james318

I recently stayed at the RIU Palace Las Americas from 05/10/2020 to 09/10/2020 in room 237.

Upon arrival on the 5th, I placed my laptop and passport into the in-room safe and secured it. I would not open the safe until the next day.

The following day, we were instructed to return to our room immediately and told to grab any essentials and secure all our valuables in the safe, as we were being evacuated to Playa del Carmen prior to hurricane delta’s arrival. My laptop and passport are essential to me, so I removed them from the safe to take in my backpack to the new resort. When I removed the laptop, it was dripping with water from an unknown source. The other areas of the room were dry, there was no water anywhere, and no obvious leak. As we were told to go as quick as possible, I placed it in my backpack and went to the lobby.

When I arrived at the lobby, I was told to get on the bus immediately or I may be separated from my travel companion. I wanted to report the issue so it was documented pre-hurricane, however there was no opportunity to. We were made to get on the bus.

Upon arrival in Playa del Carmen, I removed my laptop and attempted to dry excess water. The laptop smelled of damaged electronics. After several days of drying I attempted to turn it on, however it would not power on. In the meantime after returning to Cancun, I contacted the front desk manager about the issue and was told that there was nothing to be done by the hotel, as it was not reported prior to the hurricane. Again, there was no availability to report it prior. The lobby was a chaotic scene and there was no chance.

When we returned to Cancun and I reported it, I also checked the safe again. It was still soaking wet inside. There was no other liquid present in the room.

Despite this issue, we enjoyed our stay. The staff did an amazing job the entire time, especially with the hurricane.

Any thoughts how to pursue some reimbursement for damage? This was a several year old 15" MacBook Pro, however it was fully spec'd at time of purchase, included a 2 TB SSD and 16gb of RAM.

PV_Premier

Tough situation, probably no realistic course of action here to get reimbursed. Hindsight is 20/20 but at a minimum would've been a good idea to photograph the safe and contents before leaving the room for Playa then email them to the property when you got to your shelter, this way at least you had documented proof that the damage occured in the safe before the hurricane. Maybe then you'd have a leg to stand on, right now, I am not sure you do have one with the property.

If you have any insurance that covers your loss, only you would know whether it makes sense to file against it given what you lost.

pseudoswede

Was the safe on the floor of your room? Was your passport wet/damaged in any way? Where was the passport inside the safe relative to your laptop?

For a personal laptop, I don't bother keeping it locked in a safe anymore. (That said, I put it away from plain sight when not in use.) I'm really not worried about theft, and I back up all important data to various cloud storage sites before shutting down.

Otherwise, I agree with PV_Premier.

garykung

Agree. How the water could get into a safe is beyond my imagination. Yet, as it was a force majeure situation, the hotel is unlikely responsible.

Hope you have travel insurance.

james318

I figured I had no recourse. There was no time to be documenting things, unfortunately. So lesson learned I guess. My passport was soaking wet but has since dried out. It was on my laptop in the safe. The safe was not on the floor, and was in the large closet of a decent sized (2 room) suite.

Not sure why this got shuffled off to the Mexico forum as this could be any hotel anywhere...

bchandler02

How did water get in the safe?

MSPeconomist

The laws and legal system in Mexico would determine whether the hotel has any legal liability here. Whether the hotel would make a customer service gesture to the customer is a different matter.

JDiver

As MSPeconomist says, Mexican law would apply. Even in the US, given a tropical storm, that’s likely a force majeure issue (and there’s generally a disclaimer by the property on using the in room safe anyway). In México, forget it - Mexican law is modeled on Napoleonic Code, and any applicable law would be influenced by and protect the property, not likely the tourist. Perhaps you can explore a claim against your homeowner or renter insurance? (I’d also check with a local or Apple repair shop - I had a laptop flooded with Coca Cola by a saboteur who didn’t want to be in my mandatory training, and found a replacement keyboard found on eBay was sufficient to make it functional.)

arcticflier

A “saboteur”?

My Goodness, this sounds like you lead quite the Life of Danger and Intrigue, JDiver. Right out of a Dirk Pitt novel.

As to the OP, how do you suppose the water got into the safe? Does that not have anyone curious? Was it fresh water, chlorinated, saltwater?

rxgeek

I once read that someone advocated setting up your laptop in the room as a webcam when not occupied. I never did it. Have any of you?

arcticflier

I do not think recourse is justified in this incident. You are asking the hotel to believe that water mysteriously appeared in your room safe without any water outside of your room safe. The chances of this occuring are infinitely remote.

Meanwhile, you were evacuated from the hotel during a hurricane, at a time the hotel might reasonably conclude it was raining.

Sorry but this story doesn’t hold water.

Brewspar

I did use a laptop webcam in China once to determine who was stealing money from our flat. The trusted guy with a key? Or the trusted girl from the estate agent (who wasn't supposed to have a key). Turned out to be the latter.

PlaneSpeaking

It’s not just about damage. We were stopped at airport security after a delightful stay and extraordinary upgrade at what was and arguably still is Mumbai’s premier hotel. Why? Because our iPads tested positive for gunpowder (or whatever the technical term is) and both we and security could only think that guns had been kept in the safe prior to our stay (I’ve only ever had a rather disappointing water pistol). I’m not sure if sanitiser is now the answer to Covid, suspect safes or even annoying relatives but I’d recommend a “quick squirt” in the safe at every opportunity.

arcticflier

Ah yes, it wasn’t a genuine FT thread until someone could find a way to brag about their own most luxurious hotel experience; pray-tell, were you upgraded to Business Class as well for the stressful experience at the airport?

There are occasions that a false positive is flagged by the explosive residue sensor, such as a bit of petrol transfered from the skin after re-fueling the rental car AND glycerine from skin moisturizer.
The odds of this are much greater than the last guest to use the hotel safe having stowed a recently fired handgun which had not yet been cleaned.

MSPeconomist

Is it moisturizer or hand sanitizer that can cause false positives on the airport security test for explosive residue?