I don't expect my Paris hotel rooms to be spacious.
But our first standard room at this hotel was one of the smallest hotel rooms I have ever occupied. It was so small (old vaudeville joke warning) that I had to step outside into the hallway to change my mind.
Seriously, the room was so small that the bed had actually been pushed against the wall so that one person had to jump or clamber into the bed over the other sleeper.
And there was probably all of 1-2 feet of space on the two sides of the bed that weren't pushed against a wall.
The view was nice and the location - just across the river from the Louvre and the Tuileries Garden was very convenient. That's why this is a 2-star review and now a 1-star.
Other major annoyance factor -- We stayed here about 8 nights in two blocks (4 nights, one night break elsewhere, four more nights). The hotel advertised a free breakfast special for weekend nights, and some of the nights we stayed definitely fit that definition. But we were refused the free breakfast at check-in. Why? Because to get the free breakfast, you had to stay ONLY Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. If you stay Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, you are magically disqualified from that free breakfast deal.
Really? That's the lamest hotel trick I've experienced in quite some time. Sure, save a few euro on breakfast by screwing over your customers, but it will come back to bite you in a bad Yelp review. Karma's like that.
When we returned to the hotel for the second part of our stay, we were in a Superior room, which meant that we now had a tiny bit of room on both sides of the bed and a modernized bathroom, with a little more space overall.
If you're going to stay here, definitely spring for the 10 extra Euro or so for the superior room!
I should emphasize the hotel is not cheap. It's affordable by Paris standards, sure. But it's still in the $200/night range once you figure in the exchange rate. Ooh la la.
(Both rooms also had really low chairs designed for Little People, I presume. All the chairs in our two rooms were stained, as were the carpets. Why upgrade or replace the furnishings when tourists will continue to pay whatever price you charge for the privilege of staying near the Seine and the Louvre? I think that's the mindset here.)
Incidentally, while it may seem romantic and charming to walk along the banks of the Seine, do keep in mind that there are apparently people who live in the tunnels alongside the riverbank and that those tunnels are therefore among the stinkiest places on Earth. Just saying.
So yeah, in a nutshell, romantic view, convenient to the Louvre, crappy rooms.
Amusing postscript - You know how American hotels have tissue boxes where the last 5-10 tissues are a different color so that housekeeping knows when to change out the tissue boxes? Yeah, that concept has not arrived in Europe yet. So you're just using a tissue, thinking you have plenty, and then - wham! - no more tissues. So I went down to the front desk to get a spare tissue box. You'd have thought I was asking for a box of jewels. After a search around the vicinity of the desk and in some cupboards, the night clerk came back empty handed. Then he disappeared again and reappeared with a handful of napkins. Well, they're both paper products, but otherwise not really all that similar, are they? The moral of the story -- bring your own tissues with you on your European travels. Most hotels don't offer any facial tissues at all, and even the ones that do offer tissues may run out suddenly. read more