Disney Cruise Line Guest Letter About Stateroom Decorations and Over-the-door Hanging Organizers

Disney Cruise Line Guests will be greeted with the following letter in their staterooms:

Dear Guests,

We are glad that you have joined us aboard the Disney (Choose Ship)!

As you may be aware, it is important to us to keep our facilities looking their best for all our guests.  As part of our commitment to this area of focus, we ask that you do not affix anything to your stateroom door utilizing tape or any adhesive, including removable gel adhesives.  We have found that these adhesives damage the finish on our stateroom doors; therefore we ask that you limit door decoration to those of the magnetic variety.

Concurrently, we ask that guests not use over-the-door hanging organizers as they have been found to scratch and/or disfigure stateroom doors and trim.

Guests found with damaged doors are assessed a $100 damage fee per incident to cover the cost of repairs.

Your attention to this matter will greatly assist us in keeping our shipboard environment looking ship-shape.  Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact Guest Services, Deck 3 Mid-ship.

If interested, magnetic door decorations are available for purchase in our merchandise area.  For your convenience, magnetic strips are also available at Guest Services.

We appreciate your cooperation and hope you have an enjoyable sailing.

Sincerely,

What is the Williams Family “take away” from this letter?  We knew and understood the no adhesive rule for decorating stateroom doors—click here to read more—and had been following that rule since we started decorating our stateroom door.  Yet, still saw guests taping items on their doors or door frames.  The letter is a less confrontational way to remind guests of the rules rather than sending a stateroom steward to remind a guest. 

Having magnet strips available at Guest Services is a nice touch, though it doesn’t say if there is a charge for those strips or not.  If someone sails and obtains magnetic strips from Guest Services, please let me know if there is a fee.  I may want to take advantage of this particular service.

Offering guests the opportunity to purchase magnetic door decorations is also another great idea on Disney’s part.  I haven’t seen the selection but am various curious.  And now the dilemma. . . do we make our own door decorations and bring them with us or wait and purchase on board?

What strikes me as the most unique part of the letter is prohibiting the use of “over-the-door hanging organizers” which can be found as a traveling tip in almost any cruising guidebook to maximize storage space and help organize guest belongings.  We have used an over-the-door hanging shoe organizer for one trip to store toiletries on the top and shoes on the bottom.  Guests needing this type of system will now need to get creative and find a way to hang it in the closet.  Better yet, find a hanging organizer for use in a closet.  While those exist, they are more “shelf” like and would be okay, but the movement of ships and need to store smaller items other than just shoes may open the market for a hanging system ideal for a closet but with more pockets than shelves. 

I appreciate Disney Cruise Line being upfront and proactive by informing guests of the expectations.  I also appreciate how they offer guests an alternative such as being able to purchase door decorations or obtain magnet strips.  As always, Disney Cruise Line is finding ways to enhance the cruising experience which is one of the many reasons we keep coming back.

Have you cruised with Disney recently?  If so, did you receive this letter in your stateroom?