MarkJ said:-

Valuables should always be stored in a safe without fail

Yes in away I agree with what your saying but if a room is secured with all the locks and latches provided then you have taken reasonable care of you property.If the room safe is so integral to making a claim why then is it not provided within the room price and not an added money making extra as frills like air conditioning.

Also who's to say they don't have spare keys to safes and if they did how would you go about proving you put your valuables in the safe when you open it to find things missing.

I think it is all about opportunists trying to get to your valuables.

There is no defense for a determent thief getting your valuables, no matter what fortifications you put into place. By at least putting your valuables into a safe, it stops somebody snatching your belongings when the door is left open by for example a cleaner whilst cleaning another room.

I agree with you that room safes should be included in the price of the room and not as an add-on.

As to hotel staff having spare keys? Dificult one this as yes it will be difficult to prove that the stuff missing was indeed there without any signs of break-in. I supposes this will be down to trust between you and the hotel proprietor.

Mark

i Love this site you are so funny, true Brits we can always see the funny side of things, especially the toilet episode!!!!!

[Joking aside I hope all gets sorted foryou love Super Granxxx[/b]

Many years ago in a hotel in Kissimmee my son's teddy and a pair of eyelash curlers disappeared. Now, they know that you will most probably not report these incidents as the items are not valuable but I think it was very mean to pinch a child's toy. They must have known that the child would be upset. I thought it was most probably the maids.

We stayed in apartments in Crete one year and our daughters were packing to go home and were checking everything! Under the spare mattress was a T-shirt and under the drawers stuffed at the back was another T-shirt (the drawers and wardrobe were never used). My daughter had thought she had forgotten to pack them and dismissed it for the rest of the holiday. No way would she have hidden them under the bed and the drawers, there would have been no point to that. Then we found out that some other holidaymakers had had some small change taken (presumably they thought it was a tip?) and also some perfume had been used and was noticeably going down fast and other make up had gone missing! We did make a note & warned others in the visitors book and when we left the whole page had been torn out. We assumed it was probably the cleaner and perhaps she thought it was a perk of the job to hide clothing and then go back for it after we had gone. We did leave nice little messages in the hiding places though! We didnt make a big thing out of it as nothing was actually taken but we thought it was quite a crafty thing to hide things as if you wouldnt miss them. Just a note to check unlikely places for items lost.

I had a nightmare experience a few years ago in Corfu. Was on holiday as a single mum, my daughter had brought her friend along too. We were having a rough time of it due to the weather anyway. Half way through the holiday, we were sitting in the room playing travel monopoly when a man just unlocked our door and walked in!! I grabbed the nearest thing to hand(my daughters oar for her dinghy) and told him to get out.
He backed away and said he was in the room to repair the bath. He looked very shocked. So was I because we didn't have a bath and i'd never reported any repairs.
I reported the incident at the reception after he'd legged it, and they were very good. The rep from Thomas Cook also helped. It turned out that this man didn't work at the hotel.
But he had a key!!! I think he might have been an ex-employee trying his luck.
So now I take a small peice of wood and wedge the apartment door whenever i'm in it. I'm so security consious now. Some doors you can double lock from the inside. If i'm on the ground floor, i'll also wedge the patio door shut too. And I permanently borrowed a Travel Lodge "Do Not Disturb" sign which works a treat with enthusiastic maids.

That's really scary! I would have been hopping mad and a bit worried that he would come back. Its a shame that we have to be so viligant about safety and security when on holiday. I am hoping that we have a safe deposit box where we are going in September, I cant find any information about it and I keep asking questions.

It was really bad at the time. The rep got us moved to another room nearer the reception and she kept calling our room to see if we were ok!! Great rep. The hotel called the police, helped me fill in a form and gave us full board for the rest of the trip. I was freaked though. Didn't sleep till I got home. Sat up most nights, guarding the room. We were just unlucky. Thats the first and only problem i've ever had like that. It did make me more security minded though, which I don't think is a bad thing. Even before I unpack now, I check windows and doors to see how easy it is to get in, hardly carry any cash(go all inclusive), always use the safe, find ingenious hiding places for things, never flash cash around, always carry a "bum bag", keep photocopies of all important documents, take travellers cheques and credit cards, never take any jewellery on holiday with me, always take my door stops, the list is endless.....

Better to be safe than sorry.

We had $700 stolen from our pin locked safe in Florida last December.

I'm sure that it was related to the hotel staff/cleaning staff.