Check-in/Check-out vs. Dues

[KNWVIKING]

Maybe this should be a "yes"-"no" type poll,but I'll keep it to a question for now. We all know there is a 5 hour gap between check-out & check-in times in which the housekeeping staff has to clean all the rooms. Would you be willing to pay more dues to have more cleaning staff if it meant check-out at 12:00 and check-in at 3:00. I don't now what this increase would be but I'm thinking 0.05 to 0.10 pp. In my case that would be 17.50 - 37.00 increase. We do four trips a year. While check in times aren't real important to me,I would like an extra hour to check out in the morning. Using the higher figure that would mean 8.25 per trip for an extra hr in the morning-money well spent in my opinion. I do realize there are members with more points who only go once a year so that extra hour would be considerably more costly. Just curious to know the general group consensus.

 

[RobDoc]

I'm not sure the math is accurate here. I would think it would cost far more than .10 per point to add enough staff to shorten the housekeeping time from 5 hours to 3 hours as you are proposing. I'd assume more along the lines of .20- .30 per point. It would take an increase of 60% extra staff to accomplish in 3 hours what now takes 5 hours.

The extra 2 hours of staff would need to be paid whatever the hourly rate is for that position, plus the extra employment tax costs, pension, health benefits, etc that go with it. I'd place the hourly cost at more like $20 per hour- per housekeeper.

All WDW resorts have an 11:00am check out at this time. All but the All Stars have an after 3:00pm check-in.

For a member who makes 4 trips per year, the actual cost of the extra labor might cost the resort about $160 for those extra hours- regardless how many points the member may have. The extra cleaning is based on the number of checkouts made by each member- not the length of the stay.

 

[Chuck S]

No, I would NOT support a dues increase to pay for 1 extra hour of resort time before check-out or an hour earlier check-in. Most folks go ahead and check-in and either leave their stuff in the car or with bell services until the room is ready. If you fly out of MCO anytime before 1:30 pm you'll need to leave your room by 11am anyway for airport security.

 

[KNWVIKING]

Part of my thinking Doc was that during weekdays housekeeping probably doesn't need 5 hrs to accomplish this,only on hi turnover days, but WDW wouldn't have staggered check-in/out times for various days.Without knowing the total numbers manhours it takes to accomplish this now it's difficult to determine if they need 5 extra staff or 25. With the recent rash of negative threads concerning checkin/out times, I was more interested in knowing if people were willing to improve the situation by paying more dues.

 

[PamOKW]

This is certainly an interesting idea but I tend to agree with Doc that the cost would be far more prohibitive. Cleaning a 2-beroom or a GV is equal to cleaning a full size home. I'm not sure it could be accomplished in 3 hours (actually less) without having at least 2 and probably 3 people working for a good portion of that time. I also don't think you could pay housekeeping staff for fewer hours so they would have a lot of "down time" waiting for people to check-out.

As to whether I personally would be interested --- no. Late check-out is not of real interest. I would like to be able to check-in when I arrive, but not at an increased cost.

 

[Dean]

In some ways DVC is better off than many timeshares. While their overall total housekeeping budget is higher due to the flexibility of the system, it's a pretty steady rate allowing for a consistent number of staff from day to day and season to season. Compare that to say a hotel in a very seasonal resort where the needs may vary by as much as several times from low to high season. There will never be enough staff do this in 3 hours anyway. Remember than only a potion of the rooms have to be cleaned on any one day. Also some are gotten to early as guests check out at different times. I'm not sure what times they get started for real but would assume it's around 9 am. My guess is they don't get much of a lunch break either.

Marriott at HH has taken to bringing up a group from Jamaica for the summer high season because of the difficulty of getting good people at a reasonable cost. It has worked well and apparently there's a shortage of "blue collar" workers in that area.

Besides, DVC is not that different from the rules at most any other hotel.

 

[jcodespoti]

Good question. My answer though is no. If we get in befor the 4:00 check-in time we check in maybe dop off our stuff then hit the parks or do something and then come back when we are ready. I tell the front desk as well that it doesn't matter if we check in at 5 or 6 pm. I think they like to know. To us it does't matter.

Joe in CT

 

[KNWVIKING]

Check in time is never an issue for us either,but I don't like feeling rushed to be out by 11:00. On our last nite we tend to stay up late and like to sleep in. There is only so much packing you can do the night before and after getting showered,finishing the packing,etc, it doesn't leave much of a chance to enjoy one last cup of coffee while sitting out on the balcony. We drive,so we're not on a departure time table as another poster mentioned having to get to the airport. Maybe if additional housekeeping isn't an option,possibly a fee based system would work,provided it was reasonable.

 

[Maistre Gracey]

Not a bad idea, but I am not sure how the labor costs would work.
Initially I would think hiring more housekeepers would cost lots, but now the housekeepers that are working full time would have their hours cut; possibly to part time. Would this actually be an increase in labor cost? How would this effect their benefits ect... Would it be the proper thing to do to cut the full time housekeepers hours?

Just a thought....

 

[SimbaNoodle]

I don't understand most peoples obsession with checking in. I have made two DVC trips since joining. My family and I drive from Mobile, AL. and always arrive after 10 pm and we have never failed to receive a great room. I think people would enjoy themselves more if they would relax and not stress about so much before they ever arrive.

Just a different perspective from a new member.

 

[Werner Weiss]

Please keep in mind that many housekeepers work full time -- probably 8 AM until 4:45 PM, or something along those lines. They start cleaning before the official check-out time because some guests check out early in the morning. The current check-out and check-in times allow full-timers to be productive all day long. If guests could stay till noon, but all rooms had to be ready by 3 PM, it would take an army of part-timers.

 

[disnefile]

I have no problems with the check in or check out times. I would not pay a dime to have the room longer. Just get up earlier or pack the night before. People that want to stay after 11 should pay extra.

 

[jsinohio]

I'm curious about one thing......how does housekeeping know when you've vacated the room As someone pointed out earlier, unless you've got a late flight out of MCO or you're driving and desire to depart late, I suspect a lot of people vacate their rooms early. It seems that if housekeeping was notified of these vacancies, maybe the turnaround time for check-in could be improved. Somewhere, sometime, I've seen some sort of notice asking me to call housekeeping when I left the room. If it is indeed at DVC, they've done a bad job of communicating it. However, I can't remember if that was at another hotel or at dvc In an attempt to stay on topic, I would not be supportive of a dues increase for this flexiblity unless it turned out to be in the less than .10 range, which I think is doubtful.

 

[ClarabelleCow]

Upon leaving OKW in November, I called the front desk and asked if we could have a late check out, they said I could have an additional hour, but after that , I would have to pay for an additional day!!!We were out in time so it wasn't an issue.

 

[dianeschlicht]

The DVC check-in/check-out times are pretty consistant with the timeshare industry as a whole. I say we get used to it and live by it!

 

[crisi]

It might be worthwhile to add wireless PDAs to the housekeeping carts so that housekeeping could flag rooms as clean in real time - and the front desk could mark rooms as priority (and as vacant, if we let them know when we were out). You'd loose efficiency if housekeeping skipped all over the villas cleaning - but if it meant doing the room across the hall first, or moving down the hall one direction over another, it wouldn't have an impact on housekeeping times, and could make a difference in check in times.

I'm guessing that this would not be too expensive to do. And could even be done in such a fashion where the housekeepers were given a color coded map (red - clean as soon as possible, green - no need to clean or already cleaned, yellow - available to clean, flashing red - get a housekeeper up there immediately) and wouldn't need computer (or English) skills.

 

[dianeschlicht]

We usually have our bags packed by 8 am and put in the trunk of our rental car. Then we go to the parks for the day and head back to OKW to pick up our rental car and head for the airport in time for our early eveing flight. It is a traditional way for us to end our WDW trips, and we have a regular routine of where we go on that last day. We get most things packed up the night before when we finish up the dirty laundry so we don't have to pack dirty clothes. Love those in room laundrys! WE usually pack pretty light because of the laundry too!

 

[CRobin]

Originally posted by crisi
It might be worthwhile to add wireless PDAs to the housekeeping carts so that housekeeping could flag rooms as clean in real time

Actually, I think they have something like this in place (at least at OKW) but maybe the process isn't working.

On our last visit home, I was resting in the room on T&T day. Housekeeping showed up, did their T&T routine, and then picked up my room phone, and keyed in a code. I assumed this was some type of signal that the room had been cleaned. I guess I thought they did the same thing on regular cleaning to advise that the room was ready.

Maybe not.

 

[Mattsmom]

If the cost was around what the OP estimated, I'd be O.K. with it. It's not something I've need so far, but maybe in the future it would come in handy.

 

[tiffany123]

We try to help Mousekeeping as much as possible. We pick up after ourselves and leave the room as clean as possible. If we check out early in the morning, we always either call and let housekeeping know that we're out of the room or stop by the front desk and let them know. We feel this little effort helps others get their rooms more quickly. We feel the check out and check in times are more than fair and have no desire to pay extra fees for housekeeping.