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Since When Was It Okay For Housekeeping Not To Make All The Beds Before You Check-In?

a man with a beard holding his hand to his face

I really feel like this didn’t used to be a problem.  I’m fairly certain I know why it happens, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

Our family had two hotel stays over the past couple weeks where we ran into the same problem.  The first was at a Homewood Suites and the second was at Great Wolf Lodge, a place we generally enjoy taking the kids a couple of times each year.

We checked into Homewood Suites, a chain geared more towards family stays than most limited service hotels.  We got there late in the evening with one of our kids already asleep.  After getting all the luggage and kids to the room I pulled the cushions off the pull-out sofa.  I’m a bit of a light sleeper, so the pull-out sofa gave me the best chance of a few uninterrupted hours of sleep before one of our kids woke up to find a parent to put them back to sleep.

I wish I’d taken a picture, but there was a sticker on the webbing of the sofa portion that said something like, “Relax.  Bed sheets are in the closet.”  It also invited me to call the front desk to have the bed made up, something I’m unlikely to do at 10:30 pm when one of my kids is already asleep.  Sure enough, when I pulled the bed portion open there were no sheets on it.  The closet had exactly one sheet, so I could have my choice between laying on the bare mattress with a sheet over me or trying to make the bed with the sheet.  I also was endowed with one thin blanket.  Good times.

Fast forward to Great Wolf Lodge.  This is a hotel where I have to imagine every room has kids, with very few exceptions.  In this case, I opened up the pull-out sofa and found…..

Housekeeping
What’s Missing From This Picture?

The Why

I’m fairly certain that if you could hook a hotel chain up to a lie detector, they’d probably say they do it to save money.  By leaving the sheets in the closet, they don’t have to spend the labor to change the sheets on the pull-out sofa every time someone uses the room.  Which also means the sheets in the closest aren’t swapped out every time the room is cleaned.  It’s unlikely that someone would mess up the sheets in the closet and then fold them back up, putting them back in the closet.  Heck, based on recent reports we can’t even really trust hotels to change the sheets on regular hotel beds nowadays.

The Final Two Pennies

Since there’s a sticker on the Homewood Suites bed, it’s fairly certain that wasn’t just a mistake by housekeeping.  It’s possible Great Wolf Lodge just forgot to make the sofa bed up during our stay. But, I don’t think so.

I don’t like thinking I need to call the hotel ahead of time to try to get the spare bed made up. And, given our track record requesting a crib in our room, I’m not sure the request would hit a high success rate.

What’s your opinion?  Should hotels make up all the beds in a room prior to check-in?

The post Since When Was It Okay For Housekeeping Not To Make All The Beds Before You Check-In? was published first on Pizza in Motion

16 Comments

  1. Seems typical to me. Usually the sheets, blankets and a pillow are in a plastic bag in the closet in my experience but usually more than just one sheet.

    1. We don’t make the beds for pullouts because not everyone uses them. Also people make requests then change their whole mind at check in. Grow up. Go to a FULL service hotel pay higher rates and be sure to tip

  2. If sheets are on sofa bed, housekeeping has to change, even if not used, as how are they to know. If not on bed, problem solved. This doesn’t seem like a deal breaker to me, just a bit of a hassle.

      1. Edward. Most hotels are working with limited staff while their brands act like it’s business as usual We have been bombarded. We didn’t make the beds before it’s unreasonable to expect it now.

  3. Ed. Same thing happened to me in Marriott Surf Club and La Cabana both in Aruba. When I travel, I don’t want to make the beds ever. Hate doing it at home. More so on the road.

  4. Interesting. My husband and I have traveled to several Hyatts with our 4 yr old (one just last week, the Hyatt Regency Resort in Indian Wells, CA) and this has never happened. The pullout sofa bed is where our daughter sleeps and it’s always been made up. I wonder if it just depends on the chain. We usually stick to Hyatt or high end IHG hotels for our travels. Sorry to hear about this. Did you inquire with Housekeeping or the Front Desk the following morning? You should also make a note of filling out the survey they usually send after your stay and point out that’s a deal breaker for families traveling with children. Doubt it’ll change anything, but you can vent! 🙂

  5. Since there are 3 of us we see this all the time. My son is king of the sofa bed. We stay at a lot of residence inn, home wood suites and other such properties. We love to have a king bed and my son likes a sleep sofa. More often than not the sofa bed is never made up. Bedding in the closet. Another person mentioned the Hyatt Indian wells. I remember the sofa bed being made up…..we pulled it open to find someone’s porn dvds! You could tell the bed had not been sleep in as the sheets looked fresh. But someone opened it to hide porn! So it makes me wonder how long the sheets had been on there before we opened bed. I won’t mind make them up myself the first night so I know I have fresh sheets. But I think the higher end hotels do make them up. Our sofa bed at grand Wailea was made up when we opened bed. I believe we have seen it at other higher end places

    1. cliff, yeah that’s what I guess I’ll need to do in the future. On one of these stays, where we arrived at 10:30pm and made the reservation an hour earlier, I’d be surprised if they accommodate the request.

  6. I just stayed at a Marriott in Atlanta, GA and after calling housekeeping for the sofa bed to be made up, I was told it was already made up and to just remove the cushions. After removing the cushions, I noticed it was not made up which I prefer because then I know I am getting fresh sheets and not sheets someone has slept in before. Anyways, after I notified housekeeping they brought me two sheets, one stained with makeup and no pillows. I asked if they could help make it and the lady said we don’t make it. I’d say I will put up with them not making the bed if they will provide better service for customers staying in their suites.

  7. We just had this experience at a Marriot Bonvoy hotel. in Belleville, ON Canada….just 2 old ladies on a road trip ….no reservations….stopped at 3.30 p.m. looked at a double queen room thought great went back to check in and couldn’t get the room just saw for the 2nd night we wanted to stay but for 20 a night more we could have a 1 bedroom suite (bed and sofa bed) …..even though i was not happy with the extra charge since the sofa bed is not as nice as a real bed we checked in and went out for supper and adventure….imagine my surprise when we came back later and pull it open to find a bare mattress….my companion found the linen in the closet….like Kathy said I wasn’t about to make a bed on holiday when I don’t like to do it at home…..I am short so I just grabbed the blanket and my travel pillow and slept on the sofa as a sofa. Next morning asked if this was standard and apparently it is but they were sorry. I asked them if they could make it and the rest of the room up while we were out and also to get rid of the flossing pic that was under the sofa bed. I also requested an extra blanket. When we returned that afternoon around 4 p.m. the bed in the bedroom was still unmade and the towels still on the bathroom floor but the sofa bed was ready for me to crawl into with 3 duvets 2 blankets a mattress pad and 2 flat sheets….unfortunately we couldn’t make it into a couch with all that on it which I believe to be their intent so I ripped it all apart and slept on it the same way as the first night…thanks for letting me vent. I hope they replace the linen even though I didn’t actually sleep on it

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