You are right but that makes for a less interesting thread! :)

Not naked...and we did the walking in...
 

Spent last week w/ 16 high school students visiting DC. We stayed at the Key Bridge Marriott. I had a total of 6 rooms and used mobile check-in. I requested a 4:00 PM check-out on the app.

On Friday, departure day, the other chaperone and I stayed at the hotel while the kids braved the winds and visited some of the few places that were open. I was not sure if we would really have late check-out on all of the rooms, because on arrival, the woman at the front desk told me my elite benefits would only apply to 3 rooms. I expected they would only apply to one, and assumed she was getting this confused with the limit of three rooms for earning points.

Because I thought there was a good chance we would not have late check- out on all of the rooms, I had the kids store their bags in my room before they left. Most returned from their outings around 2:00 PM, and though their bags were in my room, a few tried to enter their rooms to hang out before we were due to depart for DCA.

For at least two of our rooms, students were still able to enter their rooms using their room keys, but there were already new guests checked into those rooms. In one case, a girl walked into her former room to find a man sitting on the bed. In the other case, there was a man in the bathroom.

I contacted the front desk to let them know about the problem. I assume that the new guests were upset (they should have been). The front desk confirmed that they had checked new guests into the rooms. They could not explain why our keys still worked. They did not seem all that concerned about the issue, though they eventually sent someone up to check on it after I insisted that it was important.

I can't imagine what could have caused this. I wonder if using the app to request 4:00 PM check out might have caused all of our keys to expire at 4:00 PM. But even if this were the case, wouldn't checking a new guest into the room have cancelled the earlier keys? If not, this seems like a real problem.

Does anyone else have any ideas about what might have caused this?

AFAIK only at the front desk can you "activate" keys
 

And you could not extend the check out time, regardless of when a guest would want to check out it was standard for 12pm. Sometimes 11am when the clocks get moved. A FDA might've punched in the wrong dates, very plausible especially in the middle of a large group or the making of keys for multiple groups.

What makes it interesting is the kids keys still worked after new guests checked in. A FDA might've just copied your keys which makes no sense for a new guest but hey I was new once too.

Booked a 'special' room for Xmas, with outdoor hot tub and kitchen. Got the actual keys (not key cards) to the property from the front desk. Walked in on half dressed individual that took the the wrong room (knowingly IMO, as he stayed there before - "The Cottage" sounds different from Room #9 ). Because it was Xmas, the housekeeping had been sent home, and we had to take 'that guy's" room, without the special features we were looking forward to. Disappointing, despite the discount.

I did check with the front desk (in person) to ensure that the two chaperone rooms had 4:00 PM check-out. They did. And we were never asked for our keys to have the time extended, though they continued to work after noon.

I think it's a problem with doors that are not "online" whether it is due to the systems age or cost. I haven't really worked with properties that weren't online but I know for check outs, the system initiates a cancel command telling the door that the card is no longer valid. For a door/system that isn't online, you must physically create a cancel card and go to the door telling it that the card is cancelled. It's designed so that the card holds all the rights and if the system is offline (or there's a network outage), the doors will continue to work.

I have a feeling that this is what happened.

The systems I've known use a sequence numbering scheme so if a "new" key is issued it invalidates any previous sequence when used. If I had to guess, I'd wonder if maybe the guests entered the rooms when housekeeping had the door open and they did not use their key. But more likely FDC did not program a new key but copied the previous key. If a copy was made, it's a serious security issue and should be addressed, although probably pretty unlikely, but possible, a previous guest would be returning to a room.

Then the FDA probably got the date wrong to begin with.

Nope. The kids used their old keys and found new guests in the room/bathroom.

I stayed at a very nice independent 5-star hotel in Lisbon, Portugal last year.

I'm naked walking out of the shower and find the housekeeper cleaning my room. Why she entered when you could clearly hear the shower running is beyond me. She seems unbothered and continues cleaning, but after the Dominique Strauss-Kahn incident there's no way I want her in my room in my state of undress. I think I may have yelled, "Get out." I went back to the bathroom, closed the door and used the bathroom telephone to call the duty manager to instantly report and document the situation in the event there was ever any allegation. She was very, very sorry. I come out of the bathroom and the housekeeper is back in the room ... again, I tell her to leave. She leaves.

I call back and tell the duty manager. I explain I'll be gone in 20 minutes. When I come back a couple hours later, my room is clean. But they took all of my clothes, both clean and unclean. Turns out the general manager thought a nice gesture would be to take my clothes without asking and have them washed or dry-cleaned. Literally every article of clothing, including underwear and socks. I demanded my clothes back but was told it was too late to retrieve them. It wasn't after breakfast the following day that my clothes were returned--all cleaned, folded, hung and what not.

As I told the general manager, I don't know what was more of an invasion of privacy. Walking in guest when it was obvious that he was in the shower or taking all of a guest's clothes -- an act that could be considered a crime -- without the guest's permission.

I ended up getting a voucher for 3 nights complimentary stay, if I ever want to return to the hotel or any of its sister properties in Portugal.

What I meant to say the new guests entered while housekeepping was there or got a copy of your kid's keys and not a new key which should have invalidated the previous key.

A robe?

Got it. My misunderstanding. I guess it is possible, but wouldn't issuing keys to the new gusts have invalidated my students' old ones? And doesn't the front desk usually communicate with housekeeping to track which rooms are ready?

Issuing the key does nothing to the door... It's the use of the new key that invalidates the previous keys. There is no connection to the door, only it's internal processor to know what's happening. Some keep a log of which keys were used when. I was at one property after a prolonged power outage and they had to go through and reset every door because the encoder at the front desk lost it's memory and had to start over. All keys had to be reissued.

Some of those little things can cause great frustration. Who knew a simple door key could be so complicated.

From my understanding as a former FDA:

1: incorrect date was entered upon your check-in since you did not hand over keys to get them extended

2a: copy of the incorrect keys were given to brand new guests

2b: the guests got in while housekeeping was finished and used/did not use whatever keys they were given

Tl;dr: the front desk associates greatly need to be retrained (and depending how the new guests got inside the rooms so do the housekeepers) or this is bs (or you are not giving complete/truthful feedback).