When we stayed at Pop Century earlier this year, there were "public" smoking sections along tables at the pool. My mom often went out there in the morning.
I wish Disney handled this differently. With other hotels I stay in for work and travel, you are given the option of booking a smoking room. IMHO disney should have offered this and enforced the $250-500 penalty is smoking occured in a nonsmoking room.
For Instance, if you booked at the All Stars your options would be:
Standard Smoking
Standard Nonsmoking
Preferred Smoking
Preferred Nonsmoking
As disney stated in their release, demand for smoking rooms has dropped dramatically, and I understand that. So offer less smoking rooms, clean others, and keep everyone happy. Smoking rooms don't have to be offered for all room types/categories either.
I'm not a smoker and I do like the idea of being "worry free" about whether or not my room is going to smell like smoke when I check-in. Was just my suggestion though!
But if the info offered in the official explanation is to be believed, requests for smoking rooms has dropped to the point where it makes more sense to just not have non-smoking rooms.
Theoretically, most of the time, if people are making requests, it's probably for non-smoking rooms, with a few requests for smoking rooms. It seems that nowadays, most families with a smoker or two "condition" the smoker to not smoke around the rest of the family anyway, making them smoke on patios and garages at home, so they're used to smoking away from indoor comforts. 9I'm sure we all know someone or ARE someone who's had to excuse themselves from a dinner or DVD to go outside for a smoke. I once had a friend stay with me in my home for a year, and no smoking indoors was my only condition/request.
Which means a lot of the requests for smoking rooms come from people who either don't have kids (be it childless couples, older people traveling post "empty nest") or young unmarried couples or friends or relatives traveling together. Many people (until recently, me included) might even think Dianey resorts have been non-smoking already, and not think to make that request until on-site. Which means, during busy periods, all that may be left are smoking rooms, and there aren't enough people requesting those rooms. And you've got people who requested a non-smoking room, but smoking is all you have left.
Conversely, there may be occasions where you have too many smokers, and not enough smoking rooms. Then you have awkward situations where you have to make some smokers angry by not honoring their request for a smoking room. Resort management probably have more headaches accomodating those requests than any other, because day by day, the overall needs of the clintele change, and one day you don't have enough smoking rooms, the next day you have nothing but smoking rooms available and everyone is requesting non-smoking. Even factoring in people who request non-smoking rooms for medical reasons, you may not have enough.
So the switch to non-smoking rooms only, everywhere. They're pleasing more guests than displeasing, and the displeased guests at least know beforehand that there's no smoking in their rooms, and by staying onsite, they're tacitly agreeing to the resort's policies (including having to pay to clean a room if someone smokes in it). It's a simpler across-the-board poilcy, and therefore easier to enfore if WDW chooses to do so. There's no quarter given for people who wanted a smoking room but didn't get it who decide to make their room a smoking room anyway, and no compensation necessary for nonsmokers "stuck" in a smoking-permitted room.
There's bound to be an adjustment period, especially for smokers who are frequent visitors. But 5 years or so down the road, I'm guessing/hoping that people who insist on smoking in their rooms will be a rare exception, much like how each day in the parks you'll find some people walking around smoking, but rarely do you see it happening everywhere. Before long, you'll have guests who never even knew you could smoke in a WDW resort, and therefore won't know to miss it.
