To think that a 7pm check-in is too late when you have young kids

[sqirrelfriends]

I woke up to an email this morning from the company I booked a holiday cottage with for next month.

For corona reasons:

7pm check in (instead of 3pm)
9am check out (instead of 10)
Removal of all high risk items (they mentioned board games and the DVD player but I would imagine it's going to be barren)

We would have to drive about 4 hours to get there with a young child, 7pm just seems too late to me to check in, and equally 9am is too early to check out, especially with all the extra stuff we would need to bring. Am I being unreasonable to think it would never take 10 hours to clean a cottage? And would you be cancelling?

Some of you are ridiculous.

Doesn’t matter people are ridiculous or not. Their purchase is discretionary. If they don’t like it, they won’t buy.

All our lives have been turned upside down. For three months. And yet everyone's expecting their UK holiday to be normal? Seriously?

Expecting a holiday cottage business to be unaffected by covid hygiene regulations is bizarre. Yes, 7pm isn't ideal, and if anything other than covid caused it I'd be pretty annoyed. But come on. What other part of your life has been able to function normally over the last three months? And this sector is onlu just about to open up so they're having to be cautious and I've no doubt they've been getting mixed messages for ages too. And I'm sure that they're terrified of guest getting Covid and blaming them. I would be. They've got to be (literally) squeaky clean.

Give them a break. Just like you have with everything and everyone else since the end of March.

7pm check in is fine

Drive there normal time, spend the day on the beach whatever with stuff in your car. Fish and chips by the sea.

Get to the cottage at 7pm, child in and bed. Skip bath.

It what takes an hour to get stuff in and unpacked? Just get stuff in and you can always unpack the next morning/evening.

As a child we used to get to cottages way later than 7, we'd drive to north scotland/france/holland, sometimes after school on a friday. Sometimes it would be midnight when we'd arrive! People are being really dramatic on this thread, its 4 hrs

I would much rather get to a cottage at 7pm than miss a whole day of my holiday. So please dont persuade cottage owners to have a day between guests. Its not fair on the majority of people who can work out how to manage this

YABU sorry and all but a) you're very fortunate to still be getting your holiday b) you're on holiday so fcuk the routine and chill out a bit and c) these places have to follow guidelines.

I have a holiday let - happy to give you back the £50 which equates to 3 hours of your weeks holiday lost. Maybe you'd like to pay the extra £200 it's going to cost me to clean and fog for your safety. Reading this I am seriously considering pulling all my summer lets. Not worth the hassle if this is how people are thinking.

Also with regards to leaving stuff in the car, pack a rucksack with valuables in -camera/tablet. Take that with you

Leave everything else in the car.

@londonschool please dont. Im not sure if Im going to get my holiday let at the moment but the majoriy of people are grateful that owners are putting in the extra effort to sort things out so we can have a holiday, and extra costs arent being reflected in the price.

Its 4 hrs, 4 hours of my holiday but I might actuallt get one! 4 hrs to ensure me, the cleaning staff and the other users are safe.

Ive had traffic jam longer than 4 hrs! Its really not a big disruption

9am check-out? no way. I would try and negotiate before cancelling. You're losing the first day as well with a 7pm check-in.

@ChubbyPigeon you seem in the minority on there!

Tell them you'll check in at 3 then clean the cottage yourself. If not, will it really matter if your son goes to bed at 7.30 rather than 7 for one night? Talk about first world problems!

If I was staying for week, not so much of an issue, but a short break of 2-4 days, I would not be happy.

I think I got the same email as the OP this morning. The email talks about all the extra cleaning measures and then says:

In order to ensure all these things happen in your property, and we have enough cleaning time between guests, we kindly need you to check in after 7pm and check out by 9am

I understand they have to put extra measures in place. BUT, there is no recognition in the email that this will cause problems for some people. No mention that it is different from the original terms and conditions. Nothing about flexbility. And no attempt at a goodwill gesture.

I agree with a previous poster. This is a business, not a public service. I think they have got the communications wrong. I bet they are getting loads of calls about this after the email.

We are due to go to a holiday let on 4 July... We got told check in now 5pm and checkout 9 am.
I understand the early checkout.. They need to clean and allow time before next guests.
But later check in is cheeky as we arw first guests in since March.. They have plenty of time to get it ready.
However just glad to be going.
If they change it to 7 pm I will be cross.

I haven’t RTFT but we were looking for a holiday cottage and found a lot of them were advertising 9am check out and 7pm check in. I’m not bothered about the money but 7pm is a really difficult check in time for us. Found a place that was advertising 9am checkout and 6pm check in which is only an hour more but just makes all the difference when you have a young child, so we booked that.

It's not ideal. Ask for a discount if you're not happy. They are the ones who have changed the terms and conditions.

@Elphame if they’re furloughed by YOU, you can’t employ them. But with this demand they shouldn’t be on furlough. If they’re furloughed by someone else (or of course if they’ve been made redundant like many hospitality workers) then of course they’re free to work for you. That said, I am astonished that you can’t find people at £25/ hour. That’s an incredible rate and substantially higher than waitressing etc (even with tips)

Maybe they have to wait 3 hours after guests check out before it is safe for them to clean. And they need the property empty, cleaned, for three hours before you arrive, for your safety. It does make sense tbh. Annoying, but safe.

I had no idea it isn't usual to have the first day of your holiday before you check into the cottage.

We usually leave home early, arrive at destination around lunchtime, depending on distance, have a pub lunch or picnic, afternoon on the beach/walking/exploring, go to cottage just in time to unpack before going out for dinner. Why would you waste the afternoon going to the cottage to unpack?

I'm always stressed about leaving on time but people around us are rarely packed and ready to go by the checkout time, so I'd expect the earlier checkout is unlikely to be respected.

The late check in is because the cottage agencies (who legally have a duty of care to their owners/cleaners) have been advised that owners/cleaners now can not enter a property until 3 hours after the last guests have left. Plus a couple of hours for the extra cleaning that needs to be done.

As many people, owners and guests, have pointed out on this thread, we're not imposing these rules for fun!

Personally, I think people should cut some slack, given we are in a pandemic.

It's also worth checking the booking calendar for your cottage to see if anyone is staying the night before. If not, contact the agency to see if an early check in is possible - I will contacting guests to revert to 3 pm check ins for any bookings that aren't same-day changeovers.

'Maybe they have to wait 3 hours after guests check out before it is safe for them to clean' there would be no evidence base for this. There really is no reason (from a Covid-19 point of view) that cleaners can't go in straight away, ensuring normal hand washing would be enough given that Covid-19 is spread by droplets.

It's ridiculous and YANBU. Cancelling it would be an overreaction on your part though.

I'm always stressed about leaving on time but people around us are rarely packed and ready to go by the checkout time, so I'd expect the earlier checkout is unlikely to be respected.

Maybe this is why they have stated earlier check out, knowing that if they say 9am, some people will still be there at 10am...? (If they said 10, some would still be there at 11 etc)

For the person that said they would check in at 3pm and clean yourself a) I would imagine you would have to sign a waiver to say the holiday cottage company are not liable b) why would you want to check in early and then spend the afternoon cleaning...? That's not a holiday either!

My holiday begins the moment we leave home - UK or abroad! I assume you're a good couple of hours' drive away OP, get your car packed the night before, breakfast en route (in pyjamas if you set off early enough, add to the adventure!), then you have a whole day to explore/picnic/beach/eat dinner before heading back to the accommodation. Do you intend to have DC tucked in every night by 7pm for the whole of your time away? Are you really going to cut your days away short so that you have time to eat/bath/bedtime routine by 7pm? If so, there's no reason not to pack up your car the night before you check-out with the majority of your stuff, then assuming you're going to be up at usual getting up time from 7pm bedtime you'll have enough time to be out at 9am!

Most child friendly attractions shut by 5. Dinner out with kids can be stressful/tedious so we tend to have our bigger meal at lunch and have something easy for dinner.

We tend to go with out early, back for dinner. Some flex if forecast suggests clearing weather later or tides for a beach day but generally everything is less busy earlier in the day...

That said we have recently mostly been away with in laws who have to have dinner on the table by 6 so back by 4 latest to cook. They also don't eat out (health issues). This combined with faff factor 5,000,000 in the mornings, and being too tight to pay for a cottage with decent beds (they bring their own) might have something to do with my lack of keenness to repeat the experience..