fixed and can only get fixed if reported. As dues paying members we owe it to ourself's to report these issues. Having said that it is also part of their responsibility to ensure things work or get fixed when reported or noticed by us or mousekeeping or their supervisor who is suppose to inspect each room before it is released to the front desk..smjj

DVC does not get daily housekeeping. Supervisors do not inspect each room. I do wonder if it an IT issue that only the studio was cleaned and not the 1-bedroom part of the lock off. We know how wonderful Disney IT is.

Denise in MI

 

[tjkraz]

I own a beach rental property at the Jersey shore and no way no how would I allow this. We purchase commercial washers and dryers. we do not wait until the pieces start to break. we "guesstimate" how often they get used and the average life of a product. If a washers is slated to last 10 years, we start quality checks at year 5. No we cannot know when a heater element will fail but we do know they have a higher failure rate as the machine gets older, so guess what, we start checking the heating mechanism 1/3 way into the life of the machine. We check the equipment after each and every rental. We open the dryer and washer doors and see if there is damage, we run a cycle to make sure it's working.

And you undoubtedly have the cost of providing such checks built into your rental fees, and give your customers realistic occupancy guarantees which allow time to perform such services.

Disney apparently does not...at least not to such an extent.

So it comes down to whether members would be willing to pay more for additional room quality checks and accept consistent lower occupancy times in order to allow for such checks.

 

[wildernessDad]

It seems to me like the OP got hit with a lot of stuff, some of which could have been taken care of if previous guests had just reported the problems.

 

[jpeka65844]

I would like to know too.

surpose to be there this Dec and if it has gone downhill may cancel.

Hmmm...their room sounds HORRIBLE, I mean just HORRIBLE. All kinds of unacceptable HORRIBLE. I would cancel that reservation IMMEDIATELY. TODAY! THIS INSTANT! NOW!!!

Oh, by any chance, was it a studio for Dec 2-7? Cuz I'm on a waitlist.

 

[eliza61]

And you undoubtedly have the cost of providing such checks built into your rental fees, and give your customers realistic occupancy guarantees which allow time to perform such services.

Disney apparently does not...at least not to such an extent.

So it comes down to whether members would be willing to pay more for additional room quality checks and accept consistent lower occupancy times in order to allow for such checks.

See Tim, I guess this is what I'm not fully on board with. Really how long does it take to implement a standard check? You mean in between each rental it's going to take hours to see if a bed folds properly and is not broken? I would think 10 secs tops? Makes me wonder are they really changing linens between rentals. How terribly difficult would it be to give the maids a standard list of items to do. TV on/off check. appliances cleaned. check. disney cleaned check. so forth and so on. Start enforcing the late check out so every villa has the alloted time to clean. So exactly what is additional. They have a maintence department, they know when they purchase appliances. get an excel spreadsheet, plug in the info and make a plan. whats an microsoft excel cost nowadays $400 bucks.

Same thing with a tub drain. Aren't they supposed to clean the tub between each guest? wouldn't that mean actually turning on some water and seeing what happens?
Now the appliance checks only kick in when my machines get old. So for say the first 5 years of life it's a simple "open door, look inside" "close door".

Sorry I have pretty standard beach occupancy times (weekly rentals during high season, daily rentals during low season).

We have the standard industry check in and check out times. What we do have and what I think disney refuses to do for purely greed reason is a well thought out and implemented cleaning and maintence plan. It does not take our maid service inordinate amounts of time because they have a step by step plan. a check off list. It catches small issues early so they don't turn into major ones.

I do think the big difference is I have to work to get my guest to return year after year. I perfer the annual guest who comes back 5, 10 years straight so I have to work hard to keep satisfaction high. Disney knows once they get our dough they can pretty much treat us any way they want so they do the bare minimum and cry "it will raise your dues if we do better".

I'm not talking new flat screen tvs yearly, I'm talking about simply checking to make sure there are never any dirty dishes in the cabinets, doors are not falling off. So my problem is I'm talking about stuff that the college freshmans we hire for extra help in the summer (and as much as I love 'em their motivation is beach time. LOL) get down in 1 week. I'm not expecting space shuttle launch "go flight" scheduling, the rooms aren't that darn big.

And no it's never enough to "ruin" my vacation but darn it, I starting to feel real close to "motel 6" ville and I'm not liking it.

 

[TisBit]

Well, I don't know that I would characterize the comments in quite that manner. He didn't say that they were laying-off workers or otherwise intentionally running with short staff. He didn't tell members that they needed to fend for themselves. He simply reiterated that members should not wait until they return home to complain; that resort management is ready, willing and able to resolve problems as they occur.

Well, I guess the context could be taken as anyone wants to take it. But I do remember quite discussion where people felt that it was unfair they would be relied on to report these types of issues....

I don't believe that they ever laid off employees or killed a specific department, but it doesn't mean that those employees weren't reassigned different duties. Either way, I think there is some evidence that they are relying more on member feedback since that announcement than before it.

See Tim, I guess this is what I'm not fully on board with. Really how long does it take to implement a standard check? You mean in between each rental it's going to take hours to see if a bed folds properly and is not broken? I would think 10 secs tops? Makes me wonder are they really changing linens between rentals. How terribly difficult would it be to give the maids a standard list of items to do. TV on/off check. appliances cleaned. check. disney cleaned check. so forth and so on. Start enforcing the late check out so every villa has the alloted time to clean. So exactly what is additional. They have a maintence department, they know when they purchase appliances. get an excel spreadsheet, plug in the info and make a plan. whats an microsoft excel cost nowadays $400 bucks.

I think it is hard to make a comparison between someone who has one rental and as Tim said 3000-4000 units. So lets take your oven check of 10 seconds, spread over all those units, that would add up to about 10 hrs of work for that 10 second check alone. Keep adding checks and you keep adding time to the room cleaning/inspection. Adding an hour to your one house to do some basic inspections between guests is not a huge deal, because you have 5 hours to get that one place done. Housekeepers have to do 5-10 villas in that same amount of time.....

As I have always contended, I do not defend that these items should be not be fixed or that DVC should be doing some spot checks, but I also see the problems of wanting to add more and more to the system. Housekeeping is obviously having difficulty doing the basic job, much less full maintenance inspections.

Couple that with the number of members that go, experience issues like the OP did and instead of notifying the front desk, they come back and complain on the DIS and email MS. By the time MS gets the email, forwards it to the resort and maintenance goes up...most likely one or two guest have not found the same problems. I just say that if everyone worked together, some of these issues could be averted.

 

[twinklebug]

Perhaps a standard sheet slipped under the door at the end of the stay could help folk to remember to report issues while they're there looking at them. The sheet could have a spot to report issues and be left on the counter or turned in at the front desk, whichever the guest feels more comfortable with. We don't have anything like that already do we?

 

[Sammie]

I will go on record and say I am perfectly willing to be held to the 4pm check in and not even approach the desk before then if it will help keep the rooms in good shape and clean. We rent timeshares in many other areas and we always have to check in at 3 or later no option to do otherwise and it has never been a problem.

So I am personally am not one that has ever complained about a check in times. We always let maintenance and housekeeping know about any problems we have found, such as broken closet doors while we are there and I am fine with them fixing it while we are there.

If that what it takes I am all for it. I do think Disney needs to start billing those guests that damage a room to the point it takes longer to clean it than normal.

 

[bobbiwoz]

...

If that what it takes I am all for it. I do think Disney needs to start billing those guests that damage a room to the point it takes longer to clean it than normal.

This is what I wish for too! I've gotten into a room that's been thoroughly trashed. I know this because mistakenly we got the call that the room was ready. There were at least 3 mousekeepers on the job, and when we did get the room there were miss matched chairs and other things that were gotten from different places, like a lamp. WE got a basket of chocolate goodies for our inconvenience, but the people before us should have to pay for the damages. Unless someone can prove otherwise, I think that Disney is far too lenient with things like this.

 

[hellerjw]

I think it is hard to make a comparison between someone who has one rental and as Tim said 3000-4000 units. So lets take your oven check of 10 seconds, spread over all those units, that would add up to about 10 hrs of work for that 10 second check alone. Keep adding checks and you keep adding time to the room cleaning/inspection. Adding an hour to your one house to do some basic inspections between guests is not a huge deal, because you have 5 hours to get that one place done. Housekeepers have to do 5-10 villas in that same amount of time.....

Yes, but you are talking about a couple hundred Mousekeepers spread among those 3000-4000 units so the scope is much smaller per individual. Realistically most of the checks would be blatantly obvious during the course of a competent cleaning (ex. water backing up in the shower, broken bed, etc). The others could be done in less than 5 minutes, including recording issues for further review later.

They could easily write down any problems on a standardized form, submit them to their supervisor (and maintenance if needed) and then have the resort manager copied on any issues for later follow-up. It isn't rocket science, it's about accountability and the current lack of it. Their approach lately seems to be that if they find a problem they ignore it or just stop cleaning that area.

 

[eliza61]

Well, I guess the context could be taken as anyone wants to take it. But I do remember quite discussion where people felt that it was unfair they would be relied on to report these types of issues....

I don't believe that they ever laid off employees or killed a specific department, but it doesn't mean that those employees weren't reassigned different duties. Either way, I think there is some evidence that they are relying more on member feedback since that announcement than before it.



I think it is hard to make a comparison between someone who has one rental and as Tim said 3000-4000 units. So lets take your oven check of 10 seconds, spread over all those units, that would add up to about 10 hrs of work for that 10 second check alone. Keep adding checks and you keep adding time to the room cleaning/inspection. Adding an hour to your one house to do some basic inspections between guests is not a huge deal, because you have 5 hours to get that one place done. Housekeepers have to do 5-10 villas in that same amount of time.....


Couple that with the number of members that go, experience issues like the OP did and instead of notifying the front desk, they come back and complain on the DIS and email MS. By the time MS gets the email, forwards it to the resort and maintenance goes up...most likely one or two guest have not found the same problems. I just say that if everyone worked together, some of these issues could be averted.

No it's not. The implementation is bigger but the concept is the same.

 

[tjkraz]

See Tim, I guess this is what I'm not fully on board with. Really how long does it take to implement a standard check? You mean in between each rental it's going to take hours to see if a bed folds properly and is not broken? I would think 10 secs tops? Makes me wonder are they really changing linens between rentals. How terribly difficult would it be to give the maids a standard list of items to do. TV on/off check. appliances cleaned. check. disney cleaned check. so forth and so on. Start enforcing the late check out so every villa has the alloted time to clean. So exactly what is additional. They have a maintence department, they know when they purchase appliances. get an excel spreadsheet, plug in the info and make a plan. whats an microsoft excel cost nowadays $400 bucks.

The housekeeping staff does have established procedures and check sheets. In fact, if you ever walk past one of their carts you'll see big laminated charts hanging from it with cards that detail what items should be present, how drawers should be arranged, etc.

There are 30,000 rooms at WDW alone and most of them need to be cleaned on a daily basis. Port Orleans, Pop Century and Caribbean Beach are the three largest hotels in the state.

In light of that, I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they have controls in place which are far more sophisticated and time tested than Excel spreadsheets.

The problem I always have with these discussions is getting a meaningful grasp on the problem. Unquestionably these sorts of reports are embarrassing and I would be very upset to walk into a room that obviously was not cleaned, to find dirty dishes in the cupboard or a horribly mangled sofabed.

But anyone who has worked a day in their life--particularly in management--knows that 100% quality assurance is not obtainable. You can have the best procedures in the world yet Mr. Murphy has a way of intervening. Could be a careless housekeeper--the manager can't be all places at all times. When rooms are inspected, I doubt managers consistently pull out sofabeds, check the cleanliness of all dishes or run the shower to see how it drains. If they did that, we'd be lucky to gain access to our rooms by 8pm.

The problem could be a system error which results in a room being released before ready. There have been situations where departing guests returned to their room and made a mess apparently after housekeeping had been there.

Even bad guest behavior has a trickle-down effect. Legally hotels cannot simply lock guests out of their rooms or otherwise evict them at 11am so late departures cause a havoc. Unexpected damage to the room, smoking, etc. (Charging guests for these offenses is an option and certainly a debatable topic. But even if Disney was more aggressive in policing such activity, it wouldn't help the arriving guest who expects a spotless villa by 4pm.)

Ultimately we really don't know how often things like this happen. But considering the small number of reports here, the 4000+ villas / 30,000 total rooms at WDW alone and my own personal experiences (which tend to be good), I'm not inclined to think that there is a huge problem brewing.

The spreadsheets and cross-checks you mention--those are already in place. Disney isn't new at this. What we're really talking about is putting yet ANOTHER layer of cross-check / verification in place. MORE supervisor eyeballs watching the housekeepers do their jobs. Administrative people to evaluate villas between guests and charge back for any damages. That's where management really has to make informed decisions and evaluate how much additional money--our money--they would spend to reduce their mistakes by (what appears to be) a relatively small amount.

 

[smjj]

DVC does not get daily housekeeping. Supervisors do not inspect each room. I do wonder if it an IT issue that only the studio was cleaned and not the 1-bedroom part of the lock off. We know how wonderful Disney IT is.

Denise in MI

Remove the word 'daily' from my quote, my mistake and I believe it is correct. I think or was under the assumption that all rooms were checked my someone before they were released to the front desk. If not each room then a random sample I hope. In either case, these problems should not be occurring with the frequency they seem to be happening...smjj

 

[rlmas]

Just a few thoughts. We had a fairly bad experience with BLT recently that involved torn pillows, stained couch cushions, badly abused furniture that looks to be lesser quality than in the Contemporary rooms, scratched doors caused by a cheap lock mechanism for the bathroom. The cynical side of me says WDW is doing les to maintain the villas, but sill charging DVC (us) the same amount. So we are already paying for better, just not getting it. The other part of me looks at Disney and their reputation and wants to believe that it isn't that way. I did speak with Member Satisfaction and they were very prompt and assured me the issues would be communicated to the general manager of the Contemporary. I also received an e-mail inviting me to take a survey, which I did. It was very detailed and allowed for very specific comments. If they did not care, why would they do the survey. I understand that each resort has specific goals regarding these surveys and a poor one has consequences. Since becoming a memb in 2005' we have spent many, many nights with DVC and this has been the only problem so far. I hope we do not experience this again anytime soon though.

 

[dianeschlicht]

Perhaps a standard sheet slipped under the door at the end of the stay could help folk to remember to report issues while they're there looking at them. The sheet could have a spot to report issues and be left on the counter or turned in at the front desk, whichever the guest feels more comfortable with. We don't have anything like that already do we?

I like this idea, and I've often wondered why DVC didn't have some sort of check list like that. Many timeshares do or used to.

 

[normr]

Definitely cheaped out on the refurb at OKW in my opinion, I am not happy with the cheap mattress on the the sleeper sofa and the slab they call the king size bed in the one bedroom.

If you're going to replace the mattress foundation with a wooden platform, then you need to upgrade the mattress, I am not happy waking up in pain every day on vacation.

 

[eliza61]

The problem I always have with these discussions is getting a meaningful grasp on the problem. Unquestionably these sorts of reports are embarrassing and I would be very upset to walk into a room that obviously was not cleaned, to find dirty dishes in the cupboard or a horribly mangled sofabed.

But anyone who has worked a day in their life--particularly in management--knows that 100% quality assurance is not obtainable. You can have the best procedures in the world yet Mr. Murphy has a way of intervening. Could be a careless housekeeper--the manager can't be all places at all times. When rooms are inspected, I doubt managers consistently pull out sofabeds, check the cleanliness of all dishes or run the shower to see how it drains. If they did that, we'd be lucky to gain access to our rooms by 8pm.

Even bad guest behavior has a trickle-down effect. Legally hotels cannot simply lock guests out of their rooms or otherwise evict them at 11am so late departures cause a havoc. Unexpected damage to the room, smoking, etc. (Charging guests for these offenses is an option and certainly a debatable topic. But even if Disney was more aggressive in policing such activity, it wouldn't help the arriving guest who expects a spotless villa by 4pm.)

Ultimately we really don't know how often things like this happen. But considering the small number of reports here, the 4000+ villas / 30,000 total rooms at WDW alone and my own personal experiences (which tend to be good), I'm not inclined to think that there is a huge problem brewing.

The spreadsheets and cross-checks you mention--those are already in place. Disney isn't new at this. LOL in my opinion that makes the shoddiness even worse. You would think that for as long as they've been at this, this minor clitches would not be so catastrophic! What we're really talking about is putting yet ANOTHER layer of cross-check / verification in place. MORE supervisor eyeballs watching the housekeepers do their jobs. Administrative people to evaluate villas between guests and charge back for any damages. That's where management really has to make informed decisions and evaluate how much additional money--our money--they would spend to reduce their mistakes by (what appears to be) a relatively small amount.

Believe me Tim, I definitely understand about that, but I still believe Disney is operating at the very low end of good quality control and quality management.

It's funny how different people can view the same thing differently. LOL

Bad guest are nothing new. As you say disney has been in this business too long to not be able to handle horrible guest. IMO, that is what seperates the Big boys for the motel 6's.

See the problem for me is that Disney routinely and consistently suffers from these problems. Especially for a lot of the issues they are predictable and preventable. Sure Mr. Murphy rears his ugly head but you absolutely can track the % of bad guest you get annually. Once again we're not talking space travel. Your hotel holds X amount of people, uses X amount of resources. You can quantify (within a good margin) how much your % of bad guest cost you in time and money and then you put in systems to mitigate that. A excellently run hotel, timeshare, restaurant would not even blink an eye if Charlie Sheen came and trashed the place.

Come on. why the heck is a previous guest smoking "unexpected"? Really? in this day and age, disney can't possible mitagate against some one breaking the rules. From the day they banned smoking in a room, there should be some thing in place to get that room hosed down and disinfected in a nanosecond. Sorry Tim, I've been in this business way to long. Disney is the only major hospitality company that will use such piss poor excuses.

That's pretty much why I no longer recommend dvc. For what's out there in the market, the offerings from other timeshare markets, the only thing that keeps disney competitive is the fact that it's located at a prime vacation destination.

As far as quality control on their villas, they are consistently at the bottom. That isn't the result of "unexpected" or "one time" events, thats the result of system wide policies that concentrate on doing things as cheaply as humanly possible. No one expects 100% guarantees.

I do admit that I've never had many complaints but that's also partly because I lower my expectations when I go to the world. I no longer expect every thing to be spotless. In fact 9/10 the balcony will look like heck. If I get to my villa and my rug is filthy, I pretty much chalk it up to "this is disney". Arriving and finding food in the fridge or dirty dishes wouldn't surprise me one bit at all. So now, not only do I not expect it to be spotless, I'm pretty happy if its not disgusting. That is probably the saddest part.

 

[TisBit]

Yes, but you are talking about a couple hundred Mousekeepers spread among those 3000-4000 units so the scope is much smaller per individual. Realistically most of the checks would be blatantly obvious during the course of a competent cleaning (ex. water backing up in the shower, broken bed, etc). The others could be done in less than 5 minutes, including recording issues for further review later.

They could easily write down any problems on a standardized form, submit them to their supervisor (and maintenance if needed) and then have the resort manager copied on any issues for later follow-up. It isn't rocket science, it's about accountability and the current lack of it. Their approach lately seems to be that if they find a problem they ignore it or just stop cleaning that area.

I don't doubt that this is done for the majority of issues, but there is no way for the housekeeper to report the problem and submit it before the room is "ready" for the next guest. I have been in rooms on more than one occasion that maintenance has shown up to fix things that I did not report. I am sure that these go into a master list of maintenance and when the crew is not responding to guest complaints, they are working through these lists. So, sometimes these basic checklist items are waiting to be corrected.

Case in point, if housekeeping comes into a villa and the living room light is blown out. They make a note to be submitted about the problem when they get back to the office. In the meantime they dial the phone and report the room "ready" to the computer system (this is usually an automated system, so they don't have to tell someone, but call a number and it logs the room in). You as the guest than get a page about 30 minutes later giving you the room number and you go to your villa. You walk in and turn on the light, to find the bulb blown. You pick up the phone and call maintenance and think...man I can't believe the housekeeper didn't note that. In the meantime the housekeeper is right down the hall cleaning another villa and hasn't had a chance to report it. When they get back and report it, maintenance is already aware and responding to the guest complaint.

On the other hand, if it is something obscure, like a leaking bathroom faucet that you haven't used yet. Maintenance may show up later that day or usually the next day and say they are here to switch out the faucet or correct a problem you didn't even report, but was already reported by the housekeeper (or sometimes by the previous guest and maintenance needed to order parts, etc).

The problem I always have with these discussions is getting a meaningful grasp on the problem. Unquestionably these sorts of reports are embarrassing and I would be very upset to walk into a room that obviously was not cleaned, to find dirty dishes in the cupboard or a horribly mangled sofabed.

But anyone who has worked a day in their life--particularly in management--knows that 100% quality assurance is not obtainable. You can have the best procedures in the world yet Mr. Murphy has a way of intervening. Could be a careless housekeeper--the manager can't be all places at all times. When rooms are inspected, I doubt managers consistently pull out sofabeds, check the cleanliness of all dishes or run the shower to see how it drains. If they did that, we'd be lucky to gain access to our rooms by 8pm.

The problem could be a system error which results in a room being released before ready. There have been situations where departing guests returned to their room and made a mess apparently after housekeeping had been there.

Very good points and something that I always go back to. There is a difference between a problem at a room and a systematic problem at a resort. Some resorts might have a very bad housekeeping director, which is passed down through the supervisors to the employees, resulting in the job just not being done. This is why it is important to report major problems, to document if it is systematic of the resort or specific housekeeper.

But as you so pointed out, no employee will ever be 100%, 100% of the time. Systems are in place, but they just cannot take every room out of service or have large teams of maintenance/housekeepers working through the resort making everything perfect.