APPARTCITY BEZIERS

Their booking system is absolutely ridiculous. After numerous e mails, I decided to book a room inclusive a parking. They then informed me that the only way to book is by calling them on their landline. I replied that it is not possible because of 2 reasons: 1) I am currently deep in a gorge where there is no cell phone reception and 2) I don’t have a French number but a Portuguese number. I then offered to give my CC details. This was strangely not accepted. I then made an effort to drive out of the deep gorge (to get cell phone reception) and also borrowed a friend’s French phone. When I did call a morning, I end up waiting TWICE for 4,5 minutes before eventually speaking to a human being. Shockingly, the man told me to call back 4 hours later because he was too busy doing check-outs!!! Frankly, this is ridiculous. I have worked 20 years in the hotel industry and I have never seen such a disaster system. To avoid !

Small but nice, Friendly and helpful (reception) staff, Extensive room facilities. Very attentive: the heating was on (it was a cold day). Great beds. The hotel is located in the city center and is easily accessible by car (use Google Maps) and do not forget to reserve a parking space in advance (covered and secured, surcharge 10 euros). You can forget about parking in the vicinity of the hotel on public roads! Dog allowed (surcharge 8 euros). Additional info: first report to the hotel reception, here you will get a code for access to the parking garage.

I don't know whether our experiences would apply to other Zenitude residences, however we shall not be staying in one again. This one is in a residential area, no problem with that, but its immediate surroundings are uninspiring and adjacent to a quite rundown part of the town; there are though convenience stores quite close by for food and other essentials. It's about 10 minutes to the centre of town on foot and the historic old town is a further 5 minutes. The older parts of the town are charming and well worth seeking out. The hotel itself we found to be rather bleak and its décor spartan. All the staff we spoke to were very polite, friendly and helpful. However, the standard of the hotel's fittings and finish could best be described as budget and at worst cheap - our room’s minimal furniture was tired, grubby and scuffed. This room was one of the larger ones - no issues there - but its ambience was that of a minicab office that hadn't been refurbished in far too long. The bed was comfortable, the towels/bed linen clean and our room was cleaned once during our one-week stay, satisfactorily in general. Some corners of our bathroom had not seen a cleaning cloth for some time though, it appeared - not awful, but not nice to see - there's an issue with gritty dust that just seems to propagate around the place for some reason. The kitchen facilities we expected to be basic and were functional, but the same observations apply as above, with their wood laminate surfaces in need of retirement. We were provided with a random selection of utensils, e.g. a frying pan, but no spatula to turn food over, saucepans but no serving spoon or similar to dish out with. We did pay for the breakfast buffet, once, which was adequate, but had a limited choice considering it's at an extra cost. Curiously the TV provided (as advertised on their website) was not connected to electricity and there appeared no way that its mains cable could reasonably reach the nearest available electricity sockets. We concluded that as its standard aerial connection appeared to be for broadcast TV only, there would be no chance of accessing channels other than French domestic ones, so we gave up on it. We have stayed in other 'aparthotel' style places in France and in Spain, of all of which were far superior to Zenitude (Béziers), in all respects. If you want a relatively cheap stay and are not too bothered by your surroundings, this hotel could be the place for you. Disappointedly, it won't be one for us in the future.