Theft from safe on Equinox - is it worth reporting it to head office?

We’ve just come back from our honeymoon on the Equinox and had a awful experience after money was stolen from our cabin safe, which soured our trip somewhat. Apologies in advance for a somewhat lengthy post - just want to try and give a full picture of what happened...

The first night we got lucky in the casino and had a big win on a slot machine. The second night we got lucky playing roulette and won a bit more. Excited with our winnings, we went back to our room and counted it all up (a number of times as we couldn’t believe our luck!), split it equally between us and put it in the safe - mine in my evening purse, my husband’s in a money clip inside a button clasp wallet.

The following day we were in port in Civitavecchia, but as we’ve been there before we decided to stay on the ship and spent most of the day in the Persian Garden. That night as we got ready for dinner, I took my evening purse out the safe and thinking I’d go to the casino again, decided to take a less than I had won previously. However I was surprised to find a $100 bill missing. I told my husband and he checked his money clip, only to find he had a $100 and $20 bill missing too. As we had been onboard all day and the ship is cashless, it was obvious it had been taken.

We immediately reported it to guest relations and that’s where the bad experience started. The first person we dealt with us was less than sympathetic, quite dismissive and made us feel like we were causing her more work. She called the chief housekeeper and security to meet us at our room. After we explained what happened, the chief housekeeper proclaimed it was “impossible” for anyone to get into our safe other than us. Now we know this isn’t quite true as on a previous cruise we had a problem with our safe and an engineer inputted a master code to open it again for us... The security guy came and questioned us, searched the cabin and I wrote a statement.

We are pretty vigilant with the safe – we’re almost OCD on checking it’s locked before we leave the cabin – especially as before we went to the Persian Garden we locked our wedding rings in it. But the chief housekeeper was keen to put doubt in our minds we had not locked it. Playing devil’s advocate, if we had accidentally left it unlocked at any point, it would have been sometime between 8.45am – 12pm between breakfast and locking the rings before going to the spa. With the small time frame, security made a scan of our door to see who had been in our room other than us - and handily, there was a camera by our cabin so they could watch the footage to verify. We were told the matter would be concluded in 24hrs – which it was – but it took us 4 days to get any answers as no one would tell us anything or keep us updated despite daily calls and visits to guest relations.

When I chased the guest relations person we filed the initial report to, she was equally dismissive, saying she wasn’t allowed to tell me the official procedure when incidents such as this occur. A second person told us she was surprised as “that would never happen – cabin attendants get paid really well so they don’t have a need to steal”. Most of the comments made to us by staff pretty much accused us of lying.

In the end, the door scan and camera footage confirmed other than us, only the cabin attendant and his assistant had been in our room during the time frame. However as both of them denied it, and without a camera in our room to prove who took it, nothing more could be done. As we felt like we couldn’t trust our cabin attendants anymore and it was clearly awkward for all involved, we asked either to move cabin, or change the attendant. Again we were made to feel like we had asked for the moon. The attendants were changed, but we were disappointed guest relations weren’t sympathetic enough to suggest it first as a way to ease our stress at the situation.

Since we won it and considered it “free money”, we tried not to be as bothered than if we had brought the cash with us, but it was still a theft. We’re pretty sure we had locked the safe, but even if we hadn’t, someone still came into our locked room, opened the cupboard and tried the door of the safe to see if it was open.

The security guy was the only person who treated us professionally the whole time and helped us chase guest relations to get a copy of my statement and “lost” property form when they failed to provide it to me. He was sympathetic and apologised for the stress it caused, saying he believed we should be able to leave our money spread around the room without fear of it being taken – which I guess is how it should be.

We’ve cruised more than a dozen times and sailed 5 times with Celebrity – we’ve never experienced a theft before, nor such poor customer service from the cruiseline. Telling us to take the issue up with head office when we get home is not particularly helpful at the time of the event - especially when you are at sea - nor is telling us they don’t believe any “service failure” has taken place. Without any video evidence I understand they probably didn’t want to admit liability, but they still could have treated us like humans rather than stonewalling us on our honeymoon. It was just really disappointing. :(

Can anyone see the point in taking it up with head office? I don’t think it would particularly achieve anything – it’s not like they’re going to give us the money back… Any thoughts/advice welcome.

Yes please report it.

You may not get any compensation, but it may [should] lead to them looking at security.

And have a chat to their guest relations people.

Can anyone see the point in taking it up with head office? I don’t think it would particularly achieve anything – it’s not like they’re going to give us the money back… Any thoughts/advice welcome.

A point, no. BUT, I would. I get pretty stubborn and when I know I'm right, I'd do it. I would approach your issue from two sides: the theft that can't be proven but in my mid, the lack of professionalism and concern would be my biggest issue.

I always leave sums of cash in the safe knowing it's not 100% but what else do you do. Never a problem but in your case the "free" money was yours regardless. Go for it!

There is every reason to get the head office involved, why wouldnt you. Also what kind of surprises me is why was a room key audit not run right away upon indicating there was a theft. I have worked in the hospitality industry for many years, do have associates who have worked for different cruise lines also(RCL, Princess among ohers) and this is and should be a standard operating procedure, or would hope so. Im also thinking the electronic safes can be audited on when they are opened, and depending on what type when, this is a common feature in most electronic safes The way the staff dismissed it would be very disturbing to me, I would not let it go and definitely follow up on this .

I would certainly bring it up back here on land. It may not get you anything per say, but it may change how the situation would be handled next time.

One thing I do, is bring luggage locks and put important things in my suitcase. Lock it up before leaving the room and slide it under the bed. Nobody else can open that without damaging the suitcase... at least, I think that's the case.

At the very least it sounds like you were treated in a less than professional manner. I would absolutely follow up with the home office

Yes, please report it to the head office. They need to know what happened.

Since Celebrity watches this board, they probably already are aware of this. Certainly the on-board security reports are transferred to the head office. If you would like to dialogue with them further, that's certainly a reasonable request. As you say, any sort of compensation is unlikely.

Yes, you should report it. It is very important for corporate to know.

CC's system went weird a while ago.

See...... Double post

I too would be outraged both by the loss of money and even more so by the attitude of some of the staff.

Having said that, though, if there is even the slightest possibility that both the steward and assistant were not guilty or were not in cahoots, then I would be reluctant to pursue it. More than likely, it will result in one or both of them getting fired and being responsible for their own passage home. That's fine if they were the culprits, but not so fine if they weren't.

Hope justice prevails.

Happy Sails to You

OOOEEE :D:D Bob and Phyl

I agree with the others who say to report it.

Although it may not do you any good at this time, it could trigger an audit of the ship's cabin security procedures and serve to benefit future passengers.

It seems unlikely that the steward or assistant would be fired without proof, especially if this is an isolated incident and they have never been suspected of theft before (but then I really don't know what their policy is in such situations).

Maybe Celebrity Cruises who posts on this board will chime in and let us know how such matters are handled, as the cruise line has undoubtedly encountered similar situations before.

I felt pretty sick reading this. I haven't lost cash yet though I am sure I will one day. I've had lots of jewelry lost, or stolen from hotel rooms. I've called security, even when I know EXACTLY where I left those earnings, or necklace, nothing has ever been recovered.

I've also not been able to get back in an electronic safe, so I am going to add my thoughts.

The door audit show the only people in the cabin besides you were the cabin attendant, and the assistant. Let's assume this is true (they could have let someone else in, but let's assume they didn't, and the hallway video confirms they didn't).

I don't want believe they can get into the safe with a master code. I had hoped they couldn't, so I did some google searches on it, and of course, disappointingly, it is possible that they could. If Celebrity hasn't been vigilant on the master codes and left them as the default, or use the same code, and somehow the cabin attendant found out the code, they could get in too easily.

When we've had a safe we couldn't open and it had to be opened for us, it took a security person and a front desk/hotel manager there, one with directions and codes for the safe, and one to log the opening. There were a series of codes that had to be entered based on that safe in that room, as apparently this hotel used different master codes for different rooms. It wasn't easy for them to do, which made me feel a bit better. I am certain not all safes are the same, and of course do not know how Celebrity does it.

It is possible someone (based on the door logs, would have to be the Cabin attendant or assistant) opened the safe with a master code, but I am at least hoping or trying to believe, that cabins stewards can't get into room safes.

I have counted money wrong, more than I would probably care to admit, but it sounds like you counted more than twice, so that's probably not it either.

So, all I can say is, this is a mystery, until you get to how you were treated, which seems to be the worst part. Compassion, communication and understanding would have gone a long way to making the situation not as bad. I think if you contact the head office, you should let them highlight how the situation was handled from your point of view. I am not sure you should contact the head office, that is a tough call. I probably would, but I also feel if you do, you may open yourself up for more disappointment if they don't treat the matter well.

The question is, will you be happier contacting them if they don't treat the matter as you expect or hope, or moving on and putting it behind you?

I'm sorry this happened.

Happy sailing,

Jenna

We’ve just come back from our honeymoon on the Equinox and had a awful experience after money was stolen from our cabin safe, which soured our trip somewhat. Apologies in advance for a somewhat lengthy post - just want to try and give a full picture of what happened...

 

 

 

The first night we got lucky in the casino and had a big win on a slot machine. The second night we got lucky playing roulette and won a bit more. Excited with our winnings, we went back to our room and counted it all up (a number of times as we couldn’t believe our luck!), split it equally between us and put it in the safe - mine in my evening purse, my husband’s in a money clip inside a button clasp wallet.

 

 

 

The following day we were in port in Civitavecchia, but as we’ve been there before we decided to stay on the ship and spent most of the day in the Persian Garden. That night as we got ready for dinner, I took my evening purse out the safe and thinking I’d go to the casino again, decided to take a less than I had won previously. However I was surprised to find a $100 bill missing. I told my husband and he checked his money clip, only to find he had a $100 and $20 bill missing too. As we had been onboard all day and the ship is cashless, it was obvious it had been taken.

 

 

 

We immediately reported it to guest relations and that’s where the bad experience started. The first person we dealt with us was less than sympathetic, quite dismissive and made us feel like we were causing her more work. She called the chief housekeeper and security to meet us at our room. After we explained what happened, the chief housekeeper proclaimed it was “impossible” for anyone to get into our safe other than us. Now we know this isn’t quite true as on a previous cruise we had a problem with our safe and an engineer inputted a master code to open it again for us... The security guy came and questioned us, searched the cabin and I wrote a statement.

 

 

 

We are pretty vigilant with the safe – we’re almost OCD on checking it’s locked before we leave the cabin – especially as before we went to the Persian Garden we locked our wedding rings in it. But the chief housekeeper was keen to put doubt in our minds we had not locked it. Playing devil’s advocate, if we had accidentally left it unlocked at any point, it would have been sometime between 8.45am – 12pm between breakfast and locking the rings before going to the spa. With the small time frame, security made a scan of our door to see who had been in our room other than us - and handily, there was a camera by our cabin so they could watch the footage to verify. We were told the matter would be concluded in 24hrs – which it was – but it took us 4 days to get any answers as no one would tell us anything or keep us updated despite daily calls and visits to guest relations.

 

 

 

When I chased the guest relations person we filed the initial report to, she was equally dismissive, saying she wasn’t allowed to tell me the official procedure when incidents such as this occur. A second person told us she was surprised as “that would never happen – cabin attendants get paid really well so they don’t have a need to steal”. Most of the comments made to us by staff pretty much accused us of lying.

 

 

 

In the end, the door scan and camera footage confirmed other than us, only the cabin attendant and his assistant had been in our room during the time frame. However as both of them denied it, and without a camera in our room to prove who took it, nothing more could be done. As we felt like we couldn’t trust our cabin attendants anymore and it was clearly awkward for all involved, we asked either to move cabin, or change the attendant. Again we were made to feel like we had asked for the moon. The attendants were changed, but we were disappointed guest relations weren’t sympathetic enough to suggest it first as a way to ease our stress at the situation.

 

 

 

Since we won it and considered it “free money”, we tried not to be as bothered than if we had brought the cash with us, but it was still a theft. We’re pretty sure we had locked the safe, but even if we hadn’t, someone still came into our locked room, opened the cupboard and tried the door of the safe to see if it was open.

 

 

 

The security guy was the only person who treated us professionally the whole time and helped us chase guest relations to get a copy of my statement and “lost” property form when they failed to provide it to me. He was sympathetic and apologised for the stress it caused, saying he believed we should be able to leave our money spread around the room without fear of it being taken – which I guess is how it should be.

 

 

 

We’ve cruised more than a dozen times and sailed 5 times with Celebrity – we’ve never experienced a theft before, nor such poor customer service from the cruiseline. Telling us to take the issue up with head office when we get home is not particularly helpful at the time of the event - especially when you are at sea - nor is telling us they don’t believe any “service failure” has taken place. Without any video evidence I understand they probably didn’t want to admit liability, but they still could have treated us like humans rather than stonewalling us on our honeymoon. It was just really disappointing. :(

 

 

 

Can anyone see the point in taking it up with head office? I don’t think it would particularly achieve anything – it’s not like they’re going to give us the money back… Any thoughts/advice welcome.

Extremely sorry to hear about this. We plan to investigate.

Can you please send this to us in an email, along with your reservation number and any additional information. We can be reached at concerns@celebrity.com.

I would always report anything stolen from a room, whilst they may not be able to take any direct action against an employee a hotel or cruise line will be able to build intelligence on an employee. I'm sure they realise the temptation some of their staff on fixed term contracts may be under to steal. If the same employee gets several reports of a similar nature logged against them (above the average) then they may choose to not renew their contracts or target them for spot checks.

My wife and I take extra precautions after a few years ago a room attendant in a very prestigious hotel left our room door open on the bolt after doing the evening turn down service (we discovered it on the return to our room in the evening). In fairness to the hotel they went overboard with security follow up, interviewed staff, a visit from the hotel manager, complementary wine, chocolates and free meal in their best restaurant. Fortunately nothing was stolen but it could have been very different.

It's also wise to take sensible precautions re room safes. Don't use codes that are easily guessed or associated with you ( e.g. room number) If it is a room attendant they're in and out of your room a lot in 14 days and that gives them lots of opportunities to hit the jackpot, particularly if it is just a 4 digit code and uv made it easy by using 0000 or 1111

Another tip I was told was to try and use as many different numbers as possible in your code and to either gently wipe or ensure you touch each key on the key pad daily. I've heard of cheap invisible markers applied to the keypads that can be read by cheap infra red readers which then show which keys have been used setting a code. I have a small pool of codes I use and I will sometimes changes these during a stay.

I'm sure the safe we had on the Eclipse was one where you had to put the code in each time you locked the safe. Which means that if you opened the safe yourself and then found money missing whoever took the money must have locked it using your code. If they were using the master key I think they usually work without identifying the original code, I.e. They just force the safe open and reset the code.

I wonder if a cabin room attendant was so inclined and each week tapped 9999 into the safe keypad for every room on their roster how many weeks it would be before a safe popped open. You don't have to make it obvious by stealing the Patek Philippe, but a 50 from a stack of notes will probably go unnoticed, particularly on a ship where cash isn't needed.

It's called a 'Safe' not a 'Risk' and when we travel we expect that what we put in there stays there until we remove it. I too agree that we should be able to leave anyting in our room sitting on the counter or bed and it should be as safe as if we were in our own homes.

Sad to think that there may be a possibility of someone helping themselves to your cash or other valuables.

I would certainly bring it up back here on land. It may not get you anything per say, but it may change how the situation would be handled next time.

 

One thing I do, is bring luggage locks and put important things in my suitcase. Lock it up before leaving the room and slide it under the bed. Nobody else can open that without damaging the suitcase... at least, I think that's the case.

Unfortunately, they can, using a pen, straight through the zipper, and then dragging it open, a video demonstrationg this has been posted on all kinds of websites recently as a caution to travellers. It gave me the horrors reading your story, we have never experienced anything like this on a Celebrity ship, we always feel as safe as we do at home, I would hope it is an isolated incident and they get to the bottom of it, glad to see Celebrity have responded and are taking action. Hope you had a good honeymoon other than this. :)

Unfortunately, they can, using a pen, straight through the zipper, and then dragging it open, a video demonstrationg this has been posted on all kinds of websites recently as a caution to travellers. It gave me the horrors reading your story, we have never experienced anything like this on a Celebrity ship, we always feel as safe as we do at home, I would hope it is an isolated incident and they get to the bottom of it, glad to see Celebrity have responded and are taking action. Hope you had a good honeymoon other than this. :)

Hi Louise. I see you are on Silhouette next year. We're taking her across the pond on 31 October. Maybe you can talk hubby and the boys into a Transatlantic? :)

My comments on the original post -- I've only had a problem one time with my stateroom safe. The batteries died and locked us out, and one of the Officer Engineers had to come, crack into it, and replace the batteries.

I've always felt safe (no pun intended) putting my wallet, travel documents, money, jewelry, and the like into the safe for safekeeping. I've never heard or read any other threads of folks missing something from a locked safe. One time when traveling with my sister-in-law, she was missing an expensive bracelet and accused the stateroom attendant. When one of the head housekeepers came in to investigate, the bracelet was found behind the front lip inside the safe.

Could it be possible the honeymooners had too much "juice" in the casino that night and miscounted their monies? :confused: Just saying, not accusing. ;)

Unfortunately, they can, using a pen, straight through the zipper, and then dragging it open, a video demonstrationg this has been posted on all kinds of websites recently as a caution to travellers. It gave me the horrors reading your story, we have never experienced anything like this on a Celebrity ship, we always feel as safe as we do at home, I would hope it is an isolated incident and they get to the bottom of it, glad to see Celebrity have responded and are taking action. Hope you had a good honeymoon other than this. :)

Very true. I use hard sided luggage, no zippers and this is but one reason why.

Happy sailing,

Jenna

We arrived on board the Millenium last year and the safe was locked when we got to our stateroom. It took a call to the front desk and the head housekeeper showed up and swiped his card through the safe card reader and it popped open. Took all of 5 seconds. Didn't leave me with a warm fuzzy feeling that the safe was secure.

The usual luggage locks can be opened with a hairclip or similar. I would think the safe is the place to keep monies etc.

How much money did you win? If it was $1,000, then one hundred would be easy to see was missing. If it was $10,000 it would be easy to see that miscounting MIGHT have been involved.

Question: Did you TELL the room stewards you had won a great deal of money? I can't believe they try every safe every day in the hopes that one will have something new (IF they are inclined to be dishonest in the first place, which I'm sure not all are). Also, don't they have to keep the door open when they are servicing the room?

Extremely sorry to hear about this. We plan to investigate.

 

Can you please send this to us in an email, along with your reservation number and any additional information. We can be reached at concerns@celebrity.com.

Glad to see that Celebrity is aware of the issue and will take a look at it...

BILL