Check Out Day Hang Up Phone Calls at BW

[DizMare]

Hi, Gang. We were back home at the BW Aug 4-11 and had a great time. One fly in the ointment - the 8:23 a.m. hangup phone call on our check out day.

We had done enight the night before, getting everyone finally asleep by 3 a.m. Needless to say, that phone call jolted eveyone awake and made for irritable parents and cranky kids for a good part of our last day.

Another hangup call came about 9:45. My extremely irate dh called Housekeeping and requested that they either stop calling our room and hanging up, or speak to us when we answer. The person who answered the phone replied that we "could not prove it was them."

Which, of course, is true. But it seems an unlikely coincidence that these hangups would occur on check out morning EVERYTIME we stay at BW, and that others would share the same complaint on this discussion board. No other department at the BW has a vested interest in knowing the status of a room.

When we returned, I wrote a letter of complaint to the BW Manager. This evening, I received a call from AJ, Head of Housekeeping at the BW.

AJ said that the phone calls were not Housekeeping policy and that in her 12 years of Housekeeping management, she had never heard of such a thing. She said that before 8:30 the Housekeepers are all in their meeting room having breakfast and discussing their schedules for the day. She asked that the next time we come to stay, that we contact the operator and ask that our line be monitored so that they could trace the origin of these calls. She said she would be bringing up this subject in her staff meeting and her discussions with managers at other resorts.

She sounded interested in solving the problem, altho I'm not 100% sure she believed she has a problem. We won't be back to BW (or WDW for that matter) for a good, long while (boo-hoo) so I won't be able to test out their phone monitoring suggestion. But, perhaps some of you DVCers can do it.

At any rate, just to be sure, take your phone off the hook before you go to bed on your last night.

 

[Candace]

I have gotten these calls at BW and also at OKW. I did not get one in July at OKW, however, don't know why. We do not get up early while at WDW, and I always have the "Privacy" sign on the door handle outside. It seems pretty suspicious that the calls *only* come on check-out day, doesn't it? I can't believe that no one knows about this policy. We were in a Grand Villa in July, and we checked out on a Friday. Maybe no one was checking in since the weekend points are too high, so they didn't have to get us out in such a hurry. I think lots of us need to complain!

 

[DebbieB]

This happened to me on check-out morning at OKW in May last year and BWV in December (twice - 8:00 and 8:30). Both places the privacy sign was out. I sent an e-mail to member services complaining about it and they sent back an apology. It did not happen at OKW this past May, but I was online that morning so they could have got a busy signal. Other members have reported this happening, it only happens on check-out morning, who else would it be? When the bellman came to pickup our luggage at BWV around 9:00, 2 or 3 housekeepers stopped him asking what room he was coming from. Seemed real anxious... They should have some kind of system where you call housekeeping when you are ready to leave to let them know, also the bellman put the "housekeeping" side of the privacy sign on the door when we left.

 

[ripleysmom]

While we shouldn't need to be doing this, maybe the solution is to just unplug the phones before going to bed the night before checkout.

It should be interesting to see if we get a phone call the morning we have to checkout.....

 

[MarkW]

We had the same problem when we check out of BWV last December. I contacted the front desk to see if they knew who it may have been but of course they didn't. I wrote a letter to management regarding this and a more disgusting experience we had at check in. A manager called to discuss the matters with me and regarding the phone call said he would bring it up in a meeting. I'm surprised they don't have something in place at this point to monitor where the call originated since it seem really suspicious that it only seems to happen on checkout day. That would indicate to a logical person that someone who has access to hotel records would be responsible.

 

[jennybobenny]

We too rec'd the mysterious phone calls on check out day while on our trip last November. We were awake and feverishly trying to cram 100lbs of stuff into 2 suitcases so the calls didn't bother us at the time. We also had our door opened a few times to (I assume) check on our progress. We literally left the room at 10:59am so I'm sure they were anxious to get in.

Since then we've been very careful to use the inside bolt on the door, even during the middle of the day. On a positive note, we stayed at the Boardwalk this past June and didn't have any strange calls or door openings.

 

[vernon]

I had this also on my last trip at BWV( 3 calls first one at 8.15) PLUS the maid knocked on the door at 9.00 and then pretended it wasn't her. I complained to the front desk and housekeeping left a note to the maid explaining why she wasn't getting a tip.

I will be telling the front desk, housekeeping AND leaving a note for the maid BEFORE checkout day that if I get harrassed again there won't be a tip next time either.

I see no problem with a call at 9.30-10.00 and a polite request " can you please give an indication as to what time you'll leave the room" as IMHO if check out is 11.00 you're not going ( or shouldn't) to be sleeping much more than 15-20 minutes anyway. Ringing and putting the phone down, particularly at 8.00 is plain not on.

Don't let housekeeping tell you they don't do this. They do and they know it goes on. If it's a management policy then it needs to be changed, if it's a few individuals it needs to be stopped. NOt paying tips to housekeeping would be one good way to discourage it. JMHO .

 

[Lissete]

In the past we have always gotten the mysterious early morning phone call. When we started taking the phone off the hook, we started getting knocks on the door.

We always pack the night before, we do this in order to get a little more time to rest in the morning. There is no reason for them to be waking us up when we have paid a lot of money (or points) and expect a good nights rest. They don't even do this at a Days Inn!! Check- in is at 4PM. 9 out of 10 times I do not get my room until 4PM. Check out is at 11:00. I know that, I will be out by then. Don't wake us up.

On our most recent trip in July, we did not get neither a call or a knock. Then again I had the phone off the hook and a note on the door saying that we would be out by 11AM. There was a lot of door slamming though. Housekeeping was fixing up the room next to ours and kept slamming the door. Maybe that's the new tactic.

 

[SnowWitch]

We haven't experienced the mysterious phone calls yet but on our last trip in June at the BW we were awoke by a maid beating on the door at 8:00 am. It was just myself and kids, it was our last day in the parks and we were driving back to Ga that night after e night, I had hoped to sleep in really late but housekeeping took care of that for me. Next time I will hang the do not disturb sign!

 

[GAIL HAYDEN]

I have learned that the "do not disturb" sign works wonders, also, should someone not see it, the bar on the door works well ( I use it all the time).
You can also ask the operator or front desk to block all calls to the room on check out day. The only think you will see is a blinking red light.
Slamming doors is not unique to the housekeeping staff, the doors slam all the time, they are heavy and seem to have a mind of their own. I have been woken up more times that I can count by slamming doors. Mostly by guests.
I do totally agree that housekeeping is a bit more aggresive than necessary and it is a total annoyance.
We should keep on writing to the powers that be about this annoyance. I know they have a job to do, but, there is a fine line between harrassing the members and doing their job.

 

[Granny]

I had not heard of the hang up calls and door knocking in the early morning. It seems obvious that it is planned by management...at least the custodial management but probably higher up the DVC management chain since complaints have been registered and the practice continues.

I guess management figures this is the easiest, cheapest way to get the maids into the rooms early so they can get as many rooms cleaned as quickly as possible. This allows the arriving members a better chance of an early room available for check in (something a few posters have noted with happiness).

It also allows DVC management to keep the maid staff lower since they don't have to unleash more maids at 11:00 am to get rooms ready by 4:00 pm. The more rooms they can clean before 11:00 means the less staff they will require. Also, they probably have a full staff of maids arriving every morning, so this might be their idea of improving productivity and not having idle maids waiting for check outs. And lastly, they might figure that this practice moves up the average check out time because they do wake people who otherwise might sleep longer. What kind of "member" satisfaction attitude does this address?

In all, it seems like a really poor attempt at productivity improvement. The check out notification methods expressed earlier in this thread would not cost much to implement and would really enhance the check out morning experience.

 

[JudithM]

On our last stay at OKW last May we did get one of these phone calls. My husband asked who it was. I explained to him what folks on the board have said.

A few years ago there was a way to dial a number just before you left which let housekeeping know you were leaving. I wonder what happened to that system.

 

[Muushka]

I have a solution to THEIR problem of getting us out early!

Give us a GOOD discount on our AP if we promise to be out by 10!

 

[TwirlerGirl]

This is an on going problem, I've seen a few threads on this in the last 3 years. It
happen to us last November at OKW. We had one hang-up call about 8:30 AM while we were loading the car followed by maid service about 5 minutes later. My DH spoke to the maid and told her we would be out in appox. an hour. We had a second call about 30 minutes later. This upset my DH. They in turn had no tip for the day.

We had tipped on towel day $6 for 5 adults and had plan to leave a $10 tip on leaving. The rooms were left in very good order, trash already removed, dishes done, beds strip, towels all placed in the entry way ready to be done. A basket of goodies left for their enjoyment (unopening lg bag of Chips, pretzels, cookies and candy). My sister had purchased way to many goodies for our 5 day stay, so we had decided to leave the unopenned items for the maid.

I had wondered if it happened on a busy check-in / cleaning day. We were leaving on a Wednesday after Thankgiving and had been told that the resort was booked solid until the 1st of the year. I would assume the maid service has an assign number of rooms they must complete each day with in certain time frame. I know this is no excuse but can see them trying to hurry people along so they can complete their job in a timely manner. Now I think I should have left a tip and just ignored their intursion.

Sandy B.

 

[Denine]

We must be very lucky. We have not experienced the phone calls or knocks on the door. We do leave the privacy sign up and dead bolt and chain the door when we are in the room.
We have never left later than 11 AM.
If check-out is 11 AM, then they should not be bothering anyone until then. We always leave the maid service sign on the door when we leave. It has been a very long time since we have gotten our room before 4 PM. As it is, OKW and the ohter DVC resorts have a later check-in time than the other hotels, at least the last time I checked.
This practice should be stoppped.

 

[JillU-DVC]

We had this happen to us on our first trip to OKW; after reading these boards about the problem, I put the Do Not Disturb sign on the door the night before (actually, whenever I'm in the room, I put the do not disturb sign up), AND I unplugged the phones in the room.

So if they tried to call, they didn't wake us up! I agree that the slamming doors us not always the housekeeping staff; our biggest problem at OKW is with the neighbors not being aware of a slamming door. I always make sure that out door DOESN'T slam as we leave, esp if it's early in the morning.

Of course, if that's my biggest problem with DVC, I'd say I'm doing pretty well!!

 

[JonHM]

problem to deal with, because the solution to not tip the housekeeping staff may be misguided. If this were not a widespread problem, I would think that it was individuals on the housekeeping staff (the ones who do or don't get tipped, and who probably make *very* little in base salary). If the problem originated with them, then the solution not to tip them would be both justified and appropriate.

However, the problem seems so widespread that it seems *very* likely that pressure is being brought to bear on these housekeepers to resort to these kinds of tactics in order to achieve the 'goals' that have been set out for them. If THAT is the case, we are punishing the wrong people by not leaving a tip.

This sounds like something that needs to be addressed directly to Member Services, and NOT to the management of the housekeeping staff. It sounds like said management COULD be part of the problem. And their saying that they have never told housekeeping staff to use such tactics just sounds like a politician maintaining plausible deniability.

Everyone who has had a problem with this should contact member services and let them know about it - whether or not you have contacted someone ELSE about it in the past.

members@disneyvacationclub.com

don't forget to include your member number.

 

[10drum]

I have not read all the replies, but it seems if you don't answer the phone and housekeeping shows up at your door shortly there after, it would be a pretty good guess as too who called.

 

[Deb & Bill]

Just a point - it's our money they spend on housekeeping. Not theirs. The fewer staff they have to pay, the lower our dues.

 

[vernon]

I'd have thought a sensible tactic for housekeeping would be to leave a message on your voice mail the night before checkout asking for you to call on departure or to leave a "please make up room" sign on your door when you walk out. A lot of people leave early in the morning so there is a lot of work that could be done before 11.00. Add a note in your welcome pack pointing out that if people want the chance to check in early it needs housekeeping to be given every opportunity to clean the rooms if/when people check out early.

I the maid knocks on my door, tries to engage me in conversation but when she realises I'm annoyed tries the old "non haeblo English " line I think I know who has at least some responsibility for me being disturbed.

IMHO the wages the pay the housekeeping are SO LOW any increase in staff below doubling the number of cleaners is going to have a minimal effect. on dues.

I don't think anyone has a problem with being asked what time they are likely to leave IF IT IS DONE POLITELY and in an as efficient and unobtrusive manner as is possible. The current tactic is devisive, sneaky and annoying.