Do Not Disturb Gone! (BLT)

[davper]

I spoke with my friend who teaches Constitutional law at Harvard. She told me that this is an issue outside of Governmental Jurisdiction. It's private property. Its contractual between you as a consenting adult and a private party. The terms are in the contract (terms and agreements). Period. The only rights you have are statutory i.e. the laws governing the State of Florida as they pertain to activities that are illegal and your rights therein. Any other law that applies to your Constitutional rights on private property would have to be by an act of Congress i.e. discrimination for example or handicap mandates for example. Basically its private property and they can do essentially anything the hell they like provided they notify you prior ...in the form of contract. There is some movement afoot to force the contracts to be more VISABLE..but as of now they are buried in the fine print. No party can be held liable and all contracts are void if whats in a contract is illegal..ie you must be 18 to enter into a binding agreement...or if the contact says you must agree to engage in illegalities...it would then be null and void. Disney can do anything they want..including placing cameras and microphones in your room if they notify you via a contact. Hope that helps.

PS I would imagine that if you blocked their entry or refused to open the door to them they would return with managerial personnel and probably local law inforcement and at that juncture it would be obvious who they were (through the peephole).. I just don't see this as being a realistic concern for anyone on these boards. I just don't see how it would come down to that.

And thanks to SCOTUS, corporations can extinguish your constitutional rights in the fine print. So the 4th amendment that prevents illegal search and your 7th amendment right to sue in a trial by jury is trimmed away because Disney says so in the fine print.

 

[davper]

I apologize if this has already been covered but are the Disney Springs area hotels a part of this nonsense?

If you mean the non-Disney hotels, then no, they are not following the same exact policy. But they may have one that is similar. The other hotel groups have policies in place now where they do welfare checks if you have your DND sign up for a day or more.

 

[dizanimator]

I don't really like this idea. It invades privacy while seeming to provide no security benefit at all. The only way to really be sure there are no weapons or ammunition is to check everywhere they could reasonably be kept, and I'm not sure a right to enter the room automatically includes a right to search closed luggage. I think it would be interesting to have a motion-activated video camera in the room to see what a security inspection looks like when the inspector doesn't know there's an audience.
I also think that there needs to be a way to communicate a need for quiet, not just a guest in the room. So that quiet methods of requesting entry can be used first, like text messages or silently putting a message on the room's phone. Then if the sign is still there and no communication from the room for several hours they could move to knocking. Also, if calling the front desk encouraged, make it work like the actual front desk was called, not a call center that may or may not communicate properly with the resort.
I also am curious about what happens if a minor is alone in the room when a resort requests a security check. Would the lawyers really like the appearance of a strange adult forcing him or herself into a room with a minor? As far as I know, on Disney cruises the stateroom hosts are not allowed to enter a stateroom with an unattended minor. So why would being on land be any different?
I just see many issues with this policy, and the fact that having a dog in the room seems to suspend it makes me irritated. Someone can have a dog in the room and not be disturbed, but because I have no dog in my room I have no right to privacy at all? I wonder what would happen if I displayed a "Quiet Please, Figaro is Napping" sign. How loud would the knocking get?

 

[marikujawa]

And thanks to SCOTUS, corporations can extinguish your constitutional rights in the fine print. So the 4th amendment that prevents illegal search and your 7th amendment right to sue in a trial by jury is trimmed away because Disney says so in the fine print.

The 4th amendment applies only to intrusions by governmental entities and those acting as their agents. It would never apply to Disney regardless of the Supreme Court ruling you mentioned.

 

[Tinkerbell2017]

I'm going in April, November and December. I have no problem with this new policy. Disney wouldn't put a policy in place that will cause a storm. Maybe there will be a few hiccoughs but overall I doubt I'll even notice. I'm be back to share my experiences.

 

[hereforthechurros]

I spoke with my friend who teaches Constitutional law at Harvard. She told me that this is an issue outside of Governmental Jurisdiction. It's private property. Its contractual between you as a consenting adult and a private party. The terms are in the contract (terms and agreements). Period. The only rights you have are statutory i.e. the laws governing the State of Florida as they pertain to activities that are illegal and your rights therein. Any other law that applies to your Constitutional rights on private property would have to be by an act of Congress i.e. discrimination for example or handicap mandates for example. Basically its private property and they can do essentially anything the hell they like provided they notify you prior ...in the form of contract. There is some movement afoot to force the contracts to be more VISABLE..but as of now they are buried in the fine print. No party can be held liable and all contracts are void if whats in a contract is illegal..ie you must be 18 to enter into a binding agreement...or if the contact says you must agree to engage in illegalities...it would then be null and void. Disney can do anything they want..including placing cameras and microphones in your room if they notify you via a contact. Hope that helps.

PS I would imagine that if you blocked their entry or refused to open the door to them they would return with managerial personnel and probably local law inforcement and at that juncture it would be obvious who they were (through the peephole).. I just don't see this as being a realistic concern for anyone on these boards. I just don't see how it would come down to that.

Thank you for this. There's fact and opinion and they live in two separate columns. The fact is WDW can do whatever they want per their contract (your room rental agreement). Agreeing or not agreeing with it is the opinion, and changes nothing. I don't imagine this being an issue for the masses whatsoever but as @tim123 has stated again and again you do have the choice of where you choose to spend your vacation dollars. However you cannot (or should not) check into WDW full well knowing their rules and then being upset when said rules are followed.

 

[marikujawa]

What isn’t mentioned here but has been elsewhere is that housekeeping is now going to do trash and recycling every day for points stays.

Which is also unwelcome to many of us.



I’m upset about this because I’ve seen how housekeeping works. They put a cart in front of an open door while they are in the next room with the door closed. They’ve been doing this for years, at all the Wdw resorts I’ve been to, and even at the Grand Californian.

When people notice theft from their rooms, IMO it’s generally from someone taking advantage of this stupid way of doing things, and not the housekeepers who keycard in and whose bosses know where they are.

My husband works in the field engineering department for kindle and beyond. He OFTEN travels with a ton of electronics, many of them prototypes, to test during trips or to test before or after vacation trips. He canNOT have those stolen. He and his coworkers have protocols for tsa where the security agent is in front of them asking to see more. Those protocols cannot be followed if he’s not in the hotel room. The safes are not big enough. So we almost never get housekeeping anywhere.

He will have to get fully locking luggage (and a quick YouTube will solve that issue for a thief) and try to lock it all down. And how will that look???

This is ridiculous and impossible.




No I’m not. We don’t invite them in.

Having to pick up my son’s underwear or my bras and hide the electronics etc is obnoxious to us, and we don’t like it. We don’t make our beds every day at home and we don’t need new towels.

We don’t have housekeeping come in. We have never had a single-Dvc-resort stay long enough to get full housekeeping bc we have split stays, and we reject trash and towel service.



And hotels have ALWAYS had the right to send security or *a manager* into any room for security, safety, or concern for first reasons. They had the right with that guy.

It’s not the place of a housekeeper to act as security. Especially given the atrocious lack of security in the way housekeepers work.



Yes. With everything.



Yep.



Agreed.



Yeah well good luck keeping that level of security! You’ll be up next no doubt.

If I felt that strongly about it I would definitely stay somewhere other than a Disney resort.

 

[fla4fun]

I am checking out of Pop tomorrow morning after an 11 day stay. I was very anxious about the idea someone could barge in, and thought I would share my experience.

According to the front desk, who I spoke to in person not on the phone, they told me housekeepers were the only ones allowed to access the room when the sign was displayed, and maintenance or anyone else could not. The whole reason I was asking them about it was I had a maintenance issue and when I called it in, they said I would need to be present when maintenance arrived. So I put up the Room Occupied sign to let them know I was there. Then I got a call that maintenance was outside and couldn’t knock because the sign was up. That made me curious enough to stop and ask about it.

Even though housekeeping is allowed access anytime, no one knocked or attempted to enter the room prior to my taking down the sign around noon each day. I believe that one day no one accessed the room, as housekeeping did not service it and there was no evidence anyone else had been in.

I do not know if each resort is setting their own criteria and procedures to follow regarding this, but it didn’t affect my trip much at all, for which I am very thankful.

 

[tim123]

I don't really like this idea. It invades privacy while seeming to provide no security benefit at all. The only way to really be sure there are no weapons or ammunition is to check everywhere they could reasonably be kept, and I'm not sure a right to enter the room automatically includes a right to search closed luggage. I think it would be interesting to have a motion-activated video camera in the room to see what a security inspection looks like when the inspector doesn't know there's an audience.
I also think that there needs to be a way to communicate a need for quiet, not just a guest in the room. So that quiet methods of requesting entry can be used first, like text messages or silently putting a message on the room's phone. Then if the sign is still there and no communication from the room for several hours they could move to knocking. Also, if calling the front desk encouraged, make it work like the actual front desk was called, not a call center that may or may not communicate properly with the resort.
I also am curious about what happens if a minor is alone in the room when a resort requests a security check. Would the lawyers really like the appearance of a strange adult forcing him or herself into a room with a minor? As far as I know, on Disney cruises the stateroom hosts are not allowed to enter a stateroom with an unattended minor. So why would being on land be any different?
I just see many issues with this policy, and the fact that having a dog in the room seems to suspend it makes me irritated. Someone can have a dog in the room and not be disturbed, but because I have no dog in my room I have no right to privacy at all? I wonder what would happen if I displayed a "Quiet Please, Figaro is Napping" sign. How loud would the knocking get?

If they put it in their "terms and agreements" it would allow them to do exactly that.
They can't do a body cavity search on you by putting it in the contact. That would be sexual assault by statutory law.
Short of that from what I'm told by my friend who taught law to half the Supreme Court and to the last couple of Presidents they can do just about anything they please as long as its not illegal and its in writing prior.
I value my privacy. I won't give Disney a dine anymore.
Thats your ONLY recourse.
Most guests will be totally unaffected by this policy or only minorly inconvenienced.
I'm pretty sure Disney weighed the ups and downs of this legal/$$ move and gave it the green light knowing people will continue to jam their parks well into the foreseeable future. The unbelievable amount of people (and the quality/deveristy) in the parks year round in the last few years is a testament to where all this is headed. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

 

[maxiesmom]

Yep. It really is that easy. So I don't want to hear one more person say "just use the latch".

I don't see anyone who works at WDW using paper to break into a latched room. So yeah, use the latch.

 

[gottaluvPluto]

I am checking out of Pop tomorrow morning after an 11 day stay. I was very anxious about the idea someone could barge in, and thought I would share my experience.

According to the front desk, who I spoke to in person not on the phone, they told me housekeepers were the only ones allowed to access the room when the sign was displayed, and maintenance or anyone else could not. The whole reason I was asking them about it was I had a maintenance issue and when I called it in, they said I would need to be present when maintenance arrived. So I put up the Room Occupied sign to let them know I was there. Then I got a call that maintenance was outside and couldn’t knock because the sign was up. That made me curious enough to stop and ask about it.

Even though housekeeping is allowed access anytime, no one knocked or attempted to enter the room prior to my taking down the sign around noon each day. I believe that one day no one accessed the room, as housekeeping did not service it and there was no evidence anyone else had been in.

I do not know if each resort is setting their own criteria and procedures to follow regarding this, but it didn’t affect my trip much at all, for which I am very thankful.

I was on the phone with the Disney reservations yesterday to solve some problems I am having with my up coming stay and talked to him about this issue. The CM stated that an email went out to explain the "rights" of a guest and why they are doing the security checks along with policy and procedures. Anyway, he stated that the guest have a right when they are in the room not to have anyone come in. If the employee demands to enter you should call the front desk right away and get a manager.

 

[Robn752]

The CM stated that an email went out to explain the "rights" of a guest and why they are doing the security checks along with policy and procedures. Anyway, he stated that the guest have a right when they are in the room not to have anyone come in. If the employee demands to enter you should call the front desk right away and get a manager.

I would like to know where this is written down. This would fix (in my mind) any issues I am having with this new policy.

 

[Summer2018]

I was on the phone with the Disney reservations yesterday to solve some problems I am having with my up coming stay and talked to him about this issue. The CM stated that an email went out to explain the "rights" of a guest and why they are doing the security checks along with policy and procedures. Anyway, he stated that the guest have a right when they are in the room not to have anyone come in. If the employee demands to enter you should call the front desk right away and get a manager.

If that’s the case, that changes everything. I just don’t want to be bothered when I’m in the room. That’s all.

 

[tim123]

the guest have a right when they are in the room not to have anyone come in. If the employee demands to enter you should call the front desk right away and get a manager.

I'm not so sure you can get the front desk by phone let alone a manager.
But having them say to you "you have the right to refuse entry while you're in the room" is encouraging somewhat.
And so the saga of information and confusion continues!

 

[KrazeeK120]

I was on the phone with the Disney reservations yesterday to solve some problems I am having with my up coming stay and talked to him about this issue. The CM stated that an email went out to explain the "rights" of a guest and why they are doing the security checks along with policy and procedures. Anyway, he stated that the guest have a right when they are in the room not to have anyone come in. If the employee demands to enter you should call the front desk right away and get a manager.

Problem is, you can’t call the front desk.

 

[maxiesmom]

I was on the phone with the Disney reservations yesterday to solve some problems I am having with my up coming stay and talked to him about this issue. The CM stated that an email went out to explain the "rights" of a guest and why they are doing the security checks along with policy and procedures. Anyway, he stated that the guest have a right when they are in the room not to have anyone come in. If the employee demands to enter you should call the front desk right away and get a manager.

I'm afraid it sounds like reservations has no idea what the policy is and is making stuff up to placate someone on the phone. You would think reservations would know something basic as in you can't call the front desk from your room phone.

 

[gottaluvPluto]

I just called AKL and talked to someone there and they stated the same thing the reservation person stated. I also asked them if I could contacted the front desk using the phone in the room and they said, YES. She stated, "at all Disney resorts you can contact the front office at the resort using the phone. You will not get a person the checks you in, but you will get a person that works with them in the back room.

 

[Best Aunt]

I just called AKL and talked to someone there and they stated the same thing the reservation person stated. I also asked them if I could contacted the front desk using the phone in the room and they said, YES. She stated, "at all Disney resorts you can contact the front office at the resort using the phone. You will not get a person the checks you in, but you will get a person that works with them in the back room.

Wow, this conflicts with everything I have read on the Dis for the past 8 years. I have always read that when you call "the front desk" you are getting someone at an off-site call center.

 

[gottaluvPluto]

Wow, this conflicts with everything I have read on the Dis for the past 8 years. I have always read that when you call "the front desk" you are getting someone at an off-site call center.

Maybe if they are overwhelmed with calls it goes to a call center. I know Pizza Hut has transferred calls to a call center when the phone doesn't get answered at certain amount of rings.

 

[gottaluvPluto]

So I called Yacht Club, Poly and Boardwalk and they all stated you will get the front desk when you use the phone in the room; and that the security employee can not demand to come in the room if you don't want him/her when you are there.