Lucia Chung
Google
We booked this hotel for 3 nights, 4 days in mid-October. We got assigned a room on the top floor, right as you come up the stairs. At first, everything looked clean enough. However, several problems followed....
(1) There must have been some laundry facility or something on the same floor because there was a very strong smell of chemicals that overwhelmed us. I ended up getting a migraine within an hour or so and my partner had a scratchy throat. And we are not exactly "scent-sensitive" people, both of us wear perfumes and colognes.
(2) If you are travelling with a pet, I recommend asking for a room away from the stairs. There is almost no soundproofing in the rooms (heritage building, cannot help it I suppose). It is worse if your room is right next to the stairs, which are very squeaky as other reviewers noted.
(3) Room had dust balls next to the radiator and one of the glasses still had lip stick stain on them. At night, as I was on the bed, I saw a spider crawl across the ceiling. The next morning, I woke up to a spider in my show, and a centipede-looking bug crawl across the floor.
(4) There is a communal kitchen, so we were expected to walk two flights of stairs every time we wanted a glass of water or make a cup of tea. No kettle in the room. And most definitely could not drink straight out of the tap... Did not taste right.
(5) The room door did not latch properly unless you pushed or pulled on it really hard. On the first day, a random man just barged into our room, and did not explain why he did so, then just left after a quick "pardon". I was pretty paranoid about the door locking properly after that incident.
(6) The location itself felt very safe. It is right next to almost the end of the plains of A. But it is a HIKE to get to the hotel from Gare du Palais. Lots of uphill stairs you will need to get through. (We walked, probably a good 45 minutes with intense flights of stairs; perhaps better with a car.) However, if you want to get to the tourist area, you will always have to make your way there, good 30-min walk one way.
(7) This may not be a big deal to some folks, but the hairdryer was one of the white machines that is drilled into the wall. That is fine, I am okay with subpar hair dryers, BUT the metal mesh (usually the butt of the hairdryer) was literally scotch-taped to the hairdryer's nozzle, and it would fall off if you were to move the hairdryer around - i.e., to dry your hair. The fact that plastic like scotch tape was next to perhaps the hottest part of the hair dryer seemed like a huge risk, and if that mesh comes off, your hair can easily get sucked into the hair dryer. I chose not to use it after one try.
Conclusion: I should have known better and paid a $100 per night extra to book at a more proper hotel.
P.S., I saw some reviews speaking to the complicated access / digital key process. I did have trouble getting my access code early enough - I got it 2 hours prior to arrival, which was different from an earlier message that I should get instructions about 48 hours prior to arrival. Once I got the access code, it was easy to use it. There seemed to be no "digital key" anymore? I did not use my phone to access my room. It was simply the code given, for both the room door and the front door.