Hotel Stay Saint-Denis

Well it looked good on paper. But it wasn't. The beds were almost as uncomfortable as the laminate floors, the bathrooms featured hanks of discarded hair in the toilets, the rooms were dirty and........the constructions crews went to work redoing the neighboring property roof at 5 am. The desk staff was perfectly charming and utterly unable to solve any of these problems except to offer to switch us from an upper floor replete with hair hank to a lower floor replete with nothing except possibly ease of departure in case the entire edifice caught fire, which as the old roof garbage rattled down the steel funnel to the bin below I began to seriously wish might occur.

I had reserved a room through HRS with possibility to cancel before arrival. I twice called to cancel, Each time the reception was a voice-mail asking to leave a message. Now I see that they have deducted the amount from my Mastercard. I Have phoned them again, and again there was the voice-mail telling to leave a message. I do not think that I will make reservations through HRS, Expedia is excellent in helping customers.

I very recently stayed at this hotel with my partner and another couple. We checked into the hotel after booking it online that day as it fit our requirement for somewhere cheap and in a good location. It was located on Rue St Denis in the Latin Quarter and was a 10-15min walk to great bars, restaurants and shops on Rue St Laurent and in the area of Plateau Mont-Royal. As the rooms were only $55/night we did not have expectations of grandeur, just small, basic, clean rooms which we could stay in for 2 nights whilst we explored the city. Despite the fact the owner seems to be the only person working there and doing everything himself he doesn't have much clue as to what is going on. He kept asking us to pay in cash (even though he had the facility there to pay by card) and then insisted that we had to pay together (though he was unable to provide us with any logic for this). We had to wait an hour or so as one of the rooms was not yet ready...and then when my partner and I were able to move into it, found that there was still toilet paper on the floor, old soap in the shower and hair everywhere, not to mention the inch of dust that covered EVERYTHING! Obviously it had not been cleaned so I asked for it to be done...there was no apology or explanation he just said he would do it. When he had finished the only difference seemed to be that he had thrown out the soap and toilet paper, the shower had still not been wiped out or the floor cleaned. By this stage we were running late for our dinner reservation so took the attitude that it was only for 2 nights, it was cheap and we could get by. It was only when we returned from dinner we noticed that our room was freezing because unlike our friends room next door, the skirting heating had been removed and so we had to use the reverse cycle air conditioning unit which was noisy and virtually useless. There was also an unexplainable rattling noise that continued all night and morning (even once the unit was turned off) which made it impossible for us to sleep. Once we returned from our day of sightseeing we asked if we could move to another room as we were not able to sleep with the noise that was still continuing in our room. The owner then started to get very upset saying that he was doing everything to accommodate us and we were being very difficult (apparently because we wanted to sleep in a room that had been cleaned or at the very least did not show evidence of the previous guests stay) but in the end agreed to let us stay in his 'best' room as he just wanted us to be happy. The room reeked of cigarette but we reasoned that it was only for one more night and we wouldn't be spending much time there as we were about to head out for the evening and would then be departing in the morning. If only I had taken more time to look around before accepting the keys because it was only once I had moved our stuff in and turned the lights on that I saw how bad it was. Again, I could have put up with the layer of dust everywhere, the threadbare towels, the dirty glasses, the string rigged to hold the shower head in place and possibly even the fact I could see that juice had been emptied into the sink and never rinsed out, but what really made me feel ill was the piles of cigarette ash everywhere (next to the bed, beside the sitting chair, on the coffee table) and the old, half eaten bread that was still sitting on the table!!! REVOLTING!!! By this stage we realised there was little point in complaining as if this was the best room he had to offer we could not hold out hope of being moved to a cleaner room and it was too late to find somewhere else so we spent as little time as possible in the room, being careful not to let our stuff touch anything (especially the floor) and having a quick wash with water and towel (no way were we going to risk having a shower when there was still shower gel on the walls and hair and muck all over the floor). Clearly the owner is just changing the sheets after each guests stay (at least I hope he is but I really couldn't be certain) and not bothering to clean the bathrooms or room, dust, vacuum or mop. My friends and I have all travelled extensively around the world and stayed in all types of accommodation with various quirks etc but at the very least there has always been a basic standard of cleanliness which most certainly did not exist here - we all agreed that this has been the worst place any of us have ever stayed in. Do not believe the website, the photographer was a genius who deserves a prize for making the place look as good as it did...I have only complained about the rooms we were given, believe me I could have written at least another 1000 words on the reception area, staircase etc etc as well as the fact we had confirmation that we were to be given free parking but weren't?! Avoid at all costs!