DVC temporary policy rooms now between 4pm and 6pm?

[TiggerBouncy]

Just got back from AKV. We were in a 1 bedroom from 2/12-2/14 and then moved to a studio from 2/14 to 2/19. In the first one, our room was not ready until 5:30. Our flight was a bit late, so it wasn't a huge inconvenience and we only had to wait a bit. We checked out by 8am and told the front desk so they could get the room ready for the next guests hopefully early.

We asked for our room to be ready by 2pm knowing that it wouldn't be until 4pm anyway. We called to check on it at 3 since DW was not feeling well and they said they would let housekeeping know we were inquiring, but no news. We got back to the resort by 4 and checked with the front desk and she told me they have now updated the policy to say rooms ready BETWEEN 4pm to 6pm. Has anyone heard that? She was still earning her ears, so not sure if that is accurate. I have not seen any official communication.

In any case our room was still not ready. I came back at 4:30 (still sitting in the lobby) and she told me if there was not movement in the next 5 minutes they would "take action". At 5 there was still nothing, so I went back up there and she got me a clean room - so clearly they had one - just not the one they wanted to put us in.

In any case, as previously stated 1+ hours after 4pm is not an occasional thing at this point - it seems to be the regular policy - and that's a problem.

 

[Brett Wyman]

Disney is just short staffed like the rest of the country right now. We stayed in a BCV 1 Bedroom 2-11 to 2-15 and a VGF 1 Bedroom 2-15 to 2-20, and both were ready after 4 but before 5(definitely closer to 5). I think the best thing we can do right now is adjust our expectations.

Also, don't forget if you have a room request they may be holding to meet that. Nothing wrong with visiting the front desk and asking for the first available.

 

[snappy]

We used to try to choose flights to arrive around 2 pm. Gave that up. We do a car service with a curbside grocery stop so by the time we get to the resort we want to get in the room, not go to a park.

 

[chicagodisneyguy]

I wonder if the other room that was clean was assigned to someone that had a room request. If so, I wonder if Disney should pause allowing room requests until the can adequately staff cleaning. I think it makes sense to give someone standing there at 2pm the ready room versus holding that room for someone who arrives at 8pm.

 

[CarolMN]

I wonder if the other room that was clean was assigned to someone that had a room request. If so, I wonder if Disney should pause allowing room requests until the can adequately staff cleaning. I think it makes sense to give someone standing there at 2pm the ready room versus holding that room for someone who arrives at 8pm.

As the saying goes" "Damned if they do, Damned if they don't".

Might as well do whatever works best for the assigners & front desk CMs.

 

[Nappy1380]

Disney is just short staffed like the rest of the country right now. We stayed in a BCV 1 Bedroom 2-11 to 2-15 and a VGF 1 Bedroom 2-15 to 2-20, and both were ready after 4 but before 5(definitely closer to 5). I think the best thing we can do right now is adjust our expectations.

Also, don't forget if you have a room request they may be holding to meet that. Nothing wrong with visiting the front desk and asking for the first available.

This is something that personally I hate seeing as a response to poor quality/lack of service post(ish) pandemic. This isn't exclusive to Disney either. Significant reductions in quality of products in general as well as quality of service can not be excused away when also being combined with substantial price increases. At some point, accountability needs to brought back to the forefront. If you pay for X for a certain quality of product or service under agreed upon terms, then the terms need to be adhered to on the provider side.

You certainly don't see the consumer being able to take a product or service and then give 3/4 of the cost and tell the provider to lower expectations on the amount of money they expect to receive for said goods/service.

 

[thanxfornoticin]

The policy has always been check-in begins at 4PM, at least for many years. Most of the time we manage to get in early, but getting a room within an hour of check-in start doesn't seem too bad. But I understand the frustration as it approaches 2+ hours.

 

[chicagodisneyguy]

As the saying goes" "Damned if they do, Damned if they don't".

Might as well do whatever works best for the assigners & front desk CMs.

I agree. The person who gets the room at 2pm is happy but then the person who requested a view, and now doesn't get it, is upset. But I think getting into a room should trump room location requests (just my opinion).

I do think DVC in general does an amazing job of honoring requests and getting most people in their rooms by close to 4pm. We had one trip that was 530pm and it was annoying. But we've also had probably 10 trips where we were in 2pm or earlier. For me the good has outweighed the bad.

 

[TiggerBouncy]

This is something that personally I hate seeing as a response to poor quality/lack of service post(ish) pandemic. This isn't exclusive to Disney either. Significant reductions in quality of products in general as well as quality of service can not be excused away when also being combined with substantial price increases. At some point, accountability needs to brought back to the forefront. If you pay for X for a certain quality of product or service under agreed upon terms, then the terms need to be adhered to on the provider side.

You certainly don't see the consumer being able to take a product or service and then give 3/4 of the cost and tell the provider to lower expectations on the amount of money they expect tor receive for said goods/service.

This.

Also, to be clear I am not overly complaining per se. The very nice CM did give us a slight compensation, which is appreciated. Also I GET THAT THERE ARE INCREASED PROTOCOLS. They have to do a lot more now then they did before - right down to wrapping up the remotes in little baggies.

We did our part. In the 1BR, we put the dishes in the washer and left the little empty packet sticking out of the dishwasher so they knew they were cleaned. We striped the couch since we used it and put all the towels and sheets into a pile (I don't wash those as they can't use that anyway). We cleaned up everything else and left the trash in a bag ready to go.

I know they are short staffed. And I know they have increased cleaning protocols. 8 hours should be plenty of time to clean a few rooms - and I know mousekeeping is working hard - they are not just lying around. But how much hiring ARE they doing? It's been this way now for 2 years - that should be plenty of time to get it sorted out. I feel like they are just not recognizing it's an issue and IF THEY HAVE CHANGED THE POLICY, that's worse.

Then this falls on us - we as the members have to let them know what is reasonable and when they are failing. DVC won't know there is a problem and do anything about it unless we the members say something.

I guess what I am saying is if your room is not ready until significantly after 4 (I consider 5-6 being significant, but that's up to you), please give them feedback so they can act on it.

 

[PalmettoPath]

I agree. The person who gets the room at 2pm is happy but then the person who requested a view, and now doesn't get it, is upset. But I think getting into a room should trump room location requests (just my opinion).

I do think DVC in general does an amazing job of honoring requests and getting most people in their rooms by close to 4pm. We had one trip that was 530pm and it was annoying. But we've also had probably 10 trips where we were in 2pm or earlier. For me the good has outweighed the bad.

And on the flipside of that, we will often wait several hours in order to get the room we requested So in that case someone else would get the room that was ready and originally assigned to us.

 

[TiggerBouncy]

I do think DVC in general does an amazing job of honoring requests and getting most people in their rooms by close to 4pm. We had one trip that was 530pm and it was annoying. But we've also had probably 10 trips where we were in 2pm or earlier. For me the good has outweighed the bad.

For me, this is a recent experience. Pre-pandemic, they used to get us in our room sometimes by 11am. Early post pandemic, they did pretty good too since they were not very busy.

As the resorts are getting slammed, I do not feel that mousekeeping is able to keep up. That's a staffing issue and it's at the top level I think. They need to do more hiring and they won't recognize that unless we tell them. Again, this is recent - and this trip since we were moving rooms, it seemed telling to me that it happened to us twice. I could have understood if it was just the first room and the second was on time. I could even understand if it was just me and I was unlucky. But when they start telling everyone not to expect your room until 6... that's a problem.

 

[Brett Wyman]

This.

Also, to be clear I am not overly complaining per se. The very nice CM did give us a slight compensation, which is appreciated. Also I GET THAT THERE ARE INCREASED PROTOCOLS. They have to do a lot more now then they did before - right down to wrapping up the remotes in little baggies.

We did our part. In the 1BR, we put the dishes in the washer and left the little empty packet sticking out of the dishwasher so they knew they were cleaned. We striped the couch since we used it and put all the towels and sheets into a pile (I don't wash those as they can't use that anyway). We cleaned up everything else and left the trash in a bag ready to go.

I know they are short staffed. And I know they have increased cleaning protocols. 8 hours should be plenty of time to clean a few rooms - and I know mousekeeping is working hard - they are not just lying around. But how much hiring ARE they doing? It's been this way now for 2 years - that should be plenty of time to get it sorted out. I feel like they are just not recognizing it's an issue and IF THEY HAVE CHANGED THE POLICY, that's worse.

Then this falls on us - we as the members have to let them know what is reasonable and when they are failing. DVC won't know there is a problem and do anything about it unless we the members say something.

I guess what I am saying is if your room is not ready until significantly after 4 (I consider 5-6 being significant, but that's up to you), please give them feedback so they can act on it.

Its a 3 + 3 = 6 situation. If they are short staffed then they simply cant clean as many rooms as they use to. The other options I guess are only to rent as many rooms as they can clean by 4pm? Then people would complain about room shortages. If they cant clean them they cant clean them. They aren't sitting in the room dirty discussing how they can PO TiggerBouncy by holding their room an extra 3 hour They are simply understaffed. Personally Im taking the high road, at least for the next few years until things HOPEFULLY normalize.

 

[chicagodisneyguy]

"But when they start telling everyone not to expect your room until 6... that's a problem.

1000% agree. The every once in a blue moon I can handle. Becoming the new expectation would be unacceptable!

 

[chicagodisneyguy]

And on the flipside of that, we will often wait several hours in order to get the room we requested So in that case someone else would get the room that was ready and originally assigned to us.

And as CarolMN pointed out, someone will still not get what they want. But I think in the pecking order, getting into a room by 4pm should take precedence over fulfilling room requests.

Hopefully Disney uses some of the quarterly profits to entice some mouse keepers how ever they have to.

 

[dusten]

believe it or not, this is not related to the pandemic at all, we had the same thing happen on 2 trips 4 and 5 years ago, we noticed the change soon after they implemented on-demand housekeeping services. for those not aware, it was well documented at the time, announced by disney, on disboards, podcast and other disney news outlets that disney was changing from a system where housekeeping staff were assigned to a particular location (building/floor) to system where they would be notified via text of their next assignment (building/floor/room). as a dvc member i really wished it was spelled out better in advance, seems that most documentation stating the check-in time would be 4pm was done after the change was already made, it took a couple years for all documentation to reflect the new 4pm (instead of 3pm) check-in time for reservations made on dvc points. seems like the same thing happened again, i expect in the next couple years documentation will be updated to reflect the new 4pm-6pm check-in window.

 

[Nappy1380]

Its a 3 + 3 = 6 situation. If they are short staffed then they simply cant clean as many rooms as they use to. The other options I guess are only to rent as many rooms as they can clean by 4pm? Then people would complain about room shortages. If they cant clean them they cant clean them. They aren't sitting in the room dirty discussing how they can PO TiggerBouncy by holding their room an extra 3 hour They are simply understaffed. Personally Im taking the high road, at least for the next few years until things HOPEFULLY normalize.

I think you might be missing the point that's being made. It's not that housekeeping is slow or the front line CMs are just doing this to piss membership off, it's that possibility that there IS someone in leadership somewhere trying to figure out how far can s/he push the envelope to keep the same level of revenue with a lower expenditure line. If they are testing the 6PM mark and every just takes the high road then guess what, 6PM becomes the new mark since there was no pushback.

Standards, regardless of circumstances, need to be kept in check. If not, the "temporary decrease" always becomes the new standard.

 

[dusten]

we had this happen at BLT (nov 2017), BCV (feb 2019), VGF (nov 2014) with Beach club at 6pm being the latest room was available, worth noting, we now reserve room starting the day before all our dvc stays because late check-in causes such a problem for one particular member of our family. not to mention wanting to relax upon arrival after being up at 3:30am for our flight

 

[TiggerBouncy]

I think you might be missing the point that's being made. It's not that housekeeping is slow or the front line CMs are just doing this to piss membership off, it's that possibility that there IS someone in leadership somewhere trying to figure out how far can s/he push the envelope to keep the same level of revenue with a lower expenditure line. If they are testing the 6PM mark and every just takes the high road then guess what, 6PM becomes the new mark since there was no pushback.

Standards, regardless of circumstances, need to be kept in check. If not, the "temporary decrease" always becomes the new standard.

Exactly. I am perfectly okay with missing the mark once in a while. I even said I know housekeeping is doing the best they can. They are not just sitting around. But they are clearly understaffed, and from what I can tell, management isn't recognizing it as an issue - they are in fact trying to put in a new policy that pushed the envelope back.

That's where it becomes incumbent for us as owners to define what is reasonable and acceptable and where we draw a line.

Personally, I do not think 6pm is a good "normal" check in time. If that's the new policy, that's NOT okay. But that's not the housekeeping peoples fault. That's DVC management that needs to be told that and we need to tell them.

Please let them know if you have a late check-in (I think past 4:30; but that's up to you what you consider reasonable) - the more noise we as owners make the more they will have to address it.

 

[TiggerBouncy]

we had this happen at BLT (nov 2017), BCV (feb 2019), VGF (nov 2014) with Beach club at 6pm being the latest room was available, worth noting, we now reserve room starting the day before all our dvc stays because late check-in causes such a problem for one particular member of our family. not to mention wanting to relax upon arrival after being up at 3:30am for our flight

I always wondered about that. Do they do anything about no-shows? Would they even know if you do an online checkin? Is there a point where they give your room away if you do not show up?

I.E. if I reserve it the day before and don't get there until the next day, is there any chance they give the room away?

 

[Mceee]

After reading all the comments thus far, I agree with the OP 100%. I can no longer be as sympathetic as I used to be toward the resorts (and frankly Disney in general). We had a 1-BR reserved this past September, and had to wait until 6 pm for it to be ready. We had arrived at the resort 11:00 am that morning, left our luggage and headed out to MK. After awakening at 5:00 am for an early flight, then spending all afternoon at MK, we were exhausted by check-in time - which was always 4 pm. Adding to that, we had an ADR over at Yacht Club at 7:00. But we sat and sat in the lobby from 4-6pm waiting for our room to be ready.
An earlier commenter said the "check-in BEGINS at 4:00 pm". My interpretation has been - your room will be ready by 4:00 pm at the latest (at least is has at every other hotel I've ever been to).