Grand Hotel des Templiers 4*

During our recent stay at this hotel someone stole cash from our safe box in the room.

We stayed at the hotel for 5 days in June. During the check-in process we were offered to use a safe box in the room by a dark-haired porter and we accepted it. Then we were given a key from the safe – the safes in the hotel are rather old and do not have the programmable code locks.

In the evening on the day of arrival we decided to put our cash and documents in the safe. We did it and closed the door. As we had some cash and couple of major credit cards on us as well we never opened the safe during these 5 days and kept the key with us during the whole stay and never left it anywhere.

On the evening before the departure day we were packing our luggage and I opened the safe to collect the passports and the cash. To my astonishment I found out that 1’000 Euro and 2’500 US Dollars I stored in a wallet inside the safe have disappeared. We applied to the reception immediately trying to find out whether they had the second key from the safe in the room and sort the whole issue out. The same dark-haired porter, who checked us in at the arrival date, said that the hotel does not have second keys from the safe, which sounds really strange as things happen and sometimes people lose their keys so the hotel definitely has to have a second set for all the safe keys in the guest rooms. Also the porter refused to contact his senior colleagues alleging as his reason that it was too late (23:00) and he did not want to disturb them. I guess that it was quite normal for him that we (clients and guests of the hotel) were completely ripped off, distressed and disturbed. When I suggested to him calling the police to sort the things out he refused and asked us not to do so in order not to disturb hotel guests. He asked to wait until morning when his senior colleagues arrive to the hotel and help us to sort things out.

Having returned to the room completely distressed we called the police ourselves. The police officer said that we will have to go to the police station (not far from the train station) to file a police report and we did that. We spent over 2 hours at the police establishment doing the necessary paperwork and were promised that police will investigate this the next day. Finally we went to sleep at around 3:00 in the morning and it is very hard to find proper words to explain how bad we felt at that time.

In the morning we met the senior colleague of a dark-haired porter – a small old woman who said that it was impossible that anything disappeared from our safe and advised us to double check our belongings – which was no help at all. She also said that only the owner of the hotel has a second set of keys from the safe so the porter lied to us the previous evening saying that they did not have a second set of keys at all. She was completely unhelpful and made us feel like idiots who can not control their belongings.

As we had to move on to our next destination we left the hotel after the check out hoping that police will do their job. Police officers never called us back like they promised to do after investigating the matter at the hotel. The hotel representatives never contacted us either.

I can say that this accident completely ripped me off. I often go on business trips to USA and to Europe and now I am literally afraid to use the safes at the hotels. I am very disappointed not only with the fact of loss of our money and spoiled days of our vacation but also with a complete inability and reluctance of hotel personnel to help us. This unwillingness to help gives me certain second thoughts with regard to possible suspects of this crime.

In conclusion I would suggest avoiding this hotel in any possible way. This really happened to ordinary guests of the hotel and it was no mistake from our side – I am a man of finance so I know exactly how much money I have and where I put it. I really hope that money stolen from us during our vacation time (which by the way we do not get too often) will not bring any happiness to the thief and in the end life will judge everyone based on their deeds.

Please be aware of this accident and possibility of theft from your safe when considering this hotel as your next destination.