IS THERE A DIFFERENCE?
Booking a vacation rental is like staying at the house of a friend. In our vacation rentals you will experience significantly more space, privacy, or comforts that feel like home, including a kitchen and a location that is beyond what most hotels can offer. All this at a significantly lower cost than a hotel with comparable features. But these benefits bring different considerations than a hotel. More privacy means that most guests do not want daily housekeeping. We offer a check-out clean and, for an added fee, mid-stay cleans. We also offer a starter supply of some consumables, including coffee, paper towels, toilet paper and more, but these items are not restocked during a stay. A kitchen allows you to make home-cooked meals and guests will likely visit the store to purchase groceries.
Self-sufficiency is key to a happy stay in a vacation rental. We do provide housekeeping and 24/7 maintenance, but these are primarily for properties in between stays. Our staff services vacation rentals across several square miles, unlike a hotel that manages a single building. We have to strike a balance between cost and service, and have found that our current system has struck this balance as most of our guests are satisfied with their stays.
WHY IS THE CLEANING CHARGE EXTRA? WHY DOES IT SEEM HIGH?
These are common questions and we have some answers. Hotels roll their housekeeping costs into their nightly rates. We choose to simply charge our guests the cost of a check-out clean regardless of the number of nights in their stay so our cleaning fee is broken out. The housekeeping staff for a hotel cleans the same type of room with limited furnishings in a single building. Dirty linens are returned to a location within the same building. Our housekeeping staff cleans homes, some with several bedrooms and bathrooms, across several square miles that are full of furnishings and extra items. Dirty linens must be returned to a centralized location within Summit County. A standard hotel room can be cleaned in fifteen minutes. A standard 2-bedroom vacation rental can take up to three hours to clean. To keep costs down and to increase efficiency, we ask guests to help our staff by loading and running the dishwasher and emptying the trash. This allows our cleaning staff to move through properties efficiently and helps to keep costs down.
Our hope is that our guests understand the difference between booking a hotel and a vacation rental. Together we can provide affordable vacation rentals and happy stays for everyone!
