Housekeeping Services in Europe--have they been discontinued during your stay?

My experience has been that housekeeping is available upon request, but that it is not automatically done each day any more. It makes sense. It reduces contacts, makes better use of resources, and many prefer to not have workers in their rooms while they are gone. Every hotel has given the option of housekeeping services and most have a little door hanger you can put out which states your request.

No European experience till next year. But we have found the limited maid service to be common at several big name hotels in the US. Don't know if a function of staffing problems or just another way to save a few dollars of expenses for the hotel. The daily room service maybe be a thing of the past.

Also, had a note from one hotel that our room would be inspected daily. I assume for guns.

I'd guess most people are OK for up to a week at a hotel without room service if you take your own trash out.

But yeah the sheets and towels should be changed once per week, imo, like we do at home, or it will start getting gross.

I have found European hotels to be much better than American chain hotels for daily maid service. This year in Italy, great daily maid service so far! Last year in Germany and Austria, we also had daily maid service.
I am very disappointed in American chain hotels and the lack of daily service. I end up putting my trash out in the hallways, as other guests do, and it looks awful. We run out of tp, and of course, not having dry towels, even when we hang them up. In one name- brand hotel we had ants, and it's no wonder!

Staffing issues have forced many hotels to cut back on housekeeping. For some, you’ll get housekeeping after three nights. For my wife and I, we prefer not having somebody come into the room daily. Just spent four nights at the Boston Park Plaza and didn’t have housekeeping come in once. On an overseas trip last year, one hotel actually changed our room code so we’d have to go to the front desk to show we were alive since we’d left the “do not disturb” placard up for so long. If we need TP, fresh towels, or coffee/tea packets, we’ll ask housekeeping or visit the front desk.

Just returned from London-Belgium-Paris trip at the end of April. In London, our hotel informed us during booking that full housekeeping services would only be available every 2-3 days (can't remember the exact wording). Our room was fully cleaned on the 3rd day. They gave us a number to call on Whatsapp if we needed towels, trash pick-up, etc. in the interim (which we used a couple of times). It worked out just fine for us.
In our Brussels and Paris hotels we had housekeeping services every day.

In my experience last year (Norway, Sweden, Finland, northern Italy) and this year (southern Italy), it has become very common, and the no-housekeeping-service policy isn't necessarily clearly disclosed during the booking process. On the other side of the coin, I've stayed in a few hotels where the staff seemed a bit distressed when I told them I didn't need service that day.

I do like to have the trash picked up daily, because I'm likely to have something like a cheese wrapper or a banana peel in the trash can.

I think this started as a staffing and health issue and has now morphed into a way for hotels to cut costs.

I had not even thought of the trash issues. I did notice, now that I think about it, trussed up trash bags in the hallway. What could possibly happen?! I guess I must get used to visiting the hotel desk more often.
For many who work as hotel housekeepers, this has to be disconcerting as their income has been decreased. It also puts an extra burden on those behind the desk.

I always thought I was doing the hotel a favor when I'd mention that we don't need any room cleaning. If they seemed distressed then I'd tell them to go ahead. I don't want to upset anyone.

We had that experience in Hawaii, where they were also experiencing staff shortages last few years. In the past, some hotels offered reduced services (i.e., every other day for towel replacement and bed making) as an environment-friendly option. But we found housekeeping staff did not like this (and ignored the card we left in the room per instruction) because it reduced their working hours and therefore pay.

Spent a week in Copenhagen last September. The room was fully serviced every single day. In the US no hotel that I’ve stayed in during the last two years has provided daily service. No complaints about that. Room refreshing has been noted as available upon requests or automatically after 3 to 5 days. Towels replaced anytime either by visiting the front desk or delivered to the room.

We’ve been to Europe 2x, Hawaii 3x and US hotels several times since Covid for days to weeks at a time and have only had room service occasionally. All front desk people have encouraged us to get clean towels and request trash pickup when ever we’ve needed it. The only scheduled room service was when we stayed for week and even then we had to call the front desk to tell them on which day we wanted the cleaning. I no longer count on housekeeping service anywhere.

I spent a week in a London hotel in April. Housekeeping services were available only upon request. Towels were readily available from the front desk. I took out my garbage and recycling as needed and deposited it in bins on the street. It was no problem for me as we usually stay in airbnbs and take care of ourselves.

I've only been staying at one place in Scotland that did not offer daily housekeeping, and they said just to let them know if I wanted it (I was fine without it). The first hotel in Glasgow said I could opt out of daily house cleaning, which I chose to do. And the place I'm in now comes in and straightens and refreshes the coffee/tea makings but does not replenish the towels or change the bed linens.

My experience is that European hotels are providing housekeeping

And I post reviews and mark down US hotels for this. Quit calling yourself a full service hotel and charging full rates if you are providing extended stay hotel services. And if you can open a restaurant and bar, etc. then don’t give me Covid as your excuse.

I do often opt out of housekeeping but at $300 a night in major cities it should be standard imho

In regular hotels I have stayed in in Europe over the last year, it has been a mix of no change, an option to opt out, to notify when you want service.

I have no problem with limited housekeeping, never really understood why I need fresh linens and towels each day, I don't at home, and to be honest it is wasteful.

I’m going in to week 5 visiting Amsterdam, Paris, London and now on a small group tour in Northern England staying in boutique type hotels. All hotels this trip have provided full service housekeeping. This also was the case on the Best of Italy trip last Fall and 2 other tours in May 2022 and Oct 2021.

My only US hotel stays have been my yearly trip to Yellowstone. The lodging provider in the park is having terrible staffing problems so no housekeeping service at all unless you are there for more than a certain # of days.

I've gifted the article from the NYT below:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/24/travel/hotels-end-daily-cleaning.html?unlocked_article_code=PwwysSiRJcJRlrzrVmrqJfGHs5i3DsnOpcfAyJVMp9FBGrarePtvndKKtAFYMIsCYPx-hb9OkDqdzQmBYsutjo1msO6q3UTPyA4xLerlcWkRroTVZOGpwKdbkeKHX737aRZDunrqzkGwMnjqsh0xZ3PXkbWYkC24S4dNJypHDEdJmQJz5CQUf4JL40rU67hcS7BYc3CcB5Qc92Efui5_dNoaJbRTmMYGOBQRHAR-Pv393fWmEQIu8kVyqmdasakaANtwIBB_31S5H5z3Et78UjkXOsDFii7bLuyEWTl_FQSayCMAkWGK7p7plco2lVROU7wh4OoR2Jo9Yrrc8g6Io7Oy&smid=url-share

All of our hotels (mix of 2* to 4*) over the past month in Spain and France have had daily housekeeping. I wouldn’t really mind if they didn’t provided they have adequate towel rails and ventilation to enable towels to dry between uses (not often the case) and somewhere central to dispose of rubbish/trash.

We have traveled through Europe, Turkey, Africa and South America over the last 14 months in addition to the USA. The only places where housekeeping was at a minimum was in the USA. Outside of the USA we had daily service.

I stayed in a lot of small hotels and B&B’s in Italy last June and September, and they all still had the pre-Covid norm of room cleaning, making the bed and switching towels, if wanted, and replenishing shampoo. None of the hotels were a chain company or American style design.

About half of the hotels had timed breakfast, so there were only a few people in the breakfast room at the same time.