The bosses

A team of housekeeping managers oversaw the housekeepers. Every morning Amy would have a meeting with the managers on duty that day where they would brief the staff on any special instructions for the day and hand out our room assignments. "The announcements themselves took about five minutes but they were all repeated in Spanish and Haitian too so it was about a 15 minute meeting. A single head of housekeeping oversaw the managers, though I only met her once and didn't have regular interaction with anyone but the daily housekeeping managers. There's also a manager who oversees the entire resort and he made an effort to drop in and chat with us every few months."

The special touches

Amy and her fellow Housekeeping Cast Members were encouraged to leave special touches for guests when cleaning occupied rooms. "Many housekeepers learned how to create a variety of towel animals. Some even brought in their own pipe cleaners and eye stickers to dress up the animals that they would leave."

"We would also do things like set up stuffed animals to look like they were watching television, with the remote in the animal’s hand, or sit them around in a circle reading a book together. Leaving these surprises for the kids was a lot of fun and the absolute best part was when you were lucky enough to walk by as they were coming back into their room so you could hear the kids’ reactions as they saw the little surprises."

Part of the training for role involved learning how to create the towel animals: "A few towel animals were standard and taught to everyone, like making a Mickey Head (three circles with one big towel and two hand towels). Most of the animals were things that individual housekeepers would come up with and share among themselves. My trainer taught me a few, and I would seek out other housekeepers who were good at it to learn what they were working on. Butterflies, ducks, and dogs were pretty easy for anyone. Some housekeepers got very elaborate though and would make things that required a lot of rubber bands and pipe cleaners. If you walk around resorts like the All Star that have outside windows, you can often see towel animals sitting in the windowsill that housekeepers have made for the guests."

The rules

"There were set guidelines for cleaning each room which included very specific guidelines for how to fold the towels and lay out the toiletries. In some locations we had to include a specific towel animal in the room for check-ins."

The downsides

Amy enjoyed her time in Housekeeping, but it wasn't without its problems. "Many guests would leave their rooms in really abhorrent conditions with trash on the floor and a huge mess around the room. It was often difficult to clean rooms like this because you’re not supposed to touch the guests’ belongings, but you can’t easily vacuum or make beds when things are left really messy."

"The Wilderness Lodge and Fort Wilderness also had bunk beds which were really difficult to make. At the Grand Floridian the sheets were changed every single day and each bed had three sheets instead of two, as in most hotels. This made the rooms much harder to clean quickly."

Tipping the balance

Tipping can be a sensitive subject, and Amy found that guests' habits varied wildly. "Some guests wouldn't leave any tip at all and others were very generous, leaving $20 or $50 at the end of their stay. Since some people tip daily and others only tip when they leave it's hard to know how many people really left something because you don't always have the same rooms every day."

"Housekeepers usually consider it good manners to leave at least a couple dollars for every day of the stay. The more you're paying for your room, the larger the tip should be. So if you leave a whole cabin with four beds to make and an entire kitchen of dishes to do, at least $5 a day is appropriate. It's better for the housekeeper if you tip daily because otherwise you might have one person who does a great job for the first four days of your stay, but a completely different housekeeper who ends up with the room when you leave. Whoever cleans the room the day the tip is there is the person who gets it."

"Guests should leave tips on the pillow or with a note on a table. Most hotels have a little card the housekeeper leaves with her name on it, and you can leave your tips under that too. We can't take loose change from a table, or any money left somewhere like a dresser unless it's clear that it's meant to be a tip. I had a few guests who would leave drawings from the kids or short notes of thanks when they left, along with their tip, and I've kept those notes to this day. It didn't happen often, but guests like that can really make your day."

Attack of the birds

One memory stands out in Amy's mind: "The very first room that I had to clean alone after I finished training was almost enough to make me give up on the job. When I opened the door, the room was full of birds. The guests had left the door to the balcony open and food all over the room when they checked out. I didn’t know what to do so I closed the door and left the room for later. Fortunately when I came back the birds were gone so I only had the mess to contend with."

Thanks to Amy for sharing her memories with us. If you'd like to learn more about Cast Members' roles and experiences at Walt Disney World, sign up now to be notified when Creating the Magic: Life as a Disney Cast Member is released.