Housekeeping issues upon arrival to our cabin..........

[momtofour]

Just got off the Disney Fantasy on Sat. We had a wonderful cruise! Unfortunately upon arrival to our 4C cabin we had issues. Sections of the room were never cleaned! We found the previous occupant's shoes, medicine, coins, and hair tie. Crumbs and stickers were in the cabinets. Hair was in the bed and bathroom. Glass on the balcony was FILTHY. I looked for the stateroom hostess. Nowhere to be found. I found her after dinner and had her come into the room. She admitted that she ran out of time. (our cabin was the last in her section) She asked if when I arrived the door was open. It was. She indicated that meant the room was not ready. (in her section all of the doors were open. She was not in any of them cleaning?) It was really disappointing to have to deal with this! The next day the issues were resolved. On Sunday I attended the Castaway reception. The first officer that came to make conversation was in charge of housekeeping and I let him know the condition of the cabin. I feel bad for her because she probably got in trouble...but it was bad. I know they only have a few hours to turn over the cabin but it really was unacceptable.

 

[darkwing818]

After 10 Disney cruises, we've never had an issue even close to what the OP describes, which would disappointing. I guess we're just lucky.

 

[nzdisneymom]

Just got off the Disney Fantasy on Sat. We had a wonderful cruise! Unfortunately upon arrival to our 4C cabin we had issues. Sections of the room were never cleaned! We found the previous occupant's shoes, medicine, coins, and hair tie. Crumbs and stickers were in the cabinets. Hair was in the bed and bathroom. Glass on the balcony was FILTHY. I looked for the stateroom hostess. Nowhere to be found. I found her after dinner and had her come into the room. She admitted that she ran out of time. (our cabin was the last in her section) She asked if when I arrived the door was open. It was. She indicated that meant the room was not ready. (in her section all of the doors were open. She was not in any of them cleaning?) It was really disappointing to have to deal with this! The next day the issues were resolved. On Sunday I attended the Castaway reception. The first officer that came to make conversation was in charge of housekeeping and I let him know the condition of the cabin. I feel bad for her because she probably got in trouble...but it was bad. I know they only have a few hours to turn over the cabin but it really was unacceptable.

I wouldn't feel bad about her getting in trouble because she had not completed her job and did nothing to prevent you guys from occupying an uncleaned room. Did they come that day and clear everything out that didn't belong to you? Did they change your bed that same night?

But good to know from your experience that when people go to their cabins that if the door is open, they might not want to go in yet - and find a housekeeping person to check with. It's a lot of work to get that many cabins turned and if someone was late leaving from the cruise in the morning, that delays them getting started. I have seen them working in teams to get the cabins done - two people making beds, etc. is faster than one.

One thing we try to do is make sure we've collected all of our belongings and tidied things up so things will hopefully be easier for them in turning the room.

We usually see our cabin host between safety drill and dinner.

 

[tweis]

Just got off the Disney Fantasy on Sat. We had a wonderful cruise! Unfortunately upon arrival to our 4C cabin we had issues. Sections of the room were never cleaned! We found the previous occupant's shoes, medicine, coins, and hair tie. Crumbs and stickers were in the cabinets. Hair was in the bed and bathroom. Glass on the balcony was FILTHY. I looked for the stateroom hostess. Nowhere to be found. I found her after dinner and had her come into the room. She admitted that she ran out of time. (our cabin was the last in her section) She asked if when I arrived the door was open. It was. She indicated that meant the room was not ready. (in her section all of the doors were open. She was not in any of them cleaning?) It was really disappointing to have to deal with this! The next day the issues were resolved. On Sunday I attended the Castaway reception. The first officer that came to make conversation was in charge of housekeeping and I let him know the condition of the cabin. I feel bad for her because she probably got in trouble...but it was bad. I know they only have a few hours to turn over the cabin but it really was unacceptable.

I don't blame you at all. I would not have stayed in the cabin until it was thoroughly cleaned.

 

[MPS516]

What do you mean when you say the next day the issues were resolved Certainly you didn't spend the night

 

[DeniseMarie526]

cause I never would have stayed in the room. I understand they have so many hours to get things done. But surely she could have reported it to her manager, co-workers, gotten assistance....

 

[DCL Repeaters]

Our family had a few issues on the Fantasy too back in Feb. We were greeted with a box of adult male 'items' left in the safe and our relatives (on a different deck) had a trash can full of rancid food.

 

[axfather]

there will be something odd left behind, but never a dirty room...one time a dirty souveneir cup left on the desk in plain site....cig butts on the balcony....a few other things over the years...

 

[lbgraves]

The comment about the door being open isn't true. Our stateroom door has always been open at 1:30 when the rooms are made available to guests...but it has also been clean and ready for us, all 10 cruises. I would have contacted housekeeping right away. Totally unacceptable IMO. Thankfully our hostess last week was fantastic.

 

[CaliforniaGirl09]

We had something similar on our cruise to AK last summer, except ours allegedly had been cleaned (almost worse if that was their standard of clean). We had previous occupants things in drawers, dirty towel on hooks, wrappers by curtains, crumbs, dirty coverlet, etc. I immediately complained to guest services and it was taken care of. IMO the room attendant should have gotten in trouble. The excuse I was given was that they were new, but it was gross.

 

[peachygreen]

I would have called guest services immediately. I wouldn't have looked for the hostess I would have been on the phone to someone else.

That is beyond unacceptable to me. If they open the section then all the rooms should be ready, no ifs ands or buts.

 

[GoofyTwinDad]

Does DCL have room attendant supervisors? If they do, shouldn't they check to make sure each room is clean prior to dropping the ropes at 1:30.

 

[clten]

Our experience is that each cabin host does it differently with the open doors. So there was no way to know if that was a signal that the room wasn't done yet, or if it was awaiting supervisor review or the host just used it to know when guests went in the room so they know when to go introduce themselves. We've had all those experiences.

It was unacceptable that the room was not completed by the time you were told rooms would be open. If the hostess didn't get a chance to get to your room yet, she should have been there keeping an eye on who was arriving so that she could let you know it wasn't an oversight and that she just needed more time to complete her tasks. I know it's a very busy day for the stateroom hosts and I'm impressed that they get as much done in so short a time period as they do. But if there was a legitimate reason for her not to finish her section (late departees, really unclean cabins, etc.) the housekeeping manager would have stepped in to get things done. I wouldn't have been as patient as you. I would have contacted Guest Services right away so the housekeeping manager could have been alerted and seen the problem right away. (If there is a problem, the housekeeping manager can't fix it if they don't know about it.)

 

[IrenicMom]

We had a weird issue when we were on the Fantasy last summer.

When we arrived to our rooms, one of the rooms was missing a wave phone. We talked to our host, and he said yes, he knew, and we wouldn't be charged.

2-3 days in, our son lost sometime in the crack of the sofa convertible bed. We maneuvered the bed enough to see into the dead space below, and wouldn't you know it - wave phone. And underwear, a shoe, and a plastic bracelet

The rest of our room was spotless, but it was clear (from the dustbunnies alone, never mind the rest of the stuff) that area was never cleaned.

I turned in the shoe and the bracelet. We tossed the undies (little girl) ick.

I asked if we could get a credit for finding the phone (jokingly, of course)

The most frustrating part is that when I showed him where we found it, he seemed utterly nonplussed by the filth.

 

[annichan]

While it was not as bad as what the OP has described, we also found our room not completely cleaned when first entering it on our last cruise (8night Bahamian on the Magic).

There were a few hairs on the floor in the bathroom, something like cookie crumbs in the sitting area, some toiletries in one drawer and the ashtray on the verandah had not been emptied.

While we were less than thrilled, we didn't want to get the stateroom host into trouble without even having met him/her, so DH talked to a stateroom host he spotted in the corridor, and she sent our own stateroom host over to us. He cleaned everything immediately, vacuumed all floors and apologized profusely.

Later that night we found a pair of beach sandals under the desk (wedged in the back behind the little stool), and as our host happened to be out in the corridor, I gave them to him straightaway. He was mortified, poor guy - apologized another zillion times and asked me to please show him where exactly they were "hidden" so he would know not to miss something like that again in the future.

After this less-than-stellar start, however, we were really happy with his service - spotless room, an extra navigator copy each night for scrapbooking, cute towel animals, and a nice greeting whenever we met him in the corridor (which was often). So while I admit we hesitated a bit over his rating on the final comment card, we figured that he had really gone all the way from not-so-good to excellent in the first day - so excellent is what we rated him.

 

[jjje]

Our stateroom hostess did a great job of keeping our room spotless in general but a few nights into our cruise I found a rock hard bagel wedged between the bed and the nightstand. We had a good laugh wondering how long that had been there. I'm not sure why whoever dropped it hadn't bothered to pick it up.

 

[jgura]

We ran into the same issues on the Fantasy last summer with items in the room and many things missed at cleaning. We did not complain until day 4 when I had to call to get toilet paper. I was very patient because I know they are worked too hard, but no TP drew the line for me. An officer came and apologized and we were actually given a different room host for the rest of the cruise. It was somewhat embarrassing because the original host was still cleaning all the rooms around us. I guess it happens!

 

[deanna23]

We had a few problems on the magic last October with food being left in the icebox. This room was the Roy Disney suite. I could not find our steward at that time but there was another out and about and he came in and started cleaning it out for us and about that time ours showed up and help. He was very sorry. Deanna

 

[MPS516]

Does DCL have room attendant supervisors? If they do, shouldn't they check to make sure each room is clean prior to dropping the ropes at 1:30.

Yes they do and each calls in ready for their section before the ropes drop. We have been on cruises where the deck was delayed because some rooms were not ready on time so the supervisor held her area and had others help catch up the remaining cabins. Thankfully we have never experienced a dirty or partially dirty cabin upon boarding

 

[momtofour]

Thanks for the replies. Our hostess was very apologetic with tears in her eyes. However if she could not keep up, as others have pointed out, additional resources could have been brought in. I would have been happy to have waited longer to get into our cabin. (we arrived about 1:45 to 2:00) I didn't buy the story that if the door was open it wasn't ready. All the doors in her section were open and she was nowhere to be seen! I feel bad because she may not get another contract but I did not create the situation. I commented on these issues on the survey when I left in addition to telling the officer in charge so I am certain it is not good for her. Doesn't a supervisor check the cabins before they are released?