Do Not Disturb Gone! (BLT)

[Sammie]

It does not bother me in the least. Put the latch on the door, I can't believe anyone stays in a hotel without the latch on the door all the time they are in the room. It's not your home, and you can't expect it to be.

Put out your Occupied sign when you nap etc. But when you get up from your nap take it in. Instead of spreading what ifs and making others worry over unknowns think of ways you can make this work. They are not going to want to make people miserable but if you leave your Occupied sign on your door 24/7 then yes you are probably going to get a request to come in at their convenience not yours.

What they want to do is check each room, once daily. As long as you take the sign off for a long enough period, as when you are in the parks, it should work for everyone.

 

[J and R's mom]

I thought a post said all Deluxe By Jan? maybe I misunderstood?

This was included with our most recent DVC email:

"Your in-room experience has never been more important to us. That's why we will begin removing trash from your rooms at Disney Vacation Club resorts on a daily basis in addition to regular housekeeping visits. The daily service begins December 22, 2017, at five resort properties (Bay Lake Tower, Polynesian Villas & Bungalows, The Villas at Disney's Grand Floridian, Disney's Grand Californian and Aulani). The service extends to all other Disney Vacation Club resorts on January 7, 2018."

Now whether or not January 7th will be the roll-out date everywhere, I cannot say. But for those wondering or staying at DVC non-monorail resort sections, this new policy rolls out 1/7/2018.

 

[tim123]

I have decided to forget about the new policy and relax in my new favorite resort! Where service and guests needs are taken care of immediately and with the utmost concern for privacy and comfort. No comparison staff wise, food wise and service wise on the 27,000 acres of The Walt Disney Company's private property..

 

[Princess Mulan]

Based upon my experience, I suspect this is just a formal statement of a longstanding policy. During a solo visit, I kept a DND sign on the door, and after a few days the housekeeper asked my “next-door neighbor” if they knew me and if I were ok. Also, one day when I returned from the parks I could tell that someone had entered my room. I figured it was just housekeeping or security checking on me, and I was fine with that. It didn’t concern me at the time, and it doesn’t bother me now.

 

[SaintsManiac]

My knee jerk reaction is that I don't really care, mostly a non-issue from my perspective. If they want to check my room every day, so be it. I go to Disney for theme parks, for entertainment, for leisure, and for family fun. On the surface, this policy doesn't seem to impact any of those, so I'm more indifferent than anything else.

Like most, I am curious to see and experience for myself how this actually gets implemented. Who is doing the checks, what time, if the "Off to Neverland" door hanger is taken into consideration, etc, etc. Still a lot more questions than answers so part of me will reserve full judgement for now. I do still have children of napping age, so I'm curious to see how that pans out over a larger body of work/real-world experiences.

I can see why folks who value more privacy might not like this policy. They're not wrong, just like I'm not wrong in not being too concerned. Just different perspectives.

I have a trip planned soon at a resort where this is now in effect, looking forward to experiencing it for myself just to get a better sense of how this will work.

I'm sure you'll give us a helpful review, as always. Looking forward to hearing back about it!

 

[FSU Girl]

The way they rolled out this new policy so quickly and without warning makes me wonder if they had received a threat. Especially with so many extra people there for the holiday.

 

[TomorrowlandKD]

The way they rolled out this new policy so quickly and without warning makes me wonder if they had received a threat. Especially with so many extra people there for the holiday.

This.

 

[tim123]

 

[tim123]

 

[Allison]

Nice pictures.

 

[ColoradoMom12]

What they want to do is check each room, once daily. As long as you take the sign off for a long enough period, as when you are in the parks, it should work for everyone.

This only works if you're out of your room the entire day. Housekeeping sometimes has not been to our room by 2 or even 3 PM, when we need to return to our room to rest. In the past I've had no problem putting up our DND sign - housekeeping just skips us. Now it seems if our sign is out when housekeeping comes by, there is likely chance they will knock. I have a child with an illness who at times needs an afternoon in order to maintain her health. Someone knocking would wake her up. Once she's awoken, she isn't able to fall asleep again. Which for the average person might be a minor inconvenience. For my DD, and other posters in this thread, not getting sufficient rest can actually cause medical complications. I wonder if calling to request housekeeping while we're out of our room at a park would be possible.

 

[ArwenMarie]

Room Occupied is very different from Do Not Disturb. Do Not Disturb means "don't even knock!" Room Occupied just means that they will knock and take extra precautions before walking in.

I don't think the level of service is going to rise to a point where they swing around a few times during the day to see if the sign came off. Or that you can call and put in your preferred time for housekeeping or the check or whatever. They are so short-staffed as it is

 

[Lynne M]

The way they rolled out this new policy so quickly and without warning makes me wonder if they had received a threat. Especially with so many extra people there for the holiday.

I don't think a specific threat was needed to inspire this policy. My guess is that the meetings started about 9 AM on Monday, October 2nd, the day after the Las Vegas shooting. At Disney, and at every other hotel chain in the country. How do we respond to this? How do we prevent something like this at our properties? Meetings with legal, risk analysts, insurers, until the policy and ramifications were ironed out, and then implemented as soon as it was practical to do so.

 

[Roxyfire]

This only works if you're out of your room the entire day. Housekeeping sometimes has not been to our room by 2 or even 3 PM, when we need to return to our room to rest. In the past I've had no problem putting up our DND sign - housekeeping just skips us. Now it seems if our sign is out when housekeeping comes by, there is likely chance they will knock. I have a child with an illness who at times needs an afternoon in order to maintain her health. Someone knocking would wake her up. Once she's awoken, she isn't able to fall asleep again. Which for the average person might be a minor inconvenience. For my DD, and other posters in this thread, not getting sufficient rest can actually cause medical complications. I wonder if calling to request housekeeping while we're out of our room at a park would be possible.

I read that a lot on here, and I know that must be true due to the sheer amount of rooms. But most of the time I guess we've been lucky to have the room cleaned by the time we returned from the parks at 1 pm (before we were dvc). That said there's really not an easy way around this issue until we get more real reports of what's happening instead of hyperbole and conjecture. There's a lot of people who need to recharge and in various ways, so I think they'll be trying to balance all of that the best they can.

Everyone keeps saying "Just use the latch to double-lock the door, that will keep them out"... It's not that cut and dry, honestly. Every hotel has a tool to throw that latch back from the outside. It's not rare for a latch to fall just enough accidentally to lock someone out of the room, so they use that tool to throw it back so the door will open. The whole point of taking away the DND sign is for hotel staff to do room security checks, so it's not like they're going to try to open the door, see the latch is used, and say "Oh, gotta skip this one, they used the latch" - that would be the easiest way for someone setting up their arsenal to keep going uninterrupted. They'll just use the tool to throw the latch back and enter the room anyway.

I've read different accounts on these boards where it took close to an hour to cut that latch off, so it probably isn't something someone is carrying around with them. Nor is it guaranteed to be a 30 second push through the door. If the latch is set 99 times out of 100 there's a person in the room. If they're showering then that can easily be figured out, you can hear the water. If they're using the toilet you'll probably hear them saying something. If they're changing, well that would be unfortunate. Personally, I change clothes in the bathroom since that's easier.

I don't see a scenario where they're going to "push into" your room in most normal circumstances. They probably will note that to check on latched doors later. If it's latched for many day time hours, then perhaps they'll try to get in more forceably. That being said, if I'm unwell or sleepy, I'd rather be woken up once and clear the air with them than potentially be bothered continuously over the course of the day or few days. Most of the time at a Disney resort people aren't hanging out in the rooms all day and night. Many people do take housekeeping. So to stay in the room locked in there would be out of the ordinary.

Is it security theater, possibly. Is it the end of privacy as we know it? Hardly, it's private property and many hotels have policies just like this in some form or another. I do think it's important for them to have a sense of what's going on in their rooms and across the property. There's a balance here and people are rushing to pull out their pitchforks, just as they did with the dog policy.

 

[MaryLovesPoohBear]

This only works if you're out of your room the entire day. Housekeeping sometimes has not been to our room by 2 or even 3 PM, when we need to return to our room to rest. In the past I've had no problem putting up our DND sign - housekeeping just skips us. Now it seems if our sign is out when housekeeping comes by, there is likely chance they will knock. I have a child with an illness who at times needs an afternoon in order to maintain her health. Someone knocking would wake her up. Once she's awoken, she isn't able to fall asleep again. Which for the average person might be a minor inconvenience. For my DD, and other posters in this thread, not getting sufficient rest can actually cause medical complications. I wonder if calling to request housekeeping while we're out of our room at a park would be possible.

Exactly.

As you have said, a nap isn't just a nice option while on vacation. A nap is required if I want to stay "on vacation."

First time someone wakes me up for "Trash service" or "to check the room" for whatever, people will hear about it. I will be livid.

 

[gillep]

I will be on Disney DVC property in January, I will see how it goes at that time, and formulate an opinion after experiencing it. This isn't something that I am going to give another second of thought before then. I don't think this is going to keep me safer in the slightest, but I also don't think it is going to impact me in the slightest, if it does, I will address it with my resort at that time.

 

[Jennasis]

Everyone keeps saying "Just use the latch to double-lock the door, that will keep them out"... It's not that cut and dry, honestly. Every hotel has a tool to throw that latch back from the outside. It's not rare for a latch to fall just enough accidentally to lock someone out of the room, so they use that tool to throw it back so the door will open. The whole point of taking away the DND sign is for hotel staff to do room security checks, so it's not like they're going to try to open the door, see the latch is used, and say "Oh, gotta skip this one, they used the latch" - that would be the easiest way for someone setting up their arsenal to keep going uninterrupted. They'll just use the tool to throw the latch back and enter the room anyway.

To undo the latch is a bit of a process, as several posters have explained as they shared their experiences needing someone to undo a latch (it essentially destroys the flip latch). Housekeepers aren't carrying the "tool" around with them...and even if they were, they aren't going to try to open the door, realize the fliplatch is up and then grab the tool and disable it right them and there. They will likely continue to try to contact the occupants or come back later.

Just like when the DND signs were up...they would just come back later. If the flip latch is up and the occupant refuses to answer the door (despite the banging of the door against the latch) they'll come back later or if they feel there is something odd afoot then they'll use the latch disabler.

Using the latch isn't meant to deter your room from being checked IMO. It's used to prevent them from walking in on you unawares. It will slow them down to give you time to realize someone has been knocking and trying to get in so you can wake up/stop having sex/get out of the shower/get dressed or what have you and answer the door if= only to say "we are indisposed, can you come back in an hour?"

 

[MaryLovesPoohBear]

Using the latch isn't meant to deter your room from being checked IMO. It's used to prevent them from walking in on you unawares. It will slow them down to give you time to realize someone has been knocking and trying to get in so you can wake up/stop having sex/get out of the shower/get dressed or what have you and answer the door if= only to say "we are indisposed, can you come back in an hour?"

We are naked and having sex, unless you feel the need to watch, you should come back later to see if we are criminals.

 

[Jennasis]

We are naked and having sex, unless you feel the need to watch, you should come back later to see if we are criminals.

LOL...yep. Like that. Gotta be careful though. Remember that guy who joked with the front desk about having a meth lab in his room? Wasn't he kicked out and banned from WDW?

 

[MaryLovesPoohBear]

LOL...yep. Like that. Gotta be careful though. Remember that guy who joked with the front desk about having a meth lab in his room? Wasn't he kicked out and banned from WDW?

Well, if we are naked and having sex, we wouldn't be lying. And what are they doing by coming into the room? Checking to see if they think we are criminals. Sees perfectly reasonable to me.

I guess instead of saying that they are checking to see if we are criminals, I could say that we aren't. Oh, and we don't have trash to be taken.

How about, "We aren't criminals, we are simply naked and having sex. Unless you plan to watch, come back later. Much later."