Housekeeping Trouble

[rocketriter]

This isn't a matter of humanity, kindness or timeshare contracts. Norovirus and similar illnesses that cause guests to puke are highly contagious. They can get hotels and cruise lines in a lot of trouble. I suspect that DVC's lawyers would have a fit if they learned that mousekeeping wasn't bagging/bleaching vomit-soaked linens immediately. And I suspect that policies about this are already in place but are not being consistently followed by the staff. So I'm the umpteenth person to say "Tell the whole story to DVC management." It's in their business best interest (which also means your best interest as share-holders) to make sure this stops happening.

 

[famsen]

Exactly. It wasn't the resort's fault that your child was sick, so they should not be responsible for cleaning up the mess. This is a timeshare, not a hotel. That's where the difference is.

Sorry, but that is just absolutely wrong . It is unhealthy, unsanitary and irresponsible not to have a room professionally cleaned by housekeeping, maintenance, or whomever has the proper supplies and equipment to deal with it. Do you really want to be the one to use the guest laundry immediately after someone with a potentially contagious illness just washed their pukey towels in it?
Do you want to walk on the carpets or sit on a couch where the guest before you just did a "spot cleaning" with their bar of soap and washcloth?
In my opinion, these situations MUST be dealt with by housekeeping as an exception to the rules.

 

[ShootingStarMom2]

Hi,

I wanted to update real quick. We spoke to a service manager who let us know what should happen when something like an illness strikes.

They told us we were in NO WAY supposed to do our own towels or blankets. Red biohazard bags should have been left with us and they should have taken away the linens in the same manner. They have a special way to deal with these issues. No charges for towels, blankets, or bedding.

The room should have been cleaned top to bottom. Now the housekeeper did scrub the floor and tile area and washed down the bathtub. She also replaced our towels in the bathroom and left a handful of extra washcloths. The serviceman cleaned the carpet area a bunch of times and asked us to leave the fan on for a while to help dry the spot out.

I was surprised by the answers of the DIY people, as was the service manager. They have SOPs in place for the very reason that something small can turn into something big if not cared for properly. I hope that if anyone has a sick family member they will call and have the service manager involved if any problems arise.

 

[Tiger926]

Hi,

I wanted to update real quick. We spoke to a service manager who let us know what should happen when something like an illness strikes.

They told us we were in NO WAY supposed to do our own towels or blankets. Red biohazard bags should have been left with us and they should have taken away the linens in the same manner. They have a special way to deal with these issues. No charges for towels, blankets, or bedding.

The room should have been cleaned top to bottom. Now the housekeeper did scrub the floor and tile area and washed down the bathtub. She also replaced our towels in the bathroom and left a handful of extra washcloths. The serviceman cleaned the carpet area a bunch of times and asked us to leave the fan on for a while to help dry the spot out.

I was surprised by the answers of the DIY people, as was the service manager. They have SOPs in place for the very reason that something small can turn into something big if not cared for properly. I hope that if anyone has a sick family member they will call and have the service manager involved if any problems arise.

This is exactly the protocol that Wilderness followed for us - so sorry you didn't receive this treatment, and sorry for the next guests in your villa.

Good thing for following up, as I'm sure this will be brought up at a meeting as they majorly dropped the ball in regards to health and safety.

Hope you never experience an illness on vacation again - thanks for the update!

Tiger

 

[Dean]

OUCH! that seems rather harsh, of course they should alter the rules in this type of situation, the kid didn't get sick so they could get clean sheets?

Just because it is a timeshare, it doesnt mean that all humanity is lost?
They should have come in with the (I think blue or red) bags, put all linens in it, and re-made the bed, or at least left clean linens and towels.

Of course he could then just choose to whip the soiled crap out into the hallway and let people wade through it in order to avoid the cleaning fee you want to charge. Wow, you're pretty cold.

You know, a little sympathy from a business can go a long way in customer satisfaction.

There's a difference in being sympathetic and appropriate and altering the rules. The rules should not be altered for such situations but I know they are at times. Disney is very inconsistent. None of the solutions offered except for a major cleaning would alter the contagiousness issue and even that has to be done after the room is vacated or redone if done earlier.

 

[Sammie]

Good grief, DVC and Disney alter their policies all the time, certainly they could and would in this case.

This was simply a case of a housekeeper not being able to think outside of the box.

As a dues paying member I would be more upset that they did not offer to help clean up this mess than doing it. What type of rooms are we going to get if vomit is left unattended to.

 

[kdzgon]

Now THIS is what I hope is the norm as far as service for when someone is sick in a villa.

ITA.

During our November stay @ Jambo my 6 YO grandson had a bloody nose in the middle of the night. He gets quite severe nosebleeds - infrequently, but it does happen and when he gets one he can bleed rather profusely. Once we stopped the bleeding I got him cleaned up, stripped the bed and called mousekeeping for clean linens. She promised to send them up, told me there would be no charge and they brought them relatively quickly. I had nothing with which to bag the soiled linens, so I tied everything into one bundle. They did not tag them while in the room (no clue if they did once they left) and did not offer to sanitize anything in the room.

I agree with the OP - I would not want to be staying in a room after a family that chose to self-clean bodily fluids from an illness or situation rather than leave it to the experienced and better equipped personnel to handle.

 

[Dean]

Good grief, DVC and Disney alter their policies all the time, certainly they could and would in this case.

This was simply a case of a housekeeper not being able to think outside of the box.

As a dues paying member I would be more upset that they did not offer to help clean up this mess than doing it. What type of rooms are we going to get if vomit is left unattended to.

They are inconsistent but they shouldn't be, esp when there are clear rules in place, IMO. The truth is we do not know the attitude or tone of the Housekeeping staff, only how it was perceived by the OP.

 

[BeccaG]

Good grief, DVC and Disney alter their policies all the time, certainly they could and would in this case.

This was simply a case of a housekeeper not being able to think outside of the box.

As a dues paying member I would be more upset that they did not offer to help clean up this mess than doing it. What type of rooms are we going to get if vomit is left unattended to.

Ditto!

 

[Tiger926]

Not to mention that our dues will surely increase if they are replacing broken pillows, drapes or linens that guests did not clean well enough, or that guests damaged in the process.

Maybe, I'm missing something, but this is not rocket science to see that with our DVC rooms being located in a hotel that has obvious housekeeping issues (I've been witness to them myself with a smoking in villa incident), will this not cost us as DVC members?

Tiger

 

[sparkyboy]

OP-glad that your child is better now and sorry that you had a bad experience with the housekeeping. Be certain tl let the satisfaction team now of your concerns because they take all issues very seriously when received.

We own as Saratoga and last year our DGS became ill late at night. Housekeeping was quick to respond to our needs and next day did a deep clean of the villa as well as the couch, chair cushions, etc. to prevent the spread of virus. Hopefully, standards will be adhered to so that we all are able to enjoy our vacations to WDW without being concerned about cleanliness of the unit.

 

[La2kw]

Wow! I'm very surprised by some of the responses. DD came down once with chicken pox about 10 years ago and DVC took great care of us. They changed linens daily and took out trash daily. They insisted upon it, it wasn't our idea. She hadn't even thrown up, so there weren't any issues with bodily fluids. They even had us leave the room for an hour to clean the room top to bottom. The front desk also sent her a Mickey and Minnie plush and a card to make her feel better.

I see the problem as a housekeeping issue. Once again the housekeeping at DVC has become a joke and instead of making excuses for DVC and telling the OP that DVC is a timeshare and it shouldn't be breaking the rules, we should be laying the blame where it should be- with the lousy state of DVC housekeeping.

Bodily fluids are nothing to mess with. If someone gets sick on my DVC towels, carpets or upholstery, I expect DVC to take care of it by removing those items immediately and sanitizing them as well as the room. I certainly don't want to be the recipient of a towel that has not been properly cleaned or a room that has not been properly cleaned because some idiot housekeeper told the previous user to take care of it themselves. This is inexcusable for DVC or any other timeshare.

 

[backyardponder]

Great discussion. Although this has never happend to me, I'm glad to know how to expect DVC to handle it. Although I know that folks have different feelings on tipping, I'd sure tip mousekeeping for this.

 

[christa112]

I cannot believe that people are giving the OP such a hard time. It would have been one thing if they were at home and have a ton of extra towels and sheets but geez they were in a room with limited quantities. This poor child could have gotten sick the entire night and I am guess Mousekeeping would have really been unhappy if they kept calling down to get more towels because they refused to leave extras. Ok, we all get it, they are certain rules. Yeah, well sometimes rules can be broken and at a time like this they should have been we are not taking about line jumping for bringing an old resort mug. We are talking about a sick kid.

 

[Dean]

I cannot believe that people are giving the OP such a hard time. It would have been one thing if they were at home and have a ton of extra towels and sheets but geez they were in a room with limited quantities. This poor child could have gotten sick the entire night and I am guess Mousekeeping would have really been unhappy if they kept calling down to get more towels because they refused to leave extras. Ok, we all get it, they are certain rules. Yeah, well sometimes rules can be broken and at a time like this they should have been we are not taking about line jumping for bringing an old resort mug. We are talking about a sick kid.

I don't believe anyone has given the OP a hard time. We're all sympathetic to sick children and illness and other mishaps in general. We all expect Disney to be sympathetic and helpful as well and the OP apparently doesn't seem to think they were in this situation, I wasn't there so I can't say one way or another. It seems to me the only point of contention is whether DVC should suspend the rules for such situations and on that issue I come down as an absolute NO, many apparently disagree, that is their right. I would assume this is common enough that the resorts have a policy for such matters and while I don't know the formal policy, given we've seen enough similar posts over the years it would seem to me that Disney's official policy is likely the same or very close to my personal feelings on the subject.

 

[Tiger926]

I don't believe anyone has given the OP a hard time. We're all sympathetic to sick children and illness and other mishaps in general. We all expect Disney to be sympathetic and helpful as well and the OP apparently doesn't seem to think they were in this situation, I wasn't there so I can't say one way or another. It seems to me the only point of contention is whether DVC should suspend the rules for such situations and on that issue I come down as an absolute NO, many apparently disagree, that is their right. I would assume this is common enough that the resorts have a policy for such matters and while I don't know the formal policy, given we've seen enough similar posts over the years it would seem to me that Disney's official policy is likely the same or very close to my personal feelings on the subject.

This is confusing to me. I stated in my post, it is Disney policy to handle an illness in the way I described. Disney's protocol on this would supercede DVC's towel policy - I was told of this deep clean policy by several people: resort mangager, housekeeper and housekeeping supervisor. It has nothing to do with DVC not agreeing with this policy or not - the managers told me it's a Disney policy, and that is what takes precedence in these types of situations.

I'm not sure why so many people on this thread are having difficulty with this? The housekeeper dropped the ball big time in this regard as we are dealing with a health and safety issue, which then gets into liabilities, as well as destruction of property should towels, comforters, etc. be damaged with guests washing their own. When we asked about cleaning our own, and buying more towels, they looked at us like we had 2 heads. They absolutely said it is not necessary, nor, expected for emergencies such as these, especially since it speaks to making sure that the villas and their contents are probably cleaned, sanitized and taken care of.

I'm sitting here shaking my head at why this continues to be an issue on this thread...

Tiger

 

[Cruelladeville]

OK now, everyone who is OK with using those towels and bedsheets that the child vomited on, and the OP washed herself, raise your hands! Yeah, that's what I thought....as a first grade teacher, I've been puked on and around so many times, and, by law, I have to fill out a bodily fluids report EVERY time it happens. They don't care about me getting AIDS or any other disease, they are worried about being sued if I happened to pass something on to your kids. Disney should worry, too. According to the bodily fluids video(which I also have to watch every time I am exposed), the vomit on the floor has to have special stuff put on the floor to dry everything up, then vaccuumed, and the carpet/ hard surfaces are sanitized. My clothing has to be washed at hot temperatures/soap/bleach in order to be safe for everyone else to touch it. I can't go back into the class until I am sanitized, too. No one with HIV has to disclose that they have HIV, even after bodily fluids have touched someone. I mean, do you really trust the OP or anyone else to be free of HIV/N1H1 or any other disease that could be passed on to you?

 

[CarolAnnC]

I am going to be a bit of a Devil's Advocate here

I can understand the concerns regarding vomit, germs, etc on towels and bedding soiled by ill individuals. However, studies have shown that hotel room bedspreads are some of the dirtiest items around. I suspect that the spreads are not removed after each guest departs and laundered in the DVC resorts, either.

Plus, bed sheets, towels, washcloths, kitchen dish towels, etc., are subject to any bodily fluids that may have um landed on them and placed in the villa laundry machines without the management's knowledge.

So is it Don't Ask, Don't Tell? Do we really believe that everyone with H1N1, HIV or even a plain old flu or headcold is notifying DVC resort housekeeping for proper "bodily fluid" sanitizing?

 

[Simba's Mom]

I'm assuming you were at Jambo house, where AKL fairly recently got a DVC section. Lack of proper training of mousekeeping may be involved. Many years ago, we had a bad experience at VWL right after WL got a DVC addition. The front desk gave us very poor information about our villa. When we got home, we complained to DVC member satisfaction and received a follow-up phone call by both DVC and the WL front desk. DVC told us that the CM's needed more training in proper DVC procedure, as there appeared to be some confusion on policies. Please do contact DVC member satisfaction-I wonder if this is part of the problem here (or have I drunk too much kool-aid?) If I'm wrong and your stay was at Kidani, then I'm just plain baffled. How could they do that to you?

 

[BroganMc]

I'm assuming you were at Jambo house, where AKL fairly recently got a DVC section. Lack of proper training of mousekeeping may be involved. Many years ago, we had a bad experience at VWL right after WL got a DVC addition. The front desk gave us very poor information about our villa. When we got home, we complained to DVC member satisfaction and received a follow-up phone call by both DVC and the WL front desk. DVC told us that the CM's needed more training in proper DVC procedure, as there appeared to be some confusion on policies. Please do contact DVC member satisfaction-I wonder if this is part of the problem here (or have I drunk too much kool-aid?) If I'm wrong and your stay was at Kidani, then I'm just plain baffled. How could they do that to you?

That's what it sounds like to me. CMs need more training.