I booked one night with the Chateau Versailles through Expedia. I cannot recommend this hotel to…read moreanyone, and certainly not for the price range. I do not understand how this is supposed to be a four star hotel.
We checked in at 3pm. Upon entering the room, it felt unreasonably hot. Upon using the bathroom, I noticed that the toilet paper was hot to the touch - and it was because heat was blasting from the heater directly beneath it. I looked and saw that the heat knob in the bathroom was set to about 25C/80F. I checked the other knob outside of the bathroom which set the heat for the main room, and it too was turned all the way up. Two heat sources, both turned as high as possible before we arrived. In late August. With all of the windows closed. Bizzare.
We frantically tried to open the windows and turn the AC up, only to find that the air conditioning did not work properly. Two AC vents on either side of the room, only one worked at all and it could only be felt very slightly if we sat at the table practically on top of that vent. If we put our hand over it we could feel air coming out, but it was like a fan on low - very weak, and not really cold in the way you would expect air conditioning to be.
We were exhausted from having had a very long day up to that point, but we needed to get out of the room asap because it was so hot so we made plans to leave to get dinner nearby. And right before we left for dinner, we noticed mold in the bathroom. Neither of us had the energy to do anything about it right at that moment, so upon getting dinner and getting back to the hotel I reported the mold to the front desk. This took place about 4 hrs after our 3pm check in. The woman at the reception desk, upon my reporting that the heat had been turned up all the way and the air conditioner did not seem to work, and that the bathroom had mold, and that I have health issues that make both of these things a serious issue? Her response was, "Sorry...and was the mold in the room when you checked in this morning?" As if to suggest that we brought the mold with us? I explained that we actually hadn't been there that morning, we had in fact checked in 4 hours prior, and that regardless there would be no way for mold to develop that rapidly...so, yes, the mold was preexisting to our arrival. She offered nothing, no suggestions or problem-solving...just another flat, apathetic, "Sorry ". I requested that we be moved to another room, because this was a problem for any hotel room and certainly for my health. And I was told that that would not be happening as they were "fully booked" for the evening...I was flummoxed and exhausted, was offered no options and had no idea what to do. We had no place else to sleep for the night, they had our car keys and Chateau Versailles offers no hospitality, in fact I was amazed by how inhospitable the space and service was all-around.
When I tried to file a complaint with Expedia, they called the hotel and were informed by Chateau Versailles that because we stayed for the night they were not able to refund our stay. Mind you, we did not want to stay at all, and wanted to leave immediately upon finding the mold. But we could not afford to book a last minute room elsewhere, we're exhausted after a long day, and had already paid for the valet service, and the person at the reception desk offered us no options.