It finally happened - Room not Ready.

[eandt]

Why is a late room ready okay with anybody? Rooms are supposed to be ready by 4 ...... period. If Disney can't make that happen, then they should hire more housekeeping. I'd gladly pay a few cents extra in dues to have my room ready at 4. I also agree with previous poster about WL ..... they're the worst! Late rooms are becoming "normal" and it didn't used to be that way. Seems to me that it would be cheaper to hire a few more housekeeping staff than continuing to compensate everyone for late rooms.

I agree that is unacceptable and those affected should be fairly compensated under any circumstances. We as a society have become too complacent with incompetence, not sure if it's PC thing or not. Bottomline to me is we hold up our end of the contract by paying in full on time etc so the other end must be expected to be upheld as well. In some of the above scenarios I would have been livid.

 

[Sandisw]

Yeah - we didn't get much more for a room that wasn't cleaned.

FP's for a room at 4:20? We should be getting those every 3rd or 4th trip.

Yes, but I think it was because it was determined the room was ready earlier and the housekeeper did not note so in the system. The manager felt that wasn’t okay since there was no reason we were kept waiting when the room was done and ready much earlier.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

Yes, but I think it was because it was determined the room was ready earlier and the housekeeper did not note so in the system. The manager felt that wasn’t okay since there was no reason we were kept waiting when the room was done and ready much earlier.

And we've had that more than once with no compensation. Pretty nice for you. As I said we didn't get much different for a room that hadn't been cleaned and we had received the notification.

 

[MJ NH]

My visit last month my room was ready at 3:15 at CCV. And it was a Sunday.

 

[pangyal]

Just as a data point, on our trip in October we had a triple split stay:

BLT 1BD: Ready at 4:45pm
AKL CL studio: Ready at 3:55pm
VGF 1BD: Ready at 3:45pm

And in December:

SSR Treehouse: Ready at 5:30pm, no compensation requested or offered, apparently everyone vacated them late and they take forever to clean- they pulled an Accessible unit into circulation as we were only there one night and it wasn’t needed for anyone. I was not very happy.
AKL CL 1BD: Ready at 4:30pm
VWL 2BD: Ready at 2:30pm

So, from this small sample size, there seems to really be no rhyme or reason to which rooms are ready before 4pm in terms of size or resort.

I will say that we have never had a room ready at BLT before 4:30pm, and we stay there a lot, though I am sure that someone out there has had nothing but insanely early rooms at BLT. I think it’s just an unpredictable ebb and flow of guests and the Jenga of room assignments that creates this uncertainty with regards to actual room ready times.

 

[rg35]

...and about a year ago (2018 season), it was NOT the norm. We must differentiate past performance from CURRENT performance, based on current DATA.

What data? People's anecdotes? Do you have a full download of room ready times?

 

[rg35]

If room ready times are getting later, there are only a few real explanations but all related to the same root cause. Lack of workers.

Either Disney can't fully staff housekeeping jobs due to demand for workers in the Orlando area, OR the people they are able to staff in housekeeping aren't as good as people they were able to staff in the past, OR they won't fully staff housekeeping in order to maintain extreme profitability for shareholders and executive bonuses.

As demand for workers exceeds supply, quality always begins to suffer. This has happened with the cruise industry boom. It has also happened in logistics (a relative of mine works for a large shipping company, and the people they are able to hire aren't as good as people they were able to hire in the past - don't want to work as hard, etc). Basically, many already low paying industries are having a difficult time finding workers in sufficient numbers and quality to fill open jobs. Every cast member we spoke to at Universal last year told us how much better it was to work there than at Disney. The end result is that the product starts to suffer. As Universal brings more theme parks and hotels to the area this problem is only going to get worse.

 

[Dean Marino]

Deleted

 

[cedricandsophie]

I once had a room when we arrived at the resort on the ME bus, about 11 am. Such a treat. And I’ve had them as late as 5.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

I once had a room when we arrived at the resort on the ME bus, about 11 am. Such a treat. And I’ve had them as late as 5.

I too have had rooms ready early a few times. One was a Boardwalk 1BR boardwalk view - I was moving from a pool/garden view. It was ready by Noon or 12:30. Except I couldn't open the door. BWV and AKV are my nemesis for that problem. 3 trips to the front desk and/or concierge. Finally I checked my band on the old room which was just a couple of doors down. It still worked on it. It too was cleaned but nobody was in it yet or I would have given them a surprise. Once I could tell the front desk what the issue was they were able to fix it. Should it work that way? (JK - it shouldn't)

 

[ScottOKW2K]

I guess I can't complain too much. On my last trip my room was ready at my arrival at 6.

am.

PS. Just looked at my info on the left. Been posting here almost 20 years now. Cool !

 

[thebigman65]

I can't say that I ever had a room be late. Maybe once, it was close or just after 4. I have never found the room unclean, stuff left behind, etc. I do find maintenance items almost every trip, but that is likely because no one has bothered to report them. I guess we are really lucky on our trips! (knock on wood).

As for the cleaning staff, I know a couple of years back in response to growing complaints, Disney brought in a 3rd party company to properly train and review the housekeeping staff....don't know if there were any further updates on that. I am not saying that unclean, or late rooms should be acceptable, but finding staff that will work for what they pay, and take pride in their work is probably very difficult. Overall, industries like that need to have better pay, proper training, and review systems, to ensure that the tasks are being completed correctly and the staff are being trained and reviewed correctly. To me that is where the shortcomings are, and yes, not all staff are going to be "Class A", but if you have the proper tools and reviews in place, this should not be a large issue.

I really hope I didn't jinx myself!

 

[mickeyfan100]

It’s sad how many people flip out on cast members. When we arrived in November we dropped off our carry-ons and headed to HS. For some reason there was an issue with our Magic Band... mine was the only one working out of four. We were directed to Guest Relations who had to call IT to fix the problem. Took about 15 minutes... we just chilled and watched the Sky-Liner. When she finished, the CM thanked us for our patience because she deals too often with anger... then she said and because you were so nice I added a SDD fast pass to your bands.

 

[sachilles]

Unfortunately, the industry as a whole struggles with this issue. As the occupancy continues to stay very high, it will continue to be an intermittent issue at every resort.
To flip a room requires a bunch of things to happen. Housekeeping has to know you are out of the room. That means you actually have to check out, even though you can just get your automated folio. Obviously the correct staff in the correct area of the hotel need to know they can get in that room and clean. You need the right amount of staff to cover the change over and hope people are out well before their required check out. You need to make sure that guests haven't overstayed, with or without permission. A lot of things have to go right, and that doesn't even get into having quality staff. The staff actually has to show up.

The resorts should have the metrics to see if they are hitting their targets or not. If they can't make it happen consistently, they may have to adjust published times and/or figure out other ways to maintain customer satisfaction. I worked in the resort industry for about 18 years, and we had over a 1000 beds to worry about, which is a drop in the bucket compared to disney. We still struggled to maintain hitting those targets largely due to staff availability. Usually the biggest crunches happen when a somebody calls in sick. It's not overly complicated, but don't take that as meaning it's easy.

 

[eandt]

It’s sad how many people flip out on cast members. When we arrived in November we dropped off our carry-ons and headed to HS. For some reason there was an issue with our Magic Band... mine was the only one working out of four. We were directed to Guest Relations who had to call IT to fix the problem. Took about 15 minutes... we just chilled and watched the Sky-Liner. When she finished, the CM thanked us for our patience because she deals too often with anger... then she said and because you were so nice I added a SDD fast pass to your bands.

We aren't ones to "flip out" but I do understand the frustration of having issues when you are in the world. Disney created that monster imo by making it so important to plan every little detail at 180 days/60 days etc. When you make those plans and then there is a road block to realizing them that sucks and can affect the entire day.

For us we have been there so often we just wing our trips now with almost no advance planning but for those folks that are on a once in lifetime trip it IS a big deal if their room isn't ready by the contracted time, their tickets are screwed up, etc. Not condoning anger or worse directed at individual cast members as they most times are not the ones at fault but Disney has taught us that "time is money" and when their mistakes or problems on their end impact you they absolutely should compenate for that without question.

 

[Donna M]

"Check-In and Check-Out times for Disney Vacation Club Resorts are set at after 4:00 PM for Check-In and 11:00 AM for Check-Out. While I have on occasion arrived to find our resort accommodation ready earlier than the standard check-in time, it's best to plan on the standard check-in time.Jan 9, 2018"
disneyparksmomspanel.disney.go.com › question › time-check-dvc-reso...

Check-in is after 4 pm, not by 4pm. This should change your expectations.

 

[eandt]

"Check-In and Check-Out times for Disney Vacation Club Resorts are set at after 4:00 PM for Check-In and 11:00 AM for Check-Out. While I have on occasion arrived to find our resort accommodation ready earlier than the standard check-in time, it's best to plan on the standard check-in time.Jan 9, 2018"
disneyparksmomspanel.disney.go.com › question › time-check-dvc-reso...

Check-in is after 4 pm, not by 4pm. This should change your expectations.

Nope it does not. Semantics. Check in after 4pm means 4:01 pm to me just like check out at 11:01 would be late. If there is "standard" check in time then it can't be haphazard otherwise how does one "plan" on it as stated?

 

[bianca]

"Check-In and Check-Out times for Disney Vacation Club Resorts are set at after 4:00 PM for Check-In and 11:00 AM for Check-Out. While I have on occasion arrived to find our resort accommodation ready earlier than the standard check-in time, it's best to plan on the standard check-in time.Jan 9, 2018"
disneyparksmomspanel.disney.go.com › question › time-check-dvc-reso...

Check-in is after 4 pm, not by 4pm. This should change your expectations.

 

[bianca]

"Check-In and Check-Out times for Disney Vacation Club Resorts are set at after 4:00 PM for Check-In and 11:00 AM for Check-Out. While I have on occasion arrived to find our resort accommodation ready earlier than the standard check-in time, it's best to plan on the standard check-in time.Jan 9, 2018"
disneyparksmomspanel.disney.go.com › question › time-check-dvc-reso...

Check-in is after 4 pm, not by 4pm. This should change your expectations.

I can live with 4:01. We travel quite a bit and no matter what chain of hotels we check into, we have never had a late room ...... AND most hotels offer 3 pm check-in. With the dollar amount that Disney charges, I find it very hard to accept their late rooms. Occasionally, we travel to Disney with the grandkids. It's SUPER difficult to get a 2 and 4 yo to understand just hanging around waiting for a room. When it happened last year at VWL, I gave up trying to corral the kids. We became "those people" that let the kids open the cabinets in the train room, drink their sodas without the tops that are in our Owner's Locker, and just generally not behave like is expected at home. And before anybody roasts me for not just having the kids outside, they have a medical condition that is easier to control if they're stress free and cool. 4:00 is fine ....anything later is unacceptable unless you're just 2 adults that can pick up and be flexible.

 

[denecarter]

March 2018 we ended up on a last minute 4 generations girls’ trip... 5 nights in a studio with each night in a different DVC resort. Night 4 was Poly. After 5 and no text. I moved the car over to Poly and went to see if everything was okay.

For some unknown reason we got pixie dusted and moved from a park view studio to a park view room in the Concierge building... just a couple of doors down from the Concierge Lounge. Very nice surprise!