Check the hotel room safe before leaving a hotel room

Back in the days before hotel room safes, when my family traveled cross-country by car, as the oldest child I had two jobs. First, I often was put in charge of the map, and second, it was my job to check the room before leaving to make sure nothing was left behind.

It’s always a good idea to look around a hotel room before leaving. It’s really easy to leave a charger in the wall, a nightgown on the bed, or to misplace any one of a hundred things. However, the thing travelers MUST do, assuming they’ve used it, is to check the hotel room safe.

In this case, two travelers almost met with disaster. They were staying at the Hotel De Rome hotel in Berlin, the night before taking a Backroads biking tour around Germany, a tour that was finishing in Dresden, 100 miles away. The day they checked out, our agency got a frantic call from the hotel concierge — two of them had left passports in the hotel room safe.

The call came in the late morning California time, so to be honest, I am not sure if the next guest found the passports, or if housekeeping found them while cleaning the room later in the day. (If a hotel is not completely full, they may not clean all vacated rooms in the morning.) But, in either case, the hotel contacted us immediately.

At this point I was able to email the travelers, who fortunately had not unplugged for a few days. In talking to the concierge, we discussed using some service like FedEx to get the passports to them at a hotel in another city. As it turns out, this couple got lucky again. They had booked their own air tickets. And, since they had not found good flights from Dresden, they were returning to Berlin on the final day of the tour for a late afternoon flight. Backroads even had a van scheduled for those who either couldn’t fly from Dresden or wanted to extend their stay in Berlin after the trip.

• Obviously, this could have been a disaster. In this case, the Hotel de Rome is one of our preferred Signature consortium properities, and as an agent I had been in contact repeatedly with them over room location and amenities, so they had our information, including our phone number.
• Had the travelers booked through a third party online site, it might have taken considerably longer for the hotel to get the message to them.
• Since they didn’t need passports within Germany, when I contacted them they had no idea their passports were missing, and might not have noticed it until they were on their way to the airport. As it turns out, the concierge put the passports in the main safe, and they were able to stop by the hotel and pick them both up.  So the whole episode cost them nothing except — I hope — a good tip.

Now, as mentioned above, travelers leave things in hotel rooms all the time, so a last look before leaving never hurts.

Hotel safes, while good for security, are especially risky because they’re not part of most travelers’ daily routine.  So, when tired, in a hurry, and/or jet-lagged, it’s easy to forget about them.

In addition, taking a very quick glance inside a safe might mean missing something, especially something small and flat.  I’ve personally had clients forget passports before and more than one person admitted to realizing their wallet was still in the safe when they checked out. With automatic or online checkouts now available at many hotels,  one has to wonder if incidences of forgotten wallet cases will increase, as there’s no need to use them at the desk.

So, figure out something special to remind yourself when items are placed in a hotel safe. If you use the in-room safe, check it very carefully before departing. Once again, the trip you save may be your own.