Walt Disney World Resort to "Green" All Resort Hotels by Earth Day 2008

[ImagiAsh]

Certainly great news!

[Rmacmouz]

I just want to know how they're going to know the difference between me not being in my room (to turn off the AC) and me sleeping? Hmmmm? Besides it takes as much, if not more energy to cool down a room after the AC's been left off for 7 hours, than it does to let the AC unit work on LOW for the same period.

[BrownEyedGrrl]

We've stayed at Pop for the last 3 trips, and they have the sensors on the A/C thermostat. However, the only time I've noticed the temperature change is when we've been out of the room for the day. But, even then, it only takes about 30 minutes or so to get the temp back down to where we're comfortable.

We stayed at ASM last September/October, and we noticed that happening too. I'm glad to see there was a reason behind it, and not just a faulty unit or annoying housekeeper! It definitely never got too stuffy and was quite comfortable at night. Our boys are used to sleeping in a really cool room and so are we, but after spending all day in the parks, we were zonked from the minute our heads hit the pillow no matter the room temp!

[micminnieapolis]

I like the idea of going green. As a DVC member, we have adjusted very nicely to the linen rotation and the recycling. However, the thermostats are a different story. A man without a menopausal wife must have thought of the system in use at BCV! Maybe it was a young man who was not bothered with night sweats! That system is one of the worst things they thought of! We dread staying at that resort even though it is one of our favorites. We have read and tried overrides to no avail. The most successful we got was calling and having an override done on the system -- but even that CM warned us that it may not work! Fortunately, it worked well enough to get husband through a bout of flu with a fever in July's heat. The next trip we requested an adjustment and the CM who came up gave us the spiel about not knowing that there was a way to overide the system but he heard that if you use balloons, it works pretty well. They sent us 2 regular balloons with no way to attach them! ( This could be a new gimic to get us to buy really big expensive balloons!) The balloons did not work! Now mind you, it's not so bad to come into a sweltering room in July and know that in 30 minutes it will be down to 72. However, at night when it shuts off because there is no movement in the room, that is another story! There are some of us who need cool rooms when we sleep. There are those of us who do not go on vacation to wake up every hour to activate the system. On that last trip I put up with 5 sleepless nights before I called and asked for a supervisor. He was very apologetic and said that there was a way to override the system and he was sorry that the CM who answered our call did not know how. He said that he would track him down and let him know about his dissatisfaction. He also said that he would be sure that all his people were trained in how to do this. I wish I had been staying a lot more days because I probably could have gotten a lot of special stuff! Now the question is -- If they put in those same stupid thermostats, are they going to employ a lot of people who know how to override them? Are they going to give the occupants more leeway in temperatures? Are they going to tell us the correct way to override them? How about user-friendly systems like many of us have in our homes with 24 hour programming and let each occupant set their own? There must be other places to cut down on usage! The housekeepers could set the rooms warmer/cooler until new occupants come in.

I won't even mention the lights at OKW that over the tables in the studio. You certainly can't read by them! However, I can carry lightbulbs with me! AC units? No way!

Micminnieapolis

[Catwillow]

As my best friend is a DVC member and I am usually her partner in fun on the trips I know our next few trips will be bedroom units, which means we will have a washer & dryer in the room. I can say that when you have several people using a room (wether a suite or just a regular room) there is NO way a used towel is going to dry effectively to be used multiple times due to drying space. We WILL do towels every day. I have to wonder how energy efficient that is. Also, can you imagine a family of 4 (lets say a small room) all take showers EVERY DAY after a hot muggy day before bed, then ALL their towels (washcloths, hand towels) are moist and hanging about to dry (because we have to reuse) and while they are out the air shuts off ... yep ... love that smell!!!!

I'm all for doing what ever I can for re-cycle / re-use and energy saving appliances -- and I do my part at home--it saves me money and in a very very insignificant way helps to do my part. So I have to truly wonder what the overall motive of this is.

[primrose50]

Previous Visits

Feb 98 - Off site
Sep 98 - Off site
Jun 99 - Off site
May 00 - Off site
Jun 06 - Off site

I think going green is a good idea. My only problem with it is that I have to have my clean towels every morning.

[Clotho]

When I am on a WDW vacation that I have saved every penny for, and paying lots of pennies for a luxury room, I want my luxury.

I want an air-conditioned room when I walk in. I want clean, dry towels every day. And above all, I WANT A GOOD SHOWER WITH LOTS OF WATER!

This is my vacation. I sacrifice all year. Can I just have one week where I don't have to sacrifice these things?

This is entirely my sentiment! At home, we reuse towels and sheets to their limits. We have one AC unit, only for evenings on the hottest summer days (which is not many in Seattle, maybe 2 weeks total). I sleep with a fan year round and can't stand a warm or stuffy room.

So when I am on vacation, it is a luxury to be able to have fresh sheets and towels, to have the room be cool and dry every night...we also try to get a King Bed, which we don't have at home, for further luxury! I don't want to give that up, when we give up so much at home.

I am always surprised at how few hotels have recycling! I hope they add a recycling bin to the rooms. We are highly conditioned in our house for recycling--separate bins for cans/paper and glass. We recycle more than we throw out most weeks. So having that available at the hotels would be wonderful.

And for those worried about water pressure, you might be surprised what kind of low-flow shower heads are on the market today. I think Holiday Inn is the one who went all low-flow heads a few years back, and I stay with them a lot when I travel. They have literature in the bathroom talking about them, and you can even buy one for your home if you like it. They are NICE! I don't notice the loss in pressure, and they feel great! So there is hope that it won't be an issue for those who are concerned.

[jclightchasr]

This is hard to make an acurate judgement on without someone detailing exactly how the ac unit operates with its motion detection settings. However here are my views:

When you spend $300 plus a night for a room you should be getting a hot shower with good pressure and be able to set the AC to whatever temp you want and have it stay on.

I appreciate environmental concerns but is this really about saving the environment or saving money? Which the latter will definately happen.
The money saved should be then donated to environmental friendly research or similar to really be "green".

A choice to stay in a green room or not should be offered to appease all the tree huggers out there.

For those of us who like to sleep in cool comfort and have good water pressure and who have children who have ecxema (sp?) who are sensitive to heat I will choose the standard room.

There are other ways to be green that aren't so beneficial to the hotels bank account.

[IloveDisney71]

[quote=kakn7294;1354554]There are a multitude of things that they can do such as use low-flow bath fixtures, use energy efficient lighting and appliances, reuse towels and linens rather than replacing them daily, ...quote]
At home we try to do some things the "green" way. We recycle, I traded my SUV for a compact car, and we reuse towels (this one drives my mom crazy! - Sorry mom). Anyway, every time we are at Disney we leave our towels where they say to leave them if we want to reuse them and EVERY time we come back to new sets of towels. I was just curious if this has happened to anyone else?

[TBone]

First, this whole thing is grandstanding by Disney. The added benefit is the $$$ for them.

Second - my last two stays at the Polynesian.

Both times I asked for the low pressure shower heads to be changed. I have done this at other hotels and they do it, no questions asked. They all seem to have regular shower heads available for the customers that request them. At the Poly, no luck. Both times, the service guy would come and put another low pressure shower head in. So, it's 25 minutes in the shower instead of 10. My daughter has long thick hair and by the end of a week we've just about had it with Disney over this issue alone.

Also, they have motion sensors in the bathrooms. These devices turn off the bathroom fan after 5 or 10 minutes of not detecting any motion. So, the result is that the combination of low pressure shower head and a fan that turns off while you're taking a longer shower to make up for it, is a totally steamed up bathroom. I actually would call my wife in to walk around the bathroom and trigger the fan (if she wasn't sleeping). For the times that I was alone or when everyone else was sleeping, I devised a technique where I throw a balled up wet washcloth right under the sensor (going thump on the wall) to trigger the fan on. On the last trip, I called for a technician and he changed the fan unit and it still did the same thing. I tried explaining what my issue was but he didn't understand English (apparently). So I gave up.

Towels. I demand clean ones every day. Extra towels too. The thought of reusing a towel grosses me out. Nobody is that clean and everyone loses skin cells when drying off. I usually tip an extra $10 per day just to make sure I have plenty of towels and clean linen, wherever I travel.

Oh yes, the linen. I always ask that it be changed every day. I put a small x in the corner of the sheet so that I can tell if they change them. Disney runs about 75%, most other hotels are closer to 100%.

I don't like what they're doing with the a/c either, but give me a high pressure, hot shower, clean towels and clean bed sheets and I'll deal with the a/c, I guess.

This is just too much aggaravation for a $325/night room, isn't it? Now they're announcing that they are going to make it worse. Ugh.