Overwhelmed! What is the best way to..?

Good morning everyone. I don’t know what happened but last night a whole bunch of requests came in after not receiving any inquiries for over a week!

We had pretty much every weekend in June booked for the rest of the money, but then 2 of the requests we received were to fill the weekday gaps in between weekends. This is awesome because we are going to make a ton of money in June, but we haven’t ever dealt with it before. Also, one of the reservations was on VRBO and this is the first one we have accepted from there.

My number 1 concern is the check in and check out times. We have a check out by 11 am, and a check in no earlier than 3. This will give me time to have the place cleaned for the next guests. We do have someone we are looking to hire but I am always here so can do it myself also.

How do I reiterate to my confirmed guests that we have other people coming/leaving on the days they are arriving/leaving? Everyone coming was screened by me and I think they will all be really great people but we just want to make sure we do everything appropriately.

Thanks!

What kind of listing do you have? Private room or whole house? I’ve never had a problem with overlap. Surely you have multiple sheet sets, towels, etc. How long does it take you to clean? It only takes me an hour, max. You should have plenty of time. Not only will everyone not check out at 11, not everyone will check in at 3. You shouldn’t say anything to anyone unless they ask for late check out or early check in. Who was it on this forum who said “never let them see you sweat?”

4 Likes

Good advice from @KKC. We have 11am and 4pm and I need most of that time so couldn’t manage without spares of everything. We have mostly back-to-back bookings with same day departures and arrivals and you soon get into a routine - it’s a lovely problem to have!

Be sure that you contact the guests the day before arrival and departure times to check on their travel plans and confirm the check in / out times. If you can allow guests to store their luggage with you before of after their stay that helps a lot too.

Best of luck :slight_smile:

Its a whole house, a guest house across from ours. We do have the check out time posted in the rules ,and also on the wall board in the house. I like “never let them see you sweat”!

1 Like

Okay I went and looked at your listing. I want to come visit! It might take 2 or three hours to clean the whole place but most important is having all the spare linens you need. Every square inch doesn’t have to be dusted each time. Every window doesn’t have to be cleaned. Most important are for floors to be clean, bath and kitchen surfaces clean/sanitized and polished and all horizontal visible surfaces wiped and polished. My best cleaning tip is magic eraser and microfiber cloths. Polishing surfaces is key.

Thank you!! We do have spare linens so that won’t be a problem. It takes me about 2 hours to clean it, however, we have comforters that take longer to wash so we are trying to find a solution, possibly ordering more comforters.

Use duvet covers or light bedspreads in the summer. Multiple thin layers are easier to wash than thick comforters. I don’t wash the cover every time. I put the duvet cover on the steam function of my dryer. In addition to magic eraser my other must have item is sticky lint roller. Even after being washed and dried I get hairs off the sheets and covers every time.

2 Likes

Even if it could happen that the old guests leave at 11 am and the new ones are comming at 3, it will probably not beeing the case very often. At least at our place most guests check inn later. This will you give more time for preparing the place. But you should anyway be ready at 3 pm. It is after my opinion not right when guests want to arrive at the check inn time stated on your listing, and they have to wait for the room be cleaned.

It helps having enough linens and towels, so you dont have to wash those from your guests leaving during this little time window. You can also prepare things like garbage bags, etc so that the turnover/cleaning is going fast.

I also have a black light to check for stains.

2 Likes

I considered duvet covers but I hate duvets. We have 3 washing machines on our farm so we can get everything washed pretty quickly.

I would be completely mortified if a guest showed up at 3 to check in and someone else was here who refused to leave without giving me enough time to clean, so I am trying to figure out everything I can do to avoid it from happening.

I have one spare. (The apartment is one bedroom with one queen bed). It’s also a good idea to have spares in case of any ‘accidents’. This could be something simple and non-messy such as guests spilling a bottle of water on the bed. If that happens, I can offer them a clean, dry one during their stay.

And here’s something I discovered just yesterday - have spares of your most-used cleaning appliance / products. When getting the apartment ready yesterday, the iron stopped working. I iron the (visible) bedding and the covers from the sofa’s throw pillows. I had to borrow another iron from a neighbour - fast! Then I had to dash out and buy one because the iron is mentioned as an amenity and I have business guests or those coming for a wedding so it gets used often.

@LegendsCreek
Hi,
Whenever we have back to back reservations I let both parties know. I say something like, we do have another guest checking in after your noon departure but if you’d like to leave your luggage downstairs we can hold it for you. Everyone seems ok with this and no one has taken us up on it. All of our check ins are usually late but I check to ask their ETA the day before.
AND, can I please visit your goats? They are adorable. Do you make chèvre?
Can they come into the room :wink:

@jaquo we do indeed keep multiple of everything as we have 2 hours and a business at our farm

@Maggieroni I do plan on letting everyone know in advance. We did have 1 of the guests ask when she booked if she could check in around 11, but I told her that it was possible someone would book and be checking out that day and we would have to play it by ear. She did say that she had somewhere she could go until 3 so it wasn’t a big deal.

Yes, we do make chevre! Its delicious. One of our goals is to get a dairy license so can can make cheese to go under our brand. We don’t want a milking operation here and hope to buy the milk from other RI farms but we want the cheese kitchen here. Fingers crossed!

PS - You can visit anytime!! Unfortunately, the goats can’t come inside. Even if 1 goat got into a house, it would take them less than 20 minutes to destroy the entire house.

1 Like

Okay. Well then, at least one spare comforter per bed. Do you allow people to go around the farm and interact with the goats, watch you tend the bees, etc? Or do you want them to stay out of the way. I did see where you suggest that self-sufficiency is a virtue. And those dogs! Adorable. [quote=“LegendsCreek, post:10, topic:5430”]
completely mortified if a guest showed up at 3 to check in and someone else was here who refused to leave
[/quote]
I would be surprised if this happened. I’m sure you’ll come back and let us know how the next few bookings go.

Hey this could be your unique marketing angle…goat cuddling. :joy:

1 Like

Yes we do allow people to go anywhere on our farm and land and we encourage it! Our first ever guests (who didn’t leave a review), stayed for 3 days and never left the house and had curtains drawn the whole time. We think its strange to stay on 50+ beautiful acres and not explore the outdoors but they were very nice people so no complaints from us!

Goat cuddling… HAHA. That is hysterical.

2 Likes

We would love to visit. Are you aware of Farmigo? We are community hosts, it’s a locally sourced online farmer’s market. You might distribute through them. Hugs to the goats and to you!

I had never heard of it… I just checked it out. Is it like an airbnb but for picking up farm goods?

I love it, goat cuddling $5.00 per goat. 3 for $10.00. The new therapy. Sounds like your first guests could have benefited!

2 Likes