Rings worth £9,000 stolen from Tenerife hotel room during balcony burglaries, mum claims
Nottinghamshire mother says a faulty hotel safe and a string of balcony burglaries left her invaluable rings missing during a Loveholidays getaway to Tenerife
A Nottinghamshire mother says her family’s Tenerife holiday was ruined after a night intruder allegedly stole her engagement ring, wedding ring and a birthday ring from their hotel room, in what she describes as part of a string of balcony burglaries.
Vicki Pike, 51, from Nottingham, travelled with her husband Mark, 56, and three relatives on a £4,091 Loveholidays package that ran from August 13 to August 20. The group stayed at a three-star hotel in Tenerife, and Pike had paid for a room safe to store passports and valuables. However, staff later told them the safe was faulty and would be fixed, a repair that never materialised during the seven-night stay, leaving the family with no secure place to leave documents and jewellery.
But the family says the safe was never repaired, and they were forced to leave belongings in the room. For the duration of the trip, Pike allegedly left her three rings on the kitchenette work top each night while the couple slept, hoping they would be safe. On the night of August 18, she says, the rings disappeared.
“I woke up heartbroken at the discovery and have been left grieving the loss of my rings, which I say are worth about £9,000,” Pike said. She described the rings as irreplaceable: two belong to her—her engagement ring and her wedding ring—and the third was bought by her husband for her 50th birthday. “The first two rings are absolutely irreplaceable. The first is my engagement ring and the second is my wedding ring. The last ring my husband bought me for my 50th birthday.”
She added that she and Mark had left the balcony door ajar because the room was boiling without air conditioning, and that her bag was found on the balcony the following morning. “We had left the balcony door open whilst we slept as the room had no air con and it was scorching in the room,” she said. “I knew something was wrong and I burst out crying and I was shaking.” Pike said staff told them there had been “more than 20” balcony burglaries at the hotel and that another guest had been burgled on the same night.
After speaking to a hotel manager about the incident, she says she was told police would visit to carry out fingerprint checks on the room— but she says that never happened. “The next day Mark had spoken to some of the staff and they said there had been over 20 balcony [burglaries] last month. Another woman at the hotel said that she had been [burgled] on the balcony that night too.”
Since returning to the UK, Pike says she has had to take prescribed medication to help her sleep at night. She says she is devastated without her rings, and her husband Mark struggles to look at her hand without them there. “Now we’ve got to think about raising finances that we haven’t got to replace them. I’ve got to replace them, get them blessed and get Mark to put the rings back on my finger with vows and then I can draw a line under it.”
Loveholidays, which does not own or operate the hotel, said it was very sorry to hear of Pike’s experience and that it had investigated the complaint as a matter of urgency with the hotel involved. The company said its support teams had been in touch to advise on making a claim with Pike’s travel insurance provider. The hotel declined to comment beyond Loveholidays’ statement, and police were contacted for comment.
Pike has also said she reached out to Loveholidays by email but felt the company would not take responsibility for the incident. She plans to pursue replacements and has begun discussing potential vow-renewal arrangements, noting that replacing the rings and organising a blessing would add to the financial burden of the trip.
The case underscores ongoing questions about safety in holiday accommodation and the balance of responsibility among guests, travel agents and hotels when valuables go missing. Loveholidays said it would continue working with the family and the hotel to explore next steps, including insurance avenues. Police and the hotel have not offered additional details beyond the initial statements.