Originally Posted by
Miesque
After having finished two stays of 4 nights and 5 nights in diferent hotels, I have to comment that I have no idea how a property that has limited housekeeping deals with a day when most of the hotel is checking out that morning because if you haven't had housekeeping come in to tidy at all for a multiple day stay, the room requires much more work to get back in proper shape for the next guest (unless the guest leaving happens to be immensely neat). Also people like myself pick up fresh towels without returning the ones they use (I pile them under the sink once used) so that means a tremendous amount of laundry as well on one of those big checkout days. I have to give kudos to the Homewood Suites Lexington Fayette Mall for having a small area next to the front desk where you could freely pick up shampoo, conditioner, soap, coffee, tea, fake creamer, shower caps. More places that have limited housekeeping should do that instead of making us hunt down housekeeping carts or waiting in line at the front desk for those items which if you are staying for 5 days you obviously need more than they leave for you
That is a great idea for the hotel to do. And I agree they need to facilitate giving back towels if they aren't going to collect them. Heck, even Amtrak sleeper cars has a linen bag in each car/level to toss the used ones in if there isn't a big one hung up next to where the clean towels are stacked.
I saw a video recently from one of the chains about the room "refresh/tidy" versus normal cleaning - consisted of bathroom linen replacement, make the bed, take out the trash, neatly tidy up the big things, and perhaps leave more disposable amenity items. If they saw something that needed cleaning like a toilet or shower then they could. I took great issue seeing that the star of said video did not change gloves at all and used the same rag on the toilet as other items. Unfortunately that's probably closer to reality than not.
I had a project once for almost two years during my employment with a US low cost carrier to basically fix aircraft cleanliness and develop a program. I wrote specs, met the various vendors, shlepped around the country looking at planes at 4am post-cleaning, and wrote/produced the training material as well as select and get certified the cleaning chemicals. Any lavatory cleaning was at least 5 rags to avoid cross-contamination and at least one change of gloves mid-way. We had the normal between flight clean, then an overnight clean a little more in depth (do the trays, vacuum the whole thing, make the cabin look nice crossing seatbelts, etc) and then a heavy clean that I set the interval at 30 days. That was like your 6 month dental teeth cleaning as opposed to doing a good three minute brushing daily.
To save some costs, the airline wanted to push the heavy clean interval from 30 to between 45 and 60 days. I said it is going to be a tremendous difference in a bad way because you reach a certain point where the cleaning is going to get away from you and the work scope will increase especially in manpower - just like leaving a room to a guest's whims for a week before coming in to clean. You reach a point where it isn't just about cleaning - you soil things to the point of having to replace them more often if not kept up with. This saving of money the hotels hope to accomplish under the guise of giving guests what they desire is going to cost far more in the end.