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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think this is not standard in a hotel?

184 replies

sniffle12 · 14/02/2017 08:44

Staying in quite a nice hotel and housekeeping have knocked on once at 8am and once at 8.20am even though I said not yet thank you the first time. AIBU to think that's a bit intense? What if I'd been asleep still or in the shower, would they just have walked in on me?

I would always put my do not disturb card on if I was intending to sleep in, but I presumed that before 9am was pretty safe as people are still getting up, getting ready for work, etc?

Will just put do not disturb on tomorrow but wanted opinions!

OP posts:

CaraAspen · 14/02/2017 13:36

Use the sign then they will know.
Sigh

228agreenend · 14/02/2017 13:36

I wouldn't expect housekeeping until after check-out time, and only then would put the sign up (if I was staying al day etc). Until then, I would consider the room 'mine' and not property of the hotel, if that makes sense.

Basicbrown · 14/02/2017 13:46

I'm not sure if all chambermaids get this, but after a while you get this weird sixth sense where you just know if there's someone in the room or not

mrsmortis · 14/02/2017 13:46

I'm in a big chain 4* hotel this week. Housekeeping knocked at 8:35 this morning. I told him I'd be gone in 15 mins and he went away again.

NapQueen · 14/02/2017 13:47

228 maybe Im misunderstanding but are you saying that you stay in a room all day even when you ought to have checked out?

ScarlettFreestone · 14/02/2017 13:51

I'm not sure why you didn't put the sign up after the first knock?

Pemba · 14/02/2017 13:55

Maybe OP was trying to get back to sleep Scarlett? And she had told them, so thought that would be it.

KidLorneRoll · 14/02/2017 13:58

"If they don't have a system "

There is a system. It's called a bit of cardboard, that you hang on your door, so the cleaner knows that you don't want to be disturbed.

ScarlettFreestone · 14/02/2017 13:59

Pemba quite possibly but if housekeeping knocked while I was still sleeping/not ready to leave my first instinct is to pop the DND sign on.

It seems very odd to me not to take 10 seconds to hop out of bed to do it.

NapQueen · 14/02/2017 14:00

Or just do it before you go to hed.

JaniceBattersby · 14/02/2017 14:02

basicbrown

Just me then?

I swear it's a 'thing'.

DesolateWaist · 14/02/2017 14:37

It's a bit of a Schrödinger's cat argument this isn't it.
I have never put up a DND sign and have never had housekeeping knock on the door.
Many people seem to always put up the sign and never have housekeeping knock on the door.
We don't know if it is the sign or that housekeeping don't start until later.

RoughBeast · 14/02/2017 14:48

I'm not sure if all chambermaids get this, but after a while you get this weird sixth sense where you just know if there's someone in the room or not

No, but after a few months, I was very good at predicting which solo male business guests would happen to open the door naked but for a very small, slipping hand towel when I knocked to clean the room.

Roomster101 · 14/02/2017 14:49

There is a system. It's called a bit of cardboard, that you hang on your door, so the cleaner knows that you don't want to be disturbed.

I meant if they don't have a system for knowing whether or not people have checked out they need to make sure that people know to put the sign out or they will be disturbed as early as 8 a.m. It's no good having a system that involves the guest putting a sign on the door if you don't tell the guest about it. People who have never worked in hotels aren't going to automatically know that the housekeeping staff do and don't know....

NapQueen · 14/02/2017 14:56

But common sense dictates that if you dont wsnt to be disturbed at any time throughout your stay you use the soecially designed;free little sign. Its even on the door already so you dont need to hunt for it.

No sign means "knock if you need".

Ifailed · 14/02/2017 14:58

Must admit, when I worked away from home, me pretty well all the other 'workers' were up and about before 8am, and left by about 8:30. If you are away for pleasure then having a lie-in and then a leisurely breakfast is part of the fun, and so I'd would have put out the DND sign up the night before.

DesolateWaist · 14/02/2017 14:58

Common sense to me means that during the time it is usual for a guest to be using the room: i.e. after check in and before the end of breakfast, it shouldn't need to be explicitly explained that someone is using the room.

Farandole · 14/02/2017 14:59

OP, how many stars hotel and what country are you in?

Oblomov17 · 14/02/2017 15:00

Doesn't everyone put the DND sign on your door before getting into bed, the night before?
Why would you not? So alternatively, you get into bed. And then at 7.30am, or 8am, or pre 9am, you GET UP, to put the sign on?

Yeah. Like that makes sense.

DesolateWaist · 14/02/2017 15:05

Doesn't everyone put the DND sign on your door before getting into bed, the night before?

No. Why would I? The hotel know I'm in that room so why would they need to disturb me during the times that it is perfectly reasonable and ordinary for me to be using the room?

AntiQuitty · 14/02/2017 15:09

Never put one on the door unless planning to be asleep before check out time. Never been disturbed.

Though obviously haven't stayed in a hotel posh enough to be disturbed at 8am!

RoughBeast · 14/02/2017 15:09

It's no good having a system that involves the guest putting a sign on the door if you don't tell the guest about it.

But surely anyone who's ever stayed in a hotel knows this? I'm baffled that some people on this thread don't seem to understand what DNDs are for. Plus they're pretty self-explanatory, given that one side says DND (or in one hotel I regularly stay in 'Shhh!') and the other says 'Please service this room' or the like. Just put them outside when you are going to bed at night, and only take it down once you're happy for the room to be cleaned.

If you stay in hotels, you see the housekeeping teams trundling around the corridors with their carts from early in the morning. What do you think they are doing if not cleaning rooms? People stay in hotels for work and leisure, and for every person staying over who thinks it's common sense' that no one will want to clean their room before the end of breakfast, there are others who will ask for the room to be cleaned while they go for a swim/gym/early breakfast or who will have left for the day/for the airport by seven am. Or people like me who don't need their room cleaned, and who just ask for extra towels if needed.

The housekeeping staff are not psychic. Which is why the convention is that you use the DND to help them out.

AntiQuitty · 14/02/2017 15:10

Asleep after checkout time I mean!

AntiQuitty · 14/02/2017 15:12

Let's see.

I assume when handing in a key for early checkout that it gets flagged on this new fangled thing called a computer and therefore the room in vacant and can be cleaned.

Post checkout time with no dnd sign is fair game.

NapQueen · 14/02/2017 15:14

And how does a housekeeper know what time you are going for breakfast? Lots of hotels have the breakfast running til at least 10.30am. So no housekeeper should be knocking on any door til after that?? Even though its more likely to be empty before then on a weekday?

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