Early birds

[annedab]

We are just coming to the end of our first summer of renting and everything seems to have gone fairly smoothly and we have already taken a booking for next summer! Just a minor niggle - we have had 2 sets of guests turn up between 9 and 10am despite us stating clearly in the information pack we send out with the keys that arrival is from 4pm onwards. We were lucky enough to be fully booked for the peak summer weeks so this was more than a little inconvenient for Mme G who does the changeovers. The people who arrived this Saturday just parked in the drive and sat there - Mme G felt bad and let them in, but obviously she expects to have the house free for several hours to clean after the people who had left earlier that day - there are 8 bedrooms so it does take a while! I suspect it is because they took the overnight ferry to Le Havre which is less than an hours drive, but am I being unreasonable in expecting them to fill a few hours themselves?
Our instructions do say to give us a call if you think you will be early and we will try to accomodate you, but we had no contact regarding this. My inclination is to just let it pass, but this particular set of guests have bombarded us with numerous other e mails asking questions which were covered in detail on the information pack which they were sent and also expecting us to give them a detailed itinerary - including train times and costs - for a day at Disneyland Paris (all e mails written in bizarre text speak as well (" we hve bkd ur villa 4 a wk....").

All handy hints or tips welcome.

They are our last guests of the summer and I am looking forward to a week there myself in September - that will be the first sight of the guest book so I think I will have a glass of wine before reading it - especially having just looked at another thread on this topic. Here's hoping we don't have to remove any pages

[cromercrabholiday]

You are being totally reasonable - there are plenty of things that they could do for a day withing an hour of le Havre rather than sitting outside your property.

As to providing detailed tourist information, we have a notice board with local attractions that does include when the trips to the seals are each day (it's very tidal). However, we feel under no obligation - it's a cottage we rent, we don't throw in a holiday rep, which is what your guests wanted.

I would have thought that it would have been easy enough to pick up the information they needed from the internet, either in advance or from a cafe.

Enjoy your week - we haven't managed one this year!

John

[vrooje]

Being a holiday rental owner does not make you a holiday planner!

I have had requests for information on local tourist attractions, but I have never had anyone request itineraries and costs. What I would do either way is provide them with the URLs to the appropriate web sites and cheerily tell them to have fun planning their day trip. If we had taken the same trip ourselves, I'd tell them that story. But I wouldn't do all the work for them!

As for the people arriving early, we occasionally get those too. Nowadays we don't get many who show up early without telling us in advance that they will do so. That's because we tell them with nearly every correspondence that they can't arrive until the early evening. When people request an early arrival, we just explain why they can't -- the quick turnover time, letting the cleaners do their job without being underfoot, etc. We let them drop off their bags, and then we suggest several things they might do to kill a few hours. But we're very firm that they can't stay at the house if they arrive in the morning.

[CostaBlanca]

Anne,
I always request their flight details and if they are due to arrive earlier in the day. I offer them the opportunity of dropping off their luggage at the villa, so that they can have a leisurely lunch followed by supermarket shopping and then return at the due time or suggest a visit to somewhere en route from the airport. I would not allow guests into the villa until prepared.

Maria

[Guest3]

We also offer a 'luggage drop-off' service at the villa for guests who have a morning flight and request that guests return at 4pm for check-in. However three times this year we have had guests drop off luggage in the morning and then turn up early thinking that the villa would be ready...which is an absolute pain as I then have to let them in so that they can sit in the pool bar area.

This Saturday one half of the party turned up early (2.30pm), the other half of the party took a taxi from the airport, the taxi driver got lost and dropped them off at a hotel in Torreblanca! So Hubby had to drop what he was doing so that they could be picked up. The whole family then tramped through newly mopped floors that weren't dry ..to have a 'quick look around' before going down to the pool bar to wait...then they all decided to go down to the beach front for something to eat before check-in!...All floors had to be re-mopped

I absolutely hate it when this happens

[A-two]

Our instructions do say to give us a call if you think you will be early and we will try to accomodate you....[....]

Anne,
This sounds a little too flexible to me. We say that the house will not be ready until the agreed time, but if they would like to call us on the day, we'll have a better idea of whether or not we're going to finish early. I can only do this because I'm onsite, otherwise I wouldn't want to put our cleaners under that pressure, or they're likely to cut corners.

I now call future guests a few days before arrival to answer questions and confirm times. About a third say a time that bears no relation to what has been agreed, and often earlier.

I inform them that the house will be ready for them at 3pm, but if they do plan to arrive earlier, they are welcome to help us with cleaning up from the previous guests, who are not leaving until 10.30am the same day. Or alternatively, they might prefer to go for lunch. Strangely enough we've had no takers on the cleaning yet!

The family that checked into our place yesterday were fairly typical, having planned to arrive around a couple of hours early until I made the cleaning offer. As it happened, it was an easy clean, so I called her around 1pm and she took advantage of the extra hour offered. The first thing she said to me was that she hadn't realized we had people move out the same day.

So I don't think people who do this are being pushy or inconsiderate, rather they genuinely don't think about how it all works and once they understand, they tend to leave it in better shape also.

[debk]

they are welcome to help us with cleaning up from the previous guests

priceless! i may use this.



We always get flight/train arrival info and, as appropriate, add a "luggage drop-off policy" addendum to each email, especially the last one sent a few days before check-in:

Check-in Day:
Check-in Time:
Special Conditions: PLEASE ensure that everyone in your group understands the Luggage Drop-off Policy. (We've had a few guests who were very unhappy with their travelling partners upon unexpectedly finding they had no place to rest/change/etc.)


========================================
LUGGAGE DROP-OFF POLICY
When dropping off luggage, the house is not available. This includes changing clothes/shoes, a "quick look", using the bathroom, snacks, watching TV, etc., as it will be completely disassembled for a thorough clean. We'll be working hard to turn it over as quickly as possible and appreciate your understanding so that we can continue to accept early luggage drop-offs.
========================================

With one exception , this has worked well for us.
debk

[vrooje]

they are welcome to help us with cleaning up from the previous guests...

I love it!

We don't have any official policies on dropping off luggage -- we don't mention it unless the client asks about it. The only thing that's in the contract is that the client's stay begins at 17:00 on the day of their arrival.

[Mouse]

Joanna wrote:
they are welcome to help us with cleaning up from the previous guests...

I think thats priceless too!

I'm lucky I suppose as we have a concierge business here who offer to pick up holidaymakers who are too early to check into their villa......or have a very late flight after checking out at 10 and take them to a villa for the hours they have to wait.

Early arrivals haven't been much of a problem - but in the first year I had nightmares with people expecting to stay in the villa after 10 because they had a late flight....even though I had confirmed they needed to be out - they still tried it on.
Being my first year I used to try and accomodate people if our other guests weren't checking in until much later (or the next day) but by the end of the season I was just saying no to everyone and offering to store their luggage for them. The problem was the crafty blighters were checking the availability calendar to see if anyone was in before or after them!!

This year our arrivals and departures have all been in the morning. However this concierge business is the perfect counter to the 'we're only leaving late in the evening so can we stay til as long as possible as I notice your next guests are not in until....' I now email the information of this company when guests are booking and advise them that if their only choice of flight is v.late then this company will pick them up from our villa and take them somewhere for the day.

I was very surprised how many people expected to stay in the villa for an extra day without expecting to be charged, just because you had no-one in until the following day!

Mouse
x

[Big Sis..]

Hi Mouse


I used to try to accomodate people who arrived early & left late
until the lady who did the cleaning explained that she had a lifequite liked getting home for the odd evening or 2 and couldnt be expected to clean at all hours of the day & night.
She put it in a nice way
Now the houses are available from 2-30pm and the guests must leave by 12pm.

Some still arrive early & peer through the windows but she usually manages to fob them off.
Theyd soon moan if the houses werent finished properly and she cant be expected to do a thorough job with people popping in & out.

Regards

[Mouse]

hi Ros....the dangers of doing the cleaning myself!

I actually think you have a better perspective the second year of renting as you do get tougher (sad as that may be).
Also the more 'outsiders' that are involved (I have cleaners to help now) the more unlikely you are to do things that would mess them around.

Mouse (who's in the middle of washing and ironing duties and looking for any excuse to get a break!)
x

[Big Sis..]

Hi Mouse

I suppose I could consider doing the cleaning myself[Ive considered it ,NO too much like hard work]

Seriously though as we live in sunny Norfolk[sunny at the moment anyway] and the houses are in The Costa Blanca, the daily commute might be a bit much[and Id never get the mop & bucket through the airport security at the moment].

I must confess that even when we go out there[about 5 times a year] we now leave the cleaning fee and she does it.

We used to dash about trying to leave everything just so and then going over the newly washed floor the umpteenth time because we had forgotten something and then remopping.
Also washing & Drying the sheets/towels on the last day got a bit much I was that stressed that I needed another holiday

Regards

[Mouse]

You sound fortunate in finding your cleaner. If you have someone good and reliable it takes a hell of a lot of stress away from renting.

Here its difficult to find cleaners. Romanians and morrocans seem to be the only ones interested and prepared to do the work, but they come and go (as my next door neighbour found out to his cost when his guests turned up and it wasn't cleaned).

Luckily there are lots of 'villa' management companies here that act for absentee owners like yourself. I decided to go with a cleaning company for the changeover days as I then didn't have to worry about staff not turning up and they only charge 2 euros extra per hour.

Mouse (with only 2 more duvets to do)
x

[Big Sis..]

Hi Mouse

I am lucky Paula & Alan[her husband he does the airport runs]
Have become friends we always meet up for lunch when we are out there
They were recommended by someone else who they work for
They have a couple of girls who help as well as they also clean for others
Shes a bit like me says what she means and is quite direct so we normally get to the nitty gritty quite well.
Unfortunately we had some clients burgled recently[left the patio doors & safe open[twits].
She was very helpful taking them to the police station getting an interpreter helping them sort things out.
She spent most of the afternoon with them.
I sent her some extra money afterwards just to show I appreciated it but she would have done it anyway

I had a lovely letter from them saying it was there fault and thanking me for the help me & Paula had given them
As you say I would be lost without her.

Regards

[annedab]

Thank you for the helpful responses - looks like it's not just us then! I hadn't thought about luggage drop off - interesting idea. Love the cleaning suggestion - I can visualise all the Lay My Hat regulars busily inserting this new clause as I type
We live in London so we do have to rely on the ever efficient Mme G who lives a few doors away from our property. I take the point about needing to be more firm - we have certainly learnt a few lessons from this summer, but the only real disaster was the huge freezer defrosting as no-one had thought to mention that there had been a storm which tripped out the electricity
The main lesson I have learnt is that holidays are a time to indulge in the entertaining pastime of breaking glasses! What is this about? Do people wait all year and then have a glass breaking binge as a holiday treat