Of course I know that. But, the fact is that occupants at
DVC resorts aren't "supposed" to do any of these things; it is expected that the cleaning staff will. It's courteous if the owners or guests do some of them, but it is not required or even requested.
One might wish that DVC would put more of the burden on upkeep on the owners and guests, and pass those savings along to the owners. One might also wish the turnaround time were better, but that's also an issue of cost vs. burden---you could ask the owners to do more, and hire fewer staff and still have the units cleaned in a timely manner. Or, you could just hire enough staff to take care of the workload. Each resort system has to decide how to balance those two. Right now, DVC takes the position that it's something that should be covered by owner fees---and that's the position that most other timeshares are moving towards. As I wrote above, Wyndham-managed resorts have generally asked their occupants to do less over the years, rather than more. Presumably, that's because the owners at these resorts would rather pay slightly higher annual fees to let someone else take care of it while they are on vacation. That's not necessarily either a right or wrong decision; it's just up to what the owners collectively want.
What's more, DVC's position on the burden of cleaning costs is unusual in that there is no notion that shorter stays "cost more" in terms of cleaning staff time per point relinquished than do longer stays. If you have a one night stay, the unit still needs to be fully cleaned before the next occupant arrives, just as you do with a seven night stay. Several other point-based systems that allow short stays have some method for accounting (and charging) for the additional cleaning costs that arise from them.
As a concrete example, someone staying for a full week in a 2BR at BCV during Magic Season
is paying about $300 for their trash & towel and end-of-week cleans. Someone who stays just for a couple of weeknights in Magic, in the 2010
point charts, pays only $75 for their end-of-stay clean. And, while the week-long guest probably makes a bit more of a mess, it probably doesn't take three times as long to service the unit. In effect, the long-stay guest is subsidizing the short-stay guest.
But, that's also possibly okay---
if the owners would generally rather have the flexibility to book short stays without penalty, and in turn pay a little more for longer stays.
So, perhaps these sorts of questions might form the basis for Poll #6: would you rather pay more, or do more of the work? Would you rather have complete flexibility with no extra fees, or have some means for charging short-stay occupants to more accurately account for their impact? I'm sure we could come up with others.
You do get the check-out documents with your bill the night before you check out, and it contains instructions for checking out. Those instructions don't include asking owners/guests to take care of these things.
