I"m curious, how many rooms do you have? We only have 4 and maybe I"m underestimating the work but the current owners claim to be done with clean up by noon. THanks for the insurance question, I have a call in to our insurance agent and atty regarding that as I'm not really sure. It's not that I necessarily wouldn't take midweek bookings but apparently they don't happen very often, according to the current owners, except for select times of the year..
sixstones said:
I"m curious, how many rooms do you have? We only have 4 and maybe I"m underestimating the work but the current owners claim to be done with clean up by noon. THanks for the insurance question, I have a call in to our insurance agent and atty regarding that as I'm not really sure. It's not that I necessarily wouldn't take midweek bookings but apparently they don't happen very often, according to the current owners, except for select times of the year.
Have you seen the place after an hour's cleaning of 4 rooms and common spaces? Sorry, ONE room is 45 minutes, so unless you get them all to check out at 9, you'll be there later than noon. (I have 7 rooms and on weekends we're just sitting down to lunch at 2 PM when the first guests are arriving.)
What you really need to think about is living there from Thurs thru Mon. Don't schedule any guests in on Tues & Wed and you can probably do ok. EVERYTHING takes more time than you think it will and guests WILL be knocking on the door at 11 AM for that day's check in. They will also be knocking on the door at midnight.
If you plan to live there 5 days/week you can do it. Now, if you both have other jobs you need to be at during the same time, probably not a good idea.
To me, 4 rooms is like having a 1/2 day of vacation. But that's because I run around knowing I have 7 rooms to clean. Once you're organized, things fall into place.
Here's probably the biggest mistake I think aspirings make: they think this job is sequential. Task A, then Task B, then Task C. I've seen lovely plans for serving breakfast from 8-9 without a calculation for getting up before 6 to get everything ready and then waiting for a guest who rolls in at 9:10 AM and sits there until 10:30. You were going to clean the kitchen from 9 to 9:30, but now you are still talking and pouring coffee and the phone is ringing. It goes on like this all day. You think you can clean from 11 to noon but the phone rings and the doorbell rings and a guest doesn't check out until 11:45. And tonight's guest shows up at 11:30 and takes up more time because you have to help them find something to do while you clean their room.
This should be the aspirings' mantra: There is nothing sequential in innkeeping.
There are days when it does all fall into place. But not many of them. Please keep in mind there is a lot more to this than baking and cleaning and talking. If the present owners are making it sound like you just rake in the money with little effort, well maybe so where you are, but not so much where a lot of us are.
Plus, if they have been doing this for awhile, you may lose a fair percentage of their repeat guests who LOVED them and don't think you can measure up. (Yes, happened here.)