Miscellaneous Forum

i take your point - you don't want to encourage people to stay there in case their stuff gets stolen - or something worse - and you don't want to \let the thieves and rapists know there is an unsecure hotel me, i would just tiptoie away and not write a review

Can you tell us the country or city of this hotel?

without any addl info; it sounds to me like a small enough place where the neighbors help each other out; possibly this has happened there a number of times! and I can remember yrs ago in dif places where the rooms had NO locks....a remnant of times past..... in these days, possibly not necessary to advertise it.

I have stayed in many places having the "communal", casual, and low security atmosphere that you describe. The place appears to be operated by a group of neighborhood shopkeepers. Sounds like my kind of place. Please drop the name and location of the hotel/pension/guesthouse if you don't mind.

I think you should mention it as it is a security risk. Once in Manaus/Brazil i stayed in a hotel like that. The receptionist was always too lazy to get up from the sofa and told people that they could just go behind the reception desk and take their key. When i noticed that i stopped leaving the key at the reception and kept it with me at all times. And that was probaply a good idea as one german backpacker had his room completely emptied the week i was there, by someone who just took his room key while the receptionist was on the coach watching television

Though thinking about it a lot of the hostels I've stayed in have just been open to all and you don't really think twice, just take your belongings with you. I always kept my phone, camera and passport on me I figured I could get by if anything else was taken.

Thinking about it again expectations are different from a communal hostel to a private hotel room. I wasn't brushing your concerns aside, I'd feel the same. I'd write an honest tip about the place personally. You had a great time but had a concern about security, maybe advise people to take their personal belongings with them.

I think Claus is right...your belongings are much more in danger from your fellow residents than from the locals...I stayed in a small hotel somewhere in Spain (not a big city). We handed our passports as usual to the guy behind the desk so that he could record our info for the local police. When I came back downstairs, I passed by the front desk and saw that our passports were on a table behind the desk, clearly visible and accessible to anyone walking by, since there was no one behind the desk. I called the manager and asked him to at least put the passports in a drawer, and he brushed off my concerns, finally ending the discussion by teaching me a new word: tonterias (foolishness or nonsense), which is what he thought my request for better security was... I believe that you should do the review and be honest both about the good time you had and the concerns you had about security...then the people who would be concerned won't go, and the people accustomed to the low security of hostels can have a great time... Bill

I totally agree that fellow travelers were an equally serious risk. Anyone staying in the hotel would know that the doors didn't lock, and anyone who had stayed there before would also know (we happened to be in town for a festival that attracted a lot of repeat visitors).

And, unfortunately, during my long travels in Europe, I met a number of travelers who were penniless and financed their travels by stealing from their fellow travelers...a very good reason why our students were informed in no uncertain terms to never tell anyone in Europe the campus address nor to ever bring anyone they met to the campus...the last thing we needed was someone with no ties to the school coming in and mooching off the school...and, yes, we had students who weren't bright enough or wordly enough to understand this... Bill

I am personally sure that the german guy who had his backpack lifted in Manaus had it stolen from a spanish guy staying there. That guy was totally penniless and waiting for his parents to transfer him some money and the very moment the german guy lost all his stuff the spanish guy suddenly had plenty of money for beer and fine dining.

I would definitely review the place "as is". Not reviewing it won't help anything whereas reviewing it honestly at least gives potential future visitors a chance to make up their own minds. Do you really think the local bad guys don't already know the situation?

I think travelers should know what they are getting into, and I would consider that to be important information. If I really wanted to stay there anyway (unlikely) I would know not to leave things in the room, and also that I should bring a doorstop to use when I was in the room.