Disney World bans smoking at its hotels

Orlando, Fla. — Playing follow the leader, Disneyland’s sister resort in Florida next month will ban smoking at all its hotels.

Walt Disney World Resort’s new policy, effective June 1, will apply to all guest rooms, patios and balconies at its more than 20 hotels and time-share properties. Designated smoking areas will be provided.

Violators will pay a “deep-cleaning fee” of $250 to $500, depending on room size, said Jacob DiPietre, spokesman for the 40-square-mile theme park and resort in the Orlando area.

Judging from the California hotels’ experience, punishment won’t be meted out very often.

Bob Tucker, Disneyland Resort spokesman, said Wednesday that the company’s Anaheim hotels had assessed a smokers’ cleaning fee fewer than 10 times since March 2006, when the ban took full effect there.

Grand Californian Hotel & Spa has been smoke-free since it opened in 2001. Last year the policy was extended to the Disneyland and Paradise Pier hotels.

All of Disney’s theme parks in the U.S. ban smoking, except for designated areas.

For guests at Disney’s Florida hotels, the new rules will mean no more smoke lingering in a room or wafting down a hallway. And no more last, quiet cigarette of the night out on the balcony, under a rising Florida moon.

“We’ve just continued to see the demand for smoking decline, and in the last several years, it has really begun to fall off dramatically,” Erin Wallace, senior vice president at Disney World told the Orlando Sentinel. “Less than 4% of our rooms today are being reserved for smokers. It’s time to go the whole way.”

As with its policy in the theme parks, the Sentinel story said, Disney World will designate outdoor smoking areas in fairly private locations at all its hotels.

Officials vowed to take action against any violators.

“We will charge them a cleaning fee. That’s pretty typical in the industry,” Wallace said. “We’ll be clear to say no, and we’re going to enforce the policy.”

Orlando Sentinel Staff Writer Scott Powers contributed to this report.