"I have been a loyal Marriott Bonvoy guest for many years, but after what my family experienced at the JW Marriott Cannes, I personally cannot recommend this hotel and would strongly advise prospective guests to consider the security arrangements carefully before booking.
I stayed here with my wife and our two young children. During our stay, my wallet was stolen from inside our suite while we were away from the room for approximately three hours.
The consequences were extraordinary. The thief used three of my bank cards and managed to carry out more than €2,800 in fraudulent transactions before all the cards could be stopped.
This is not speculation. The matter was reported to the French Police, a suspect was subsequently apprehended, my five stolen bank cards were recovered, and an official police report was filed.
I want to be completely transparent about one point: when we left the suite with our two young children, our door unfortunately did not fully latch behind us. We did not realize this at the time.
However, what I find extremely concerning is that the suite apparently remained visibly open for approximately THREE HOURS without anyone from housekeeping, security or hotel management checking whether everything was alright.
The hotel's explanation to me was essentially that guests sometimes intentionally leave hotel doors open and therefore staff cannot assume that an open door represents an anomaly.
Readers can form their own opinion about that explanation. Personally, in a luxury hotel of this standard, I would expect a room door that remains visibly open for several hours to warrant at least a knock on the door or a security check.
There is another security issue that concerned me greatly.
Our suite was located on the first guest floor, which appeared to be accessible directly from the public lobby without the same guest key-card-controlled access used for the upper floors.
This means that, from my experience, someone entering from outside could access that guest accommodation area without first passing through the access controls protecting other floors.
For a hotel positioning itself at this level of luxury, I found this extremely concerning.
To be fair, I want to acknowledge something the hotel did well: once we discovered the theft and reported it, their security team cooperated with the French Police and provided CCTV footage. The police acted quickly, the suspect was apprehended and my five bank cards were recovered. I am grateful for that assistance.
Unfortunately, the way Marriott handled the aftermath has left me almost as disappointed as the incident itself.
This happened on what was supposed to be my wife's birthday celebration. Instead of enjoying that evening with our children, we spent it cancelling cards, dealing with banks and communicating with the police. Our stay was completely overshadowed by the incident.
After everything that happened, the General Manager offered the equivalent of ONE NIGHT refunded in Marriott Bonvoy points as a goodwill gesture.
I explained that I considered this completely disproportionate given the circumstances and escalated the matter to Marriott Guest Relations.
Marriott Guest Relations ultimately referred the matter straight back to the property and confirmed that no additional goodwill gesture would be offered.
I gave Marriott several opportunities to reconsider before sharing my experience publicly because I genuinely wanted them to turn an awful experience into an example of excellent customer recovery.
They chose not to.
This isn't about recovering the €2,800 through the hotel—the fraudulent banking transactions are being dealt with separately through the banks. It is about what level of security, responsibility, empathy and customer care guests should reasonably expect when paying to stay at a JW Marriott.
The most disappointing part is that Marriott had an opportunity to make us leave saying: "Something terrible happened, but look at how exceptionally they handled it."
Instead, we left feeling that once the hotel's position on liability had been established, our experience as a family mattered very little.
For me personally, this was by far one of the worst luxury hotel experiences I have ever had.
I would not return to the JW Marriott Cannes, and based on my experience I cannot recommend it to other families. If you do stay here, double-check your door every single time you leave and use the safe for absolutely everything of value."
