Guest User
December 31, 2025
During our stay in Paris, our experience at this hotel was very unfortunate as an incident occurred. While Paris is notorious for pickpockets and theft, we did not expect a theft to occur inside the hotel-controlled breakfast area.
During breakfast hour, a thief managed to sneak into the breakfast area and steal our family's bag, which contained important travel documents and personal belongings. This was extremely disappointing and shocking, especially for a hotel such as Novotel. Especially given that the breakfast access is restricted to paying guests and is checked in by hotel staff.
Before entering the breakfast area, guests are checked to confirm if they have purchased the breakfast option, and they monitor how many people enter because if you only purchase 1 and bring in 2 people, it wont be allowed. This raise a question, how is an unauthorized person able to enter? This quickly led to an answer of poor security and management for proper access control.
Although we are grateful that only material belongings were stolen and did not affect the other guests, it is deeply concerning because if a thief can enter so easily, what could have happened if the thief had another motive? Such as violent intent? Where kids are happily eating their breakfast, it puts the guests' safety at risk. Even other guests were shocked as well once they learned of our situation as they too, couldn't believe what was happening. Raising concern if they too would be the next victim.
After noticing that our bag was stolen 5 minutes later, we reported it to the hotel staff and they explained that since breakfast hours are chaotic, staff can sometimes overlook or make a mistake due to the business. Unfortunately, this confirms that there is negligence in the hotel's own security procedure. If access control is not properly enforced, what is the point of buying a breakfast option when everyone can just walk in?
Despite the theft occurring within the hotel premises and due to failure in access control, the hotel refused to take responsibility for our loss. To mention, the bag was not unattended, it was beside a family member, within a brief second of distraction, the thief used the chaos and snuck the bag into his winter coat and left.
This experience is very concerning as it highlights a security concern and a lack of accountability. We really urge the hotel to improve its security to prevent harm to future customers, as guests should be able to feel safe within a controlled hotel area without having to worry about security failure.
