Grrrrrr. Just had a lovely week in Tenerife, first time to the Canaries and very pleasantly surprised.
Unfortunately, though our hotel was otherwise excellent, security was lacking.
Cleaner kept leaving our balcony door unlocked and we didn’t realise nor know it was a problem as our balcony would need a monkey to get up to it.
It seems there are monkeys on Tenerife, the thieving variety.
Whlle we were out for dinner,only out of the room for 2 hours, someone came in, broke the new superstrong padlock off my case and relieved me of my lovely Panasonic Lumix camera. They made sure to take the 5 spare batteries and 2 spare SD cards too as well as the battery charger and lens cover which were elsewhere in the room,
Then they nabbed my Kindle (and therefore all my holiday reading matter) and Bob’s Hudl (and his books and games).
Grrrrrrrr
The most inexplicable thing they took, and I can only think they were peevish, was my wrist support from the bedside table leaving me with a grotty hand for the week instead of one which is well rested.
When I’m on holiday I take photos when we are out and I read when we are in.
That is what I do.
I felt lost sightseeing without my beloved camera to hold and if I could get my hands on the thieving toerag who did his best to spoil my holiday and my fun I would surely push him over the edge of the crater into the Mount Teide volcano !
I suppose I should be thankful my passport and my English coins were left behind.
You will know when the insurance is sorted as my photos will return to normal - having to use my old faithful Minolta Dynax and it so much heavier and slower… I hadn’t realised as I’ve rarely used it since geting the Lumix Xmas 2014.
If anyone comes across a Panasonic Lumix DMC G6 for sale from Tenerife with spare batteries and SD cards please let me know and I’ll have the Policia on to the seller within seconds.
I really did take some super photos of the first 3 days of the holiday - before I was reduced to using my mobile phone ! They could have left my SD card behind 
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Oh no Joy that’s dreadful the thieving horride little so um so’s.
I do hope your wrist doesn’t become bad while your trying to enjoy what’s left of your holiday.
I’m home again now but have had to make an appointment to see the ‘Hand Woman’ next week as it’s steadlly getting worse. I had hoped it might be the cold and that a bit of warmth and sunshine would put it right again but obviously not.
I may be taking a few weeks off glass making in a few weeks or so unless something miraculous happens, very soon, to the nerve in my wrist !
On the other hand not as bad a what Bob did as we were packing to leave yesterday. He was fastening my broken suitcase and leaned backwards, right into the massive wall mirror which smashed all over him. So as well as the 2 hours at the police station reporting the theft we also took a trip, by ambulance, to the hospital, en route for our flight home which we miraculously caught :
where Bob had 13 stitches in his back. Ouch.
The rest of the holiday was excellent !!!
Sorry to hear that Joy. It really puts a downer on a holiday when something like that happens.
Aww I’m sorry, it’s horrible when someone invades your space and robs you of your possessions. I’ve never had anything like this happen while on holiday but it has happened at home many years ago. It’s an awful feeling. They were obviously after things that they can easily resell…
(maybe whoever it was hurt their wrist while climbing onto the balcony or struggling with your padlock and that’s why they took the wrist support)
It’s a good job you’ve got your insurance but hopefully it didn’t put too much of a downer on the rest of your holiday.
Oh noooo I’ve just read about Bobs back, I hope he’s ok… it’s not the type of thing you want to happen at any time but especially on holiday… give him a hug… but be gentle
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Oh my goodness!! You poor things! I hope you managed to enjoy some of your holiday at least. And I hope karma gets the buggers who did this to you!
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Your poor things! What a terrible time for you.
I hope you get some improvement in the wrist soon.
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Oh gosh that is beyond awful I do hope your wrist and Bob’s back recovers soon
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So sorry to hear that. We went to Tenerife a few years ago and my husband was attacked in the street and his wallet was taken. He was very shaken and we later discovered that Tenerife has a real problem with this kind of thing happening all the time and the police not being interested.
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Sorry to hear that. Unfortunately it’s been known that some cleaners work alongside these thieves and therefore leave the doors unlocked telling them what may be inside. In most cases they’re after some quick money so it’s better to steal things they can sell straight on than things like passports.
I think it is just a case of making sure you have the right insurance. You just never know.
I did a full year travelling around south east Asia and the only things I ever had go missing were my knickers after I took clothes to a launderette. (Some very strange people out there!!)
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Oh no Joy, that’s awful!!! I was beginning to wonder if you were ill as I’d missed your contributions on the forum. My hubby and I went to Tenerife 3 years ago for a wonderful relaxing week break - or so we thought!! He had a stroke on the second day of our holiday and spent 10 days in hospital. What a nightmare with the insurance etc… Seems like Tenerife wasn’t that lucky for either of us!
I hope your wrist starts to improve a little and that your husband recovers very quickly - it can’t have been a very comfy flight home for him!
Take care
Di
Oh Joy I’m so sorry to read this has happened to you. How dreadful
I wonder if there’s any CCTV footage of suspicious behaviour.
How low can you get stealing from people enjoying a nice holiday. Makes me really fume.
its awful your husband needed stitches after an accident too.
Big hugs
Karen x
oh my goodness so sorry to hear your poor husband ended up at the hospital with stitches.
I hope you both have a less stressful time and things start healing.
Is the wrist carpels tunnel thing. I get pins and needles in my right hand but mines due to where the nerve comes out at the shoulder bit.
I must admit I had a couple of ‘adveturer’s’ in Tenerife a few years ago. I took the walking trek down mount Teide. You go up in the cable car. Then go through the little gate with a guide and show you permission permit to the guard. You climb to the top of the Volcano then walk all the way down it’s a full days walk. I was doing great untill I stepped on what I thought was solid ground and my foot went through the surface rubble and I slide down and smacked into solid rock. I was wearing my proper walking boots but still ended up loosing both my big toenails. I was in annoy and still had another 2 hours of walking to do.
It was the day before I flew home. I was unable to wear shoes once I got my walking boots off. I had to fly home in flip flops in the middle of our British Winter.
How awful for you. We decided that once we got to the top (where I had some brilliant photos taken of the two of us by a friendly tourist which the thief now has) we were going no further. It took us two hours to get there as the queues at the bottom were so long that if we’d taken a walk we would have had to queue again to go down… also… I checked the surface of the lumpy bumpy paths and decided we didn’t fancy them. A wise decision.
re my wrist they say it is carpel tunnel - I’m a bit worried that they tend to assume always that it is. My symptoms are not typical and at the moment confined only to first finger and thumb - which is what was affected when I had the steroid injection 30th April last year when I lost a lot of the use of them until the end of October. Then after 2 months of being 95% ok they suddenly went off again. Nobody has bothered to ask about the arthritis in my right shoulder blade. Thank you for reminding me… I will get someone to check that before they cut my hand open !
Security cameras round the hotel were in short supply. I think their insurance company is now addressing the problem.
Hope your husband recovered ok.
The hotel were brilliant after Bob’s accident and came running when I pretty well screamed at them down the phone. There was a doctor, a paramedic, manager, guest manager, and then 2 ambulance men… not to mention the handyman sorting out all the broken pieces of mirror. And the guest liasion manager came to the hospital and airport with us and man-handled all the bags.
Bob is just about to write them a big thank you (not for the exploding mirror which should probably have been better attached to the wall) and not to the thief (as the accident only happened because Bob was trying to secure the broken lock on my suitcase).
We did assume we had been targeted as I never (except when going out for dinner at night) leave the room without my camera round my neck. But the roon next door was ‘done’ too though they only had a Hudl in the digital area which was obviously what they were after. They left the expensive jewellery he had bought his wife for their golden wedding the next day.
Yes thanks Joy, he’s getting there - it could have been so much worse. At least I managed to get most of the Hardanger wedding crackers for my daughter’s wedding finished whilst sitting by his bedside (instead of sitting by the pool)! She was getting married ten weeks later so the thoughts of walking her ‘down the aisle’ was his incentive to get walking. And he managed it!
It sounds like your guest liaison was better than ours and the rep at the hotel was less than useless. although the area rep was brilliant and visited him regularly in hospital, and as for the travel insurance company - well I won’t go there!!
Take care both you! You will be ready for another holiday to recover from the last one!!
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Did the hotel not have those personal safe’s where you can put your passport, any extra monies, travellers cheques, camera’s and jewellery.? I always use them when abroad in case of thieves.
Often if they don’t have one’s in the rooms they have a big one down at reception.
Yes there was a safe in the room but it didn’t have a key and nobody mentioned it when we checked in… When we first arrived the phone wasn’t working otherwise I would have phoned and asked about it but by the time we had sorted the missing kettle and non-working phone we forgot about the safe.
I will of course never fail to use a locking safe again.
We were though locking our stuff into our suitcase with a big strong padlock and don’t really expect someone to monkey climb 12 foot up to a balcony which is overlooked from below by a public area where there were normally plenty of people walking about and we certainly don’t expect the cleaner to unlock the balcony door and leave it unlocked !.
