After a long day at a Disney Park, there is no better feeling than coming back to your clean hotel room and collapsing on your freshly-made bed. Walt Disney World Resort has nearly 30 amazing hotel options for Guests to choose from, covering a wide range of budgets. Whether a Guest chooses to splurge and stay at a Deluxe Resort or stay on budget, and choose a Value Resort, they are sure to be immersed in the Disney magic.
Disney housekeeping — or Mousekeeping as it is called by Guests — work hard to make sure each Guest feels at home in their Disney Resort hotel room. Mousekeeping will take the time to create fun shapes and characters with towels, stage the curtains, and even pose stuffed animals while the kids are out. While many who work in housekeeping are good, hard workers, there are some who may not be as honest as we’d like.
One Guest recently took to Reddit to share a disappointing story about a theft from their hotel room. The Redditor claimed that they had accidentally left a Loungefly backpack — which typically costs around $80 — in their hotel room. When they called the hotel to inform them that they left the bag, it was gone.
“I’m going to preface this by saying I had a family member who was VERY briefly a Mousekeeper (thank goodness), and she openly bragged about taking things home that guests left in the Cabins at FW. I’m talking jewelry and expensive perfume.
We stayed at AKL last month and on check-out day my daughter left her Loungefly backpack in the room. I know, I should’ve double-checked, but here we are. I immediately filed a Lost & Found ticket while we were still at MCO and it was closed. I filed another one after 2 weeks – it was just closed. The backpack had money and a bracelet in it and I feel like it was just never turned in. Years ago she lost a stuffed animal on the monorail and we got it back in 2 days.
So. How can I get this remedied or brought to someone’s attention? I am not a complainer by any means, but I’m sad for my teen because it was their money and the bracelet was a souvenir for a friend. This was our first time splurging on a Deluxe room and while the resort is breathtaking, this leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
tl;dr: how do I contact someone directly about valuables that were left in our room at checkout and were not turned in to Lost and Found by Mousekeeping.”
While the Redditor may have been looking for help or sympathy, they did not receive much. Many commenters jumped to the defense of housekeeping, saying there was no proof the bag was taken, just the Redditor’s word. Many also pointed out that the Loungefly backpack was not lost, it was left behind, so the Redditor should be taking responsibility for that.
One commenter said that they used to work in housekeeping at Disney and said that items like that rarely get turned in. Guests frequently leave items behind because they simply can’t fit the items in their luggage or can’t take them on a plane. Unless the item is something very expensive — like an iPad — housekeeping will usually assume it was left behind on purpose.
As a former DCP housekeeper, unfortunately there probably isn’t much more you can do. Guests leave items in the room at checkout all the time as they cannot take all the items with them due to luggage limits etc. Unless the item is expensive (iPad, watch, phone, etc) or something of great value, very rarely will it get turned in.
This is because housekeepers are accustomed to guests leaving items that they cannot carry or don’t want to drag back to their home. Unfortunately, this is could be one of those times that the housekeeper thought you purposefully left it and did not turn it in.
If this were a time where you were still checked in the room, then it would’ve been handled differently. You could contact guest services, who then contacts the housekeeping manager and security. The housekeeping manager would then contact the housekeeper, stating the issue and security would’ve checked to see who all had access to the room during said “theft”. Security would’ve then checked the belongings of everyone who had access to the room.
I say this with personal experience because during training, my trainer and I was accused of theft. Luckily right before we were to be searched, the guest found the “lost” item in a bag near the pool.
Could Disney be better at training housekeeping staff? Yes. However, the big question is how is a housekeeper to be able to tell the difference between items purposefully left behind or items mistakenly left behind? That’s why it’s kind of judgement call on the housekeeper and the training they receive. Either way, it’s unfortunate that your daughter lost her loungefly and other important items.
If you are staying at a Disney hotel — or any hotel — during your vacation, it is important to do a final sweep of the room before you leave. Check the bathroom, under the beds, all the drawers, the closet, etc., so nothing gets left behind. If you are leaving items behind on purpose, try to leave a note to let housekeeping know that the items were not forgotten, and they may take them if they like. No one wants to get in trouble because they thought the item was left on purpose when that is not, in fact, the case.
