Do Not Disturb sign problem

[Orator]

You mean you didn't come home mad and start a thread on cruise critic? :rolleyes: :D:D

 

Now, another question when it comes to the Miami Office.

Edited February 13, 2015 by Orator

[dodger1964]

We had same problem (with the sign falling off) on the reflection...I thought about bringing a refrigerator magnet next time to hold it down. I wish they had the kind that you slip into the card slot.

 

We had 2 laptops, 2 ipads, 2 iphones, and camera's left in our room at various times, some charging, some not...I find it very hard to believe that theft is very likely on a ship. We don't even lock our in room safe.

 

I miss they time we cruised on Lindblad...they don't even have keys to the rooms. You can lock the door when you are in the room if you want, but otherwise it isn't locked.

[Jane2357]

I disagree with a number of the responses here. The purpose of the do not disturb sign is to prevent passengers from being disturbed while they are in the room.

 

The Steward in this case knew that no one was in the room. They were able to get in get their job done and be out before the occupants came back. So there was no negative impact to the occupants, except for a bit of outrage about how dare a Steward do their job in a room that he knew was empty. By doing what he did he actually minimized the potential impact on the passengers and was able to do his job quickly and efficiently.

 

If he had not seen you leave then I would agree with the comments about not entering the room.

 

If you did not want him to enter then you should have said that you were going to be right back and for him to not make up the room at that time.

 

I agree with you on this - I just don't get the whole issue. I would have said to the room steward that we would be gone a short time and please do not make up our cabin yet. To say that the sign wasn't there the night before is expecting the cabin steward who is servicing how many cabins to remember whose sign was out and whose wasn't. I believe he thought you forgot to take the sign down. So he saw some personal items like your panties - who cares, I bet he's seen some things way more interesting than those.

[Pickels]

Just returned from the 5 day on the Constellation. I will write more later but this one thing really got me.

 

We got up early on a sea day and at 7:25 got ready to go up to the pool for just a bit. As we left the room my hubby put the Do Not Disturb sign on the cabin door. The room attendant was standing watching and said good morning to us. We were only planning on being gone 30 - 40 minutes - just a quick dip.

When we returned, our room attendant had gone into the room and cleaned up and did the bed.

As I said, we did have the sign on the door. I had left out my phone and Kindle charging. I never would have done that if the sign wasn't on the door. I guess I assumed he would honor that and not go in.

 

What would you have done? Complained to him, guest services or just ignored it???

 

Whenever you leave your cabin, even for a short time, and even if you put the do no disturb out, always lock up your valuables. What if you met friends and decided to have breakfast, you'd be gone quite a while.

[Iamcruzin]

I agree with you on this - I just don't get the whole issue. I would have said to the room steward that we would be gone a short time and please do not make up our cabin yet. To say that the sign wasn't there the night before is expecting the cabin steward who is servicing how many cabins to remember whose sign was out and whose wasn't. I believe he thought you forgot to take the sign down. So he saw some personal items like your panties - who cares, I bet he's seen some things way more interesting than those.

My first cruise was on Carnival back in 1986. We were on our honeymoon and the room steward took out my wife's Negligee and shaped it into an hour glass across the bed. He had to dig through the closet to find that. Other cruise lines used personal items to dress the towel animals.

[ORV]

While the steward should not have entered your cabin, your concern over belongings is misplaced. We routinely leave Kindles, computers, binoculars etc out in plain sight and never have had a problem on nearly 50 cruises with seven or eight different lines. On several occasions we have closed but not secured our safe, each thinking the other had done it. Never a problem there, either, although I confess to some nervous moments.

 

Like you I always felt this way, until I actually had something missing, on disembarkation morning while at breakfast. When called on it, and telling the steward I sure didn't want to get security involved, within a few minutes it was discovered 'in the trash". Valuable item, was nowhere near the trash can.

 

Needless to say no departure tip was left.

 

It does happen, don't believe it doesn't.

[HokiePoq]

Yes the room attendant saw us leave the room and saw us put the sign on the door - we were speaking to him. He knew it was not left from the night before.

 

I generally never leave things out when I am not in the room - not so much because I distrust him but when they clean they leave the door open and anyone could have seen and taken something.

 

I was also under the impression they were never to go in the room if the sign was on the door.

 

We were going up for a quick dip and I did not want him in there when we returned because we wanted to take showers. That was why I put the sign.

 

I just feel like he totally invaded our privacy, even if we were not in the room. I did leave a few "private" things around that I never would have if I knew he was coming in. I left my clothes with underthings in a little pile on the chair so they would be ready when I got back to take a quick shower as we were meeting friends.

 

 

Agree about not leaving things in view. Our steward told us she leaves the bathroom door open to block the view of the room for those passing by. She has to leave the room to get the ice among other things, leaving the room unguarded. We, too, put these items out of sight.

Can't imagine why the sign was ignored. Ours moved so fast we thought we'd have time to shower before the morning round...but we didn't put the sign up and had no reason to complain.

[Caribbean Chris]

I miss they time we cruised on Lindblad...they don't even have keys to the rooms. You can lock the door when you are in the room if you want, but otherwise it isn't locked.

 

Society Expeditions had the same system.

[LuAnn]

Now that we are on the subject of Do Not Disturb signs, on the S-Class ships where you have the little alcove with the two stateroom doors next to each other, if you have your DND sign on the door, and your neighbor enters or leaves the stateroom, the breeze from opening & closing the doors seems to blow off the sign off the door handle.

 

I take a small piece of duct tape and roll it up and stick it to the back of the sign. That way it stays secured to the door handle.

 

Every time..no matter how carefully I put it on the handle...when we came back to the room..or when we left the room in the AM the sign was ALWAYS on the floor!!! :confused: LuAnn

[keithm]

They are taught never to go into a room that has a "do not disturb" sign on the door. Obviously, the sign was put on the door for a reason. What part of "do not disturb" doesn't the stateroom attend understand? :rolleyes:

The couple left the room. What part of that don't YOU understand. The attendants have a lot of rooms to take care of. When an opportunity comes they'll take it & get the room cleaned. They should have told him not to do up the room while they were away.

[Wine-O]

The couple left the room. What part of that don't YOU understand. The attendants have a lot of rooms to take care of. When an opportunity comes they'll take it & get the room cleaned. They should have told him not to do up the room while they were away.

 

What part of DO NOT DISTURB don't you understand. Seems clear to me. :rolleyes: I could care less how many rooms they have to take care of.

 

Hello -- DO NOT DISTURB.

[RDC1]

What part of DO NOT DISTURB don't you understand. Seems clear to me. :rolleyes: I could care less how many rooms they have to take care of.

 

Hello -- DO NOT DISTURB.

 

Do not disturb does not mean Do not enter an empty room.

 

It means do not knock on the door or otherwise bother the occupants when the room is occupied or when you do not know if the room is occupied.

 

He knew the occupants were not in the room and thus he would not disturb them by entering the room because they were not there to be disturbed.

 

Staff are trained not to knock on the door or otherwise disturb occupants of a room when the sign is on the door, because they do not have any way of knowing if the room is occupied without knocking on the door or calling the room.

 

In this case he knew the room was not occupied because he was standing right there when they walked by.

Edited February 14, 2015 by RDC1

[CABINET]

Do not disturb does not mean Do not enter an empty room.

 

It means do not knock on the door or otherwise bother the occupants when the room is occupied or when you do not know if the room is occupied.

 

He knew the occupants were not in the room and thus he would not disturb them by entering the room because they were not there to be disturbed.

 

Staff are trained not to knock on the door or otherwise disturb occupants of a room when the sign is on the door, because they do not have any way of knowing if the room is occupied without knocking on the door or calling the room.

 

In this case he knew the room was not occupied because he was standing right there when they walked by.

 

As I mentioned earlier we place the Do Not Disturb on the door so that as soon as I have eaten I can return to my cabin and use the bathroom.

 

I have IBS and my OH has Crohns Disease. Both these conditions mean that sometimes use of the bathroom is needed very soon after eating.

 

I do not know of any other way to ensure that our bathroom is available to us (and not being cleaned) other than to leave the Do Not Disturb notice on the door.

 

I do prefer the ships that give you a Please Make Up The Room option as well as that makes things clear for the room attendant but I still maintain that if I put Do Not Disturb on the door then the attendant should not enter my room.

[betmust]

Ok - this is the OP.

 

There are a lot of different opinions here so let me say how it ended.

 

I talked to a guest relations person without saying who I was or who the room attendant was. It was more "hypothetical". She told me under NO circumstances should the room be entered. Even if he saw me leaving the room, he had NO right to go in there. Never, ever... The sign on the door is so they will not go in, whether we are there or not.

 

I did talk to the room attendant about it - he apologized for it and also said he was NOT supposed to enter any room with a sign on it. Whether he thought it was left over or not - he should have checked with us.

[tomsafrica]

Ok - this is the OP.

 

There are a lot of different opinions here so let me say how it ended.

 

I talked to a guest relations person without saying who I was or who the room attendant was. It was more "hypothetical". She told me under NO circumstances should the room be entered. Even if he saw me leaving the room, he had NO right to go in there. Never, ever... The sign on the door is so they will not go in, whether we are there or not.

 

I did talk to the room attendant about it - he apologized for it and also said he was NOT supposed to enter any room with a sign on it. Whether he thought it was left over or not - he should have checked with us.

 

You know I can't help thinking that had you had the courtesy to explain to the room attendant WHY you were leaving the room sign up even though both of you were not going to be there instead of treating him like a robot with no initiative then he wouldn't have had to experience the horrors of seeing your underwear on the chair. At the end of the day he was only trying to be helpful and do his job and obscure requirements from one out of a hundred rooms he has to clean and finish are not helpful. A little communication goes a long way sometimes.

[bouhunter]

Just returned from the 5 day on the Constellation. I will write more later but this one thing really got me.

 

We got up early on a sea day and at 7:25 got ready to go up to the pool for just a bit. As we left the room my hubby put the Do Not Disturb sign on the cabin door. The room attendant was standing watching and said good morning to us. We were only planning on being gone 30 - 40 minutes - just a quick dip.

When we returned, our room attendant had gone into the room and cleaned up and did the bed.

As I said, we did have the sign on the door. I had left out my phone and Kindle charging. I never would have done that if the sign wasn't on the door. I guess I assumed he would honor that and not go in.

 

What would you have done? Complained to him, guest services or just ignored it???[/QUOTE]

 

I'd be glad the room was clean and we didn't have to worry about when they'd be coming in later.

[cle-guy]

I talked to a guest relations person without saying who I was or who the room attendant was. It was more "hypothetical". She told me under NO circumstances should the room be entered. Even if he saw me leaving the room, he had NO right to go in there. Never, ever... The sign on the door is so they will not go in, whether we are there or not.

 

Let me just provide a point of reality here, having worked the other side of the Guest Services desks in many hotels.

 

Everyone thinks Guest Services staff know every policy there is to know, we/they don't. We know how to interact with guests. Of course we're going to agree with almost anything a guest has to say, little white lies don't hurt much and go a long way to settling down an unhappy guest.

 

So in this case I think it's more along the lines of the Guest services person was just agreeing with you, than quoting any standardized written policy on the books. No good would have come from them arguing your theoretical situation, while a lot of good came by agreeing with you.

 

Not much different really than all the errors sales agents make when discussing cabin fares, promotion, and combinability,. No one anywhere in the organization truly knows 100% of the various policies, regulations and nuances, don't fool ourselves thinking this.

 

For me, when I meet my butler and steward, I explain to them to come and go anytime they wish, unless the DND sign is on the door then that means they can go away and not be bothered. In a suite, I often just use the DND on the bedroom door, therefore allowing them compete access to the rest of the room.

 

I think another poster summed it up nicely that a DND means don't disturb the occupants, it does not say Do Not Enter. If you pay attention you will see that early in the mornings stewards stick little tiny folds of paper in the door cracks. That way when the door is opened, they find the piece of paper fallen on the floor and have a pretty good idea the cabin is now empty, or at minimum they won't be waking you up if they knock, since the paper is on the floor and only got there by the door opening. They check for the papers every few minutes so they can get all their cabins cleaned early on as we all wish, they see you walk the hall, so they know cabin is open. They are very good at observation.

 

Disembarkation morning, some hallways look like there was a confetti bomb let off with all the little folds on the floors. :D

[Presto2]

Just returned from the 5 day on the Constellation. I will write more later but this one thing really got me.

 

We got up early on a sea day and at 7:25 got ready to go up to the pool for just a bit. As we left the room my hubby put the Do Not Disturb sign on the cabin door. The room attendant was standing watching and said good morning to us. We were only planning on being gone 30 - 40 minutes - just a quick dip.

When we returned, our room attendant had gone into the room and cleaned up and did the bed.

As I said, we did have the sign on the door. I had left out my phone and Kindle charging. I never would have done that if the sign wasn't on the door. I guess I assumed he would honor that and not go in.

 

What would you have done? Complained to him, guest services or just ignored it???

 

Perhaps he thought you had forgotten the sign? Saw you going out and thought it was the ideal time to do your cabin while you were out?

 

I would much prefer this to getting back and finding that your cabin still hasn't been done.

[Presto2]

I would have had a discussion with the Room Steward about it and if he did it again, I would complain to the Housekeeping Manager.

 

I read the post wrong - totally agree :-)

Edited February 14, 2015 by Presto2

[CABINET]

OK - I see that there are people on here who believe that the room attendant should ignore the Do No Disturb sign if they know that the occupants of the room are out.

 

Can those people tell me how I can ensure that I have speedy access to the bathroom in my cabin after eating without running the risk of finding the attendant in there.

 

I know it may fall under the banner of "too much information" but I sometimes have to get in there very quickly!

 

I would be mortified to have to tell my attendant that if I can't get speedy access to my bathroom following meals I might have a nasty (and smelly) accident.

 

Surely it is not too much to ask that they do not enter a room which I have asked them to "do not disturb".

Edited February 14, 2015 by CABINET

[RDC1]

OK - I see that there are people on here who believe that the room attendant should ignore the Do No Disturb sign if they know that the occupants of the room are out.

 

Can those people tell me how I can ensure that I have speedy access to the bathroom in my cabin after eating without running the risk of finding the attendant in there.

 

I know it may fall under the banner of "too much information" but I sometimes have to get in there very quickly!

 

I would be mortified to have to tell my attendant that if I can't get speedy access to my bathroom following meals I might have a nasty (and smelly) accident.

 

Surely it is not too much to ask that they do not enter a room which I have asked them to "do not disturb".

 

On every cruise I have been on (multiple lines) the Stewards will immediately leave the room if you come back, unless you tell them that it is ok to stay and finish. If you cannot wait that short of a time then I suspect that you might not make it back to your room some of the time.

[cle-guy]

Can those people tell me how I can ensure that I have speedy access to the bathroom in my cabin after eating without running the risk of finding the attendant in there.

 

 

"Excuse me Mr Room attendant, thank you for making up my room, but I do need to use my lavatory, could you kindly come back later today to finish up the cabin?"

 

The likely hood of finding a cabin attendant

• in your bathroom
  
• when a DND is on the door,
  
• while you are out
  

is so minuscule in the percentages of reality, it's hardly worth a thought, and in the case it does happen, you simply ask to have your cabin back.

 

Every human on the planet has bowel movements, even your cabin steward. It's not such a big deal and noting embarrassing about it.

 

And if the squirts are coming so fast that it's hard to make it from the buffet to the cabin, probably should have stopped elsewhere along the way. What if you got back and your keycard was demagnetized?

Edited February 14, 2015 by cle-guy

[smtcan]

Cabinet

 

I would think that a word with the steward, without being specific would do the trick. 'If I put the DND sign on the door, please do not enter even if I am not in the cabin'. This would remove any need for the steward to be a mind reader or think you had just forgotten to remove the sign if he saw you leaving the cabin.

[CABINET]

Thanks for the replies.

 

This condition is embarrassing enough without having to stress over whether there will be somebody in my cabin when I have tried to ensure that there won't be.

 

Still obviously I am an idiot for feeling embarrassed about discussing lavatory issues with a complete stranger.

 

For those of you who commented, I have never yet had an "accident" and fortunately I always return to my cabin with my OH so the chances of both our cards being demagnitised is pretty small.

 

I just prefer to take what precautions I can and I used to think that leaving a Do Not Disturb notice on my door was all I needed to do.

[Big_G]

I'm with the OP. The attendant doesn't belong in the cabin unless the sign says to makeup the room. On our last cruise, we slipped the DND card in the door by mistake and the cabin was left untouched. When we returned that afternoon, the attendant was in the hall and pointed it out. We apologized and told her not to worry. It was our own fault. We were happy she didn't enter the cabin. Of course, she teased us remainder of the week. Every time she saw us leave the cabin she grilled us on what color card we wanted in the door.

 

 

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