Lay My Hat

But we have stayed in other B&Bs and always locked the door when away from the building. We travel with laptops, iPads etc and don't carry these with us all day and everyday, therefore it is sensible to lock the room when we are out.

This B&B is a grand house which houses the family (mum dad and 4 children) and has 5 en-suite letting rooms. Two of these are away from the house in an annexe above a studio. We were in one of the annexe rooms.

We usually stay in another lovely B&B (another big house) a few roads away and have always had our room serviced.

I doubt I shall ever know the real answer. I'll leave it at that and not write a review.

Looking on Trip Advisor it seems we were not the only ones who didn't have their room serviced. So perhaps it is the norm at this lovely B&B.

"Nous avons séjourné 2 nuits et on a tout simplement oublié de faire la chambre! Une mauvaise surprise lors de notre retour trop tardif pour en informer le propriétaire. "

This taken from a TA revue in 2012

we learned from a review that locking the door did not mean that you did not want your room cleaned, now, if bed nearly made we leave it, towels on the floor we change, otherwise after 2 days, bins emptied and floors checked, bottled water repleniered and glasses washed.

the only time we dont do anything is if actually asked.

Normandie wrote: That's exactly what I do - and the pegs have a 1 and a 2 on them so I know which towel was on the upper rungs of the towel rail and which was on the lower. Overthinking, much?

We've 11 French cyclists in at the moment, some of whom are sharing family rooms, and who are draping their towels on bed ends and over the bunk beds. In addition to my normal peg system, I'm leaving a coloured peg where I found the towel and putting its duplicate on the towel! That's two of us over-thinking, maybe!

Jan

I think that's brilliant, Jan.

I love LMH... in a world where looking for ways to reduce service seems to be the norm, LMHatters figuring out how to save the planet and deliver dry towels (and good service) is so cheering.

All B&Bs we´ve stayed in in France have had daily house-keeping...
We service our rooms daily much the same way as Normandie...
Plus we sun dry the towels (each room has different color towels) or during rainy season we put them in our A+++ dryer for a few minutes....(we assume this is still better than daily changing , change towels every 3 days)

We have given up B&B in favour of self-catering (with breakfast stuff provided for those who would like it so they can make their own without shopping).

However when we were still doing it conventionally we used to actually ask people how much servicing of their rooms they would like. Most said they didn't want anything at all and used to hang up their towels on an airer we provide between fresh towel supplies (every three or four days). We also used to offer mid-week bed changes but outside of high summer the usual response was that it wasn't necessary.

pepsipuss wrote: However when we were still doing it conventionally we used to actually ask people how much servicing of their rooms they would like. Most said they didn't want anything at all and used to hang up their towels on an airer we provide between fresh towel supplies (every three or four days). We also used to offer mid-week bed changes but outside of high summer the usual response was that it wasn't necessary.

Ditto - we have quite a few bookings that are 5-7 days and I always offer to go in every day, and they always decline.

As a guest it would just help to know the rules!

I can cope with or without the room being serviced.

Fleur wrote:As a guest it would just help to know the rules!

I can cope with or without the room being serviced.

Précisément!

I have never stayed in a chambre d'hôte with a full daily service "hotel-style". GdF stipulate that towels have to be changed every 3 days and bedding weekly. "Servicing" in their book means emptying bins and topping up consumables like loo rolls and toiletries as needed, but does not include bed making. I wouldn't expect any more than that except maybe if paying well above average to stay somewhere de-luxe.

In our case we change towels every two days and we straighten the bed daily, empty bins and top up consumables but don't go around tidying, picking up clothes and stuff that guests have strewn around. That's their choice if they want to live in a pigsty.

As someone who stays in hotels every week I wonder if a sticker with "please don't disturb" could help also on a b&b?

At least you would absolutely, positively know that the guests don't want any intrusion.

Maybe they forgot to service the room? I did that once in our early days 7 years ago. Never did it again!

We are accredited to Quality in Tourism and abide by their rules -even if we weren't accredited we'd have the same standards - and the recommendation is that the rooms are serviced every day and rightly so.

We have this in our room information booklet, and of course it's the norm for all B&Bs and guests expect this. If guests ask us not to bother with the room, or theh are resting, we don't service it. But it is nicer for guests to return to a made up room.