Cost Cutting....and lying about it
 

Writing tonight from an otherwise perfectly up to standard CY.

I noticed, however, for the first time in nearly 25 years that the usual glassware, coffee mugs have been replaced by plastic and paper respectively.
Minor point.

And my first thought was that this was an oversight by housekeeping. Called the front desk and was given some hokum that I couldn't make sense of about "current conditions"....apparently a reference to swine flu or whatever.
(If that's the case, I guess we should all stop using flatware, etc...and so should restaurants. But I digress...)

I told the front desk clerk that this sounded like more cost cutting to me. The guy got REALLY defensive. "Oh no, not at all....yada, yada, yada. It actually costs more for plastic cups than real glasses."

Yeah right.

If that's the case how come Days Inns, Econo Lodges, etc. don't have real glassware in the rooms.

I'm just one customer. I've looked the other way with most of the nonsense we've all seen and have discussed on this board. But I personally draw the line at being lied to. By a junior-level clerk or anyone else.

I really didn't care all that much about having the real glassware/coffee mugs being taken away. Irritating, yes. Big deal no. But between being lied to, the cumulative effect of all the cuts, and the stubborn refusal to provide HSIA at FS properties (a business neccessity), I'm rapidly approaching the point of having had enough.

I say this after a morning earlier this week where for the first time ever I encountered a breakfast "spread" in a FS property that actually offered less than the last FI I stayed at! (Oatmeal and some unidentifiable "fat/sodium load on a bun" were the only hot items).

In the past, I've "fired" both United Airlines and Avis after 15+ years each of them being preferred travel vendors. I never thought it would come to that with Marriott. Especially since I'm approaching lifetime Platinum status. I also thought Marriott operated on a higher plane than their peers.

But I'm now wondering "what's next" and will probably....for the first time in memory...be willing to give more than a cursory listen to what Hilton and Starwood keep offering me.

Funny how one little "episode"....no matter how trivial on the surface...can be the "last straw".

I thought someone posted that a lot of hotels went to disposables because people don't trust that the cups/glasses really are washed? I much prefer real glasses but seem to recall quite a few people on here wanted the sure cleanliness of disposable.

About a year ago there was a lot of talk of how dirty these glasses and cups were.
There was hidden camera video of maids cleaning toilets and then wiping out the coffee cups without taking their gloves off.
The story was out of Atlanta and included a Marriott.
I for one prefer glass at home and paper in a hotel.

By the way there is a higher cost with disposable products.

At least two full service properties I stayed at switched from glasses to paper for coffee and plastic for water, and it's been a year or two since the switch was made: Renaissance Vinoy and Marriott Westfields (Chantilly VA). In both cases was told it was done for health reasons.

Update: It was explained to me that the switch was mandated by an inspection by the public health department.

Okay, fine....but the exact same glasses that had been in the rooms were still being used in the restaurant. Apparently it's okay to encounter germs in a public restaurant, but not in the privacy of your room.

In hindsight, I may have overreacted in my original post. But what set me off wasn't the glassware being replaced by plastic....it was the nonsense about the plastic being being more expensive than plastic.

And no, I'm not seriously considering flipping to Hilton or Starwood...at least not yet.

AF did exactly the same thing.ridicoulus.

After seeing some of the aforementioned videos...I would prefer the plastic cups.@:-)

(deleted duplicate).

It's a lot easier to fill the iron with a plastic cup!! Those glass ones make the water go everywhere. At least with the plastic, you make it go right into the iron.

In the restaurant they are presumably being washed in an industrial dishwasher between uses. In the rooms they are being washed how?

Yes, the switch for the majority of hotel companys was made immediately after the Fox storys ran.....some hotels offer both paper and glass some offer just paper now (very few offer just glass these days)....paper is actually more expensive for hotels

Exactly so.

It's pretty obvious why hotels have gone this route. And I applaud it. As do the vast majority of frequent stayers, I imagine.

Most of us were tired of washing our own glasses/mugs just to be sure that they were clean. If the OP never bothered to do this over the years, he was an adventurous man. :p

Count me in as one that gladly take a "cup inside the plastic" over "the glass sitting on shelf that has been used by who knows who" any day of the week.

It just goes to show how hard it is for hotels to please everybody. I'm sure glad I'm not in a service industry.

:rolleyes:

You serious?!

... so where's all these infectious diseases I should have collected these last two decades?!

I tell ya, FT is a looking-glass into a strange world sometimes; I remember reading in another forum about grown men who are "pee shy" (their words!) and can't take a leak next to another man in a stall, and now this.