You need a villa that will suit your needs- and not be too worried about it being gated or not as even communities that are gated and manned -such as Windsor Hills and Lake Berkeley have break ins as there is a wall the culprits get over so whilst the guard is checking the gate the burglars are climbing the wall .As long as you take the same precautions whilst you are away as you would at home -leaving a light on say -making sure the doors and windows are shut you are safe.

Thanks for your reply, are some areas more prone to break ins. Would i be better booking a villa through one of the travel agents or make sure the place i book has an alarm.

Last time we stayed at a Universal hotel the Royal Pacific. But i am not that fond of my daughters friends to pay for them to stay there.

The thing i find strange we had a Sat Nav last time and the man from Doller said just leave it all the time on the dash as they dont get stolen. We could not do that over here.

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To be honest any area is open to break-ins but it seems that there are more on communities that are mainly Short term rental as opposed to those that are a mix of residential homes too .The newer communities have many many more rentals that those that are established .
I am biased towards booking direct with an owner -for obvious reasons -but going that route does mean you can select your home to suit your group rather than be allocated on on arrival which is the way most TA operate .Booking direct mean s you have a direct line of communication to the owner and can build up a feeling of trust with each other and who else will know the home and what it has facility wise other than the owner.But if you feel going to a company is what you would rather do then that's fine.
Alarms are good but only if they are set and again they are not a 100% deterrent as many home get burgled even with alarms as the police take a certain time to get there.
I don't want to frighten you or lead you to believe that it is unsafe in villas because it isn't -I have not had a break in in 11 years of ownership (she touches wood very quickly) I am only trying to help you in your decisions .

Thank you very much for all your help. I had intended to book direct with the owner.

It was the thread on this forum that started to panic me. I dont know why as we have had Villas in many countries no problem

Gated entries are not much better - as a Florida resident, a lot of these gated communities have silly "punch number" codes for entry. Silly thing is, I know of 4 communities where 00000 or 11111 get you in (it's for the garbage men and postmen)!

So be carefull.