The hardest day of your week
If you're a chalet host, changeover day is the day everything happens at once. Guests leave, the chalet gets stripped and deep-cleaned, new guests arrive, and you need everything to be perfect by the time they walk through the door. It's exhausting, relentless, and a rite of passage for every seasonaire.
Here's how to get through it with your sanity intact.
What actually happens
Changeover day usually falls on a Saturday (sometimes Sunday, depending on the company). The typical timeline looks something like this:
- 7:00-8:30am: Serve departing guests their final breakfast
- 8:30-9:30am: Guests check out. Luggage collection, transfers, farewells
- 9:30am-3:00pm: The big clean. Strip every bed, wash and remake with fresh linen, clean every bathroom, vacuum and mop every floor, restock toiletries, check inventory, prepare welcome trays
- 3:00-4:00pm: Final check. Everything should look like a show home
- 4:00-6:00pm: New guests arrive. Welcome drinks, chalet tour, dietary requirements chat
- Evening: First dinner service for the new group
That's a long day with no real break.
Tips from seasoned hosts
Get your system down
By the third or fourth changeover, you'll have a routine. The trick is working out the most efficient order to tackle rooms. Most experienced hosts recommend starting with stripping all the beds first, getting laundry going immediately (it takes the longest), then working through bathrooms, then bedrooms, then communal areas.
Prepare the night before
Lay out fresh linen, pre-set welcome trays, check that you have enough toiletries and cleaning supplies. Anything you can do the night before saves you time when it counts.
Speed over perfection (then go back)
On your first pass, aim for fast and thorough. Get every room to 90% as quickly as possible. Then do a final walk-through at the end to catch anything you missed: a smear on a mirror, a towel folded wrong, a hair in the shower. Fresh eyes spot things you missed in the rush.
Work with your team
If you share the chalet with a chef or another host, coordinate. Who's doing which rooms? Who handles laundry? Who prepares the welcome food? Good communication makes changeover day bearable. Poor communication makes it chaos.
Look after yourself
Eat a proper breakfast before the guests leave. You might not eat again until dinner. Keep a water bottle with you. And wear comfortable shoes: you'll cover thousands of steps without ever leaving the building.
The things that go wrong
No changeover goes perfectly. Here are the classics:
- Guests who won't leave. Check-out is usually 9 or 10am, but some guests linger. Be polite but firm. You need the chalet empty to start cleaning.
- Stains and damage. Red wine on white linen, broken glasses, mysterious marks on walls. You'll develop an encyclopaedic knowledge of stain removal.
- Laundry bottlenecks. If the washing machine breaks or you've got more linen than capacity, everything backs up. Some hosts use the local launderette as a backup.
- Late arrivals. New guests sometimes arrive hours before check-in. Have a plan: a recommended café, a local walk, somewhere they can wait while you finish.
Why it matters
Changeover day is exhausting, but it's also the most important day of the guest experience. First impressions are everything. When guests walk into a spotless chalet with fresh flowers, a welcome drink, and a warm greeting, they're immediately relaxed. That sets the tone for the whole week.
If you can master changeover day, you can handle anything the season throws at you. And on Saturday evening, when the new guests are settled and you finally sit down, the sense of achievement is real.
The rest of the week, by comparison, feels easy.