Do you guys tip your mousekeepers?

[G8r4evr]

I dont tip....and I sleep just fine at night =) Now if housekeeping was clearly defined as a tipped position, sure I would, but as far as I know, it is not.

 

[bicker]

I used to tip until I had a conversation with the GM of the BoardWalk Resort and learned that the housekeepers at Disney aren't tipped employees. I later learned that this is the case at most of the West Coast-based (Marriott, Westin, etc., and of course Disney, which had its first hotel in Anaheim CA) hotel chains in the country -- that tipping housekeepers at hotels is strictly an East Coast-based (Hilton, Sheraton, etc.) concept. That's being made a lot more complicated since there have been some very notable mergers of East Coast-based and West Coast-based hotel chains (Westin and Sheraton, for example). So now I look for clues from the hotel management to determine which operating principles the housekeeping department is structured under.

 

[Gillian]

We leave the tip in the morning for the person who will be cleaning that day. It's not because we got good service the day before, it's just an advanced thank you for taking care of us. I have always left cash on the sink ($5 for 4 people). It's never there when we come back to the room.

If we had bad service I'd call the housekeeping manager (never been an issue for us at Disney, luckily). The tip money is separate.

Last time at POP, I don't know if we got better cleaning than people who didn't tip, but by the end of the week we started seeing the same housekeepers around the halls and they were very friendly. We were getting extra soaps and had more towels than we knew what to do with! I would guess that the tip money, plus friendlyness on our part, really made a difference to them.

 

[Gillian]

We stayed at a cheap hotel when we went to Disneyland. We stayed 3 nights and no one ever did any housekeeping. No new towels, no emptying of trash, etc. Therefore no tip.

This is a different issue from tipping! Someone wasn't doing their job at all. I would have complained big time. But nicely, LOL.

When you stay at Pop Century they will clean your room every day. If for some reason they can't (you're in it most of the day and don't want to be disturbed or decline housekeeping), they will hang a bag of clean towels and soap/shampoo on your door. They do this for all the uncleaned rooms at the same time of day, maybe 4 or 5.

If you know you're going to be back to the room early in the day for some reason, you can call housekeeping and request early cleaning (say, before noon) and they should do their best to do this. That's really more of an issue when you have little kids, or an unusual situation.

 

[ReneeA]

We tip $3 per day. As long as Mousekeeping is doing a good job (and we've never had any complaints).

 

[wilda]

We always leave a tip. If we know that we are going to be high-maintenance (refresh the ice bucket, extra towels, etc) we usually give them $10-20 the first day and another $20 or so on the last day. This happens more on a cruise than a Disney property. Otherwise, we leave the money on the desk the day we check out.
I can't be bothered to remember to leave the money out every day. We tried that once about 10 years ago and forgot one day. I stressed the whole day thinking that housekeeping was worried that she/he did something wrong and that's why they didn't receive a tip that day. I don't normally bother with an envelope either. IMO that increases the risk that the money could be accidentally thrown out.

 

[gardenia]

Tips reward and encourage good service and it's not like these folks are making much, if any, over minimum wage.

Minimum wage in Florida is now $6.79. Mousekeepers have salaried, union positions that start around $11.50 an hour. Don't encourage the myth that mousekeepers are like indentured slaves - they are probably thrilled to have a good union job. Tipping is okay, but Disney doesn't want anyone to HAVE to tip housekeeping to get good service. You're supposed to get good housekeeping regardless.

 

[shellybaxter]

I'm curious about something from the posters who don't tip mousekeeping because they aren't "tipped" positions being paid a sub minimum wage. If you travel to California do you tip your restaurant servers? California has no sub-minimum wage and pays its servers minimum or better. It is still custormary to tip here even though servers are paid by the same rules as everyone else. I'm curious how non-tippers of non-tipped position feel about that?

 

[srgibbs]

We plan to tip and have stayed at POR and FQ on more than 1 occasion. I print up the envelopes and add money daily. This past trip POFQ (Fall) was dirty everywhere we went and our room was no exception. The bathrooms in the lobby were overflowing with trash and you could hardly get a clean table in the food court. We left a tip the first few days and quit b/c our room was just not getting cleaned. The bare minimum was being done. When I was in college I waited tables so I'm no stranger to tips but I'm sorry tipping is for good service and is a bonus not a requirement. I was not asking for towel animals just a room that had been cleaned well. If your getting good service and a clean room by all means tip but don't just leave tips all week if your not getting your room cleaned properly.

 

[ntsammy5]

We got into a heated argument at work about this. I'm in the habit of tipping $1 per day per person. It's something I feel comfortable doing. I was surprised, though, that I seem to be in the minority. Very few of the people, who all travel extensively on business, tip at all, and they refused to believe that many people do leave a tip. Hmmmmmmm. I was very surprised.

 

[JB2K]

I typically do not tip for basic housekeeping services, as increased employee wages is always part of the justification when Disney and other high-brow lodging operations raise their rates, every year.

But then again, I typically do not stay at a Disney O&O resort* where, depsite what Disney corporate says about housekeepers being in a "non-tipping" position, some people are still going to do it simply because it has a cute nickname, and it's fun to make tip envelopes as part of the trip-planning process.

Now before I get flamed, I am just being realistic. Consider this -- does anyone here send-out tips to the cabin cleaning crew (read: dirty bathrooms) and the people who pump-out the toilets after your flight to/from MCO?

Ridiculous as it may sound, you could give a sealed envelope addressed to either crew and hand it to the gate services supervisor for your airline, as you board/disembark your plane.

IMHO, aircraft cleaners/lavatory service truck operators have a far dirtier job than any hotel housekeeper, and their pay is only about $10 an hour.

*CAVEATS - I normally stay at Shades of Green, where their staff are Non-Appropriated Fund employees (they are working for a government-run operation (in this case, the Army), but not being paid with our tax dollars - their wages come from the military's Morale, Welfare, and Recreation fund, of which I routinely contribute to in other ways).

As for my take on tipping, if someone in my party has created extraordinary circumstances which require what I would call a "non-routine" level of cleaning (for those of you with small kids, you can use your imagination on this one), I would then tip appropriately according to the degree of the mess we made.

 

[clownfish1452]

5 dollars a day for two people. Last year our mousekeeper was so nice. We had decored the evolopes all nice for her and on our last day she left us a bunch of towel animals, a gift and a nice thank you note. My favorite was one day we came back and found one of the beds made and one a mess with stitch sitting on it.

Sarah

I will try to post a picture of it.

 

[keylimepie]

I always try to tip...When we went to Cancun on our honeymoon, all inclusive, you werent supposed to tip the bar staff and so forth. Most people didnt. We always did, and it made a huge difference. Your drinks were stronger, you got them quicker, and they always came around to make sure you were well taken care of. Its amazing what a couple dollars tip can do to help you enjoy your stay more. I cnat recall if we tipped housekeeping there or not...Either way, we prob will here because i have found that the better the tip, the better the service. When we are splurging thousands of dollars on a trip, why go cheap in this regard?

 

[keylimepie]

Wanted to add that of course you expect good service, tip or not. But I think the tip encourages the little extras that can make the trip more enjoyable. Not always, of course, but I personally would give more effort to a room I was tipped in than one I wasn't. The base level service to the room I wasnt tipped in, and a little extra effort into the one I was.

 

[maxiesmom]

I do tip, usually $1 per person per day. But during our last trip to Disney, I did have the maid not take the tip. Not sure if she just forgot, or what was going on.

 

[MsStinkerBelle]

5 dollars a day for two people. Last year our mousekeeper was so nice. We had decored the evolopes all nice for her and on our last day she left us a bunch of towel animals, a gift and a nice thank you note. My favorite was one day we came back and found one of the beds made and one a mess with stitch sitting on it.

We had this same thing happen with our mousekeeper at the AKL! We came back to see my sister's clothes drawer looking 'messed up' with my DD8's baby Stitch looking as if he had done it. Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of it. Another day we came back to see Stitch controlling the remote and all of her plushes watching TV.

I usually tip $5 per day for mousekeeping but that's just my personal preference. My daughter likes to decorate the envelopes. Our mousekeepers always seem to have our rooom looking so nice and take the time out to pose my DD's plush Disney babies and other plushes she's bought from the parks. One day we had the DND sign on the door and didn't leave our room until late afternoon. We came back to find out we'd been given 'turndown service' without even asking.

And before anyone mentions this may be partial to deluxe resorts, we tipped at Pop and they did an awesome job. We didn't get towel animals but they arranged all of my daughter's 'plushes'.

 

[nicolemm]

There are 4 of us, we leave $5. a day, usually $10 on the last day, if they did a good job all week. I fill envelopes with the money throughout the planning days, label them for each day, pack it in my bags and don't even have to worry about it when I get there. Plus it is an exta $50 or so that you don't realize you are spending!

 

[lilyv]

We always tip-$5.00/day for two people.

I can never figure out why this is an issue...if you want to, do, if it's not your thing, don't.

 

[Kevin355]

We always left $5 every day. When we would come back, we would find towel animals...ducks or rabbits, on the beds. If you leave one tip at the end of the week, the Mousekeepers that cleaned your rooms may not get the tips.

 

[libinatorsmom]

We are tipping the mousekeepers!!!! My daughter and I made envelopes already and have the $$$ in them... I put her in charge of them... and they are in her suitcase... (shes 4) I totally think it is worth it they are cleaning the room where you sleep and I am hoping with a little incentive it will get that little extra touch and thought put to it... we are going to be tipping 3 or 4 dollars a day and will probably put a little extra in the last day if we get really GREAT service...