fran

Staying at 4 and 5 star hotels in Rome and Florence--Grand Hotel Tiberio in Rome and Villa Cora Grand Hotel in florence. Both have individual safes in rooms. Any experience with hotel room safes--can we keep tickets, passport there or still rely on money belr. If we keep things in safe, surely hotel employees can access (I'm sure people have forgotten access combination and hotel staff had ro open)

christina

ciao fran <BR> <BR>i think you don't have to worry. the hotel villa cora here in firenze is a very luxury place, only people with a lot of money go there. and normally in hotels in this pricerange only 1 max. 2 persons do have the access to the combinations (i think even in other hotels, you can't give the responsability to a "normal" employee). but normally you do have a key to lock it and even in this cases you do have max. 2 persons who do have another key. generally it's the hotel director and/or the security manager. i left things in india in hotel safes and nothing happend. immagine this: you put your things in a safe and you come back and something's missed. don't you think that the hotel director will call the police immediately? <BR> <BR>tanti saluti <BR> <BR>christina

John

Fran: At 4 and 5 star hotels we use them all the time. The safe generally locks with a password of your choosing and only you know the password. I realize that management has an over-ride password but I would think it is only available to a select few since it would most likely open all room safes in the hotel. We feel much more comfortable with a room safe rather than a lobby safe and leave all important documents in additon to currency in the safe. <BR>

kate

I know this isn't a european example, but when I was staying at a 4 star hotel in Cuba, I kept my passports, spare cash etc in the personal safe in my room. <BR> <BR>One day, when I was obviously a bit brain dead from all the banana daquiris, I left my room with the safe door wide open. When I came back, I discovered that my room was double locked, so even I couldn't get in, and a security guard was lieing in wait for me. <BR> <BR>Apparently the cleaner had gone in, seen the safe, suspected theft and informed security. <BR> <BR>Nothing was gone and I (rightly) got a gentle ticking off for my foolishness. <BR> <BR>But I was very gratified to see the honesty of the staff (the cleaner could easily have swiped everything), and their vigilance. <BR> <BR>At the standard of hotels you are staying in, I would say the hotel room safe would be much better than a money belt.

Dick

I wouldn't let the star level of the hotel determine safety. I was in what was said to be one of the nicest (Holiday Aurola - Costa Rica) hotels there and my room safe was opened, the cash all but a few dollars taken and the safe closed. I either carry it with me or lock it in my suitcase after wrapping it in clothing - I'll sometimes put a few dollars and trinkets in the safe so they'll think I have the rest with me.

christina

ciao dick<BR><BR>sorry, but costa rica is defenitively not italy! we are not a third world country, we are europeans.<BR><BR>christina

dick

Christina: I apologize if I offended you. I'm looking foward to returning to Italy in August and having my daughter see the wonderful people there.<BR><BR>My point was that the star rating of a hotel doesn't always equate to a safety level. I'm sure there are some very small family hotels/homes in Italy that are safer than many 5 star hotels.<BR><BR>Ciao.