This is an honest and mixed review.
Very friendly hotel, the people speak English well and are really very happy to help with advice, a taxi, ideas on itinerary, dining reservations and shopping.....anything. The staff are just as friendly as many travelers on these TA reviews claim.
I had a suite, wonderful windows, two I could open wide up and let fresh air into. All their rooms have windows that open up beautifully, just like the windows in old French movies. The rooms are very clean and fresh. The TVs are modern flat-screens (I found CNN which is in Emglish). There was no dvd player. Toiletries are provided, a minibar with the basics, and a safe. The furniture is clean and beautiful.
Appoline at the front desk is an absolute delight, as helpful as she is beautiful, with perfect English. Lena is also very lovely and helpful, and it was so very nice to have met her. She even made me a coffee late one night. Bathrooms are modern - my suite had a long spa bath that could fit two in but is ideally for one.
There is a double wardrobe with hangers provided in the suite lounge area and a shelf. There was also a good chest of draws in the bedroom. The back of door to the suite has two lovely hooks to hang jackets on which was very handy. My son had a single room and it was clean and good and fresh with a single wardrobe and a very modern small bathroom, and a lovely window too.
If two people sleep in the suite, the person sleeping near the wall would need to bend under/around the TV to get out to go the toilet. In other words, you can walk around easily to get in at one side of the bed but not the other. This is not a problem for people with good mobility.
Unfortunately during my stay the building next door was being renovated and I woke to the sound of drilling, electric saws and hammering. This was a disappointment as most of you can imagine, but certainly not the hotel's fault. These things happen.
My suite did not have mobile phone reception which was a huge disappointment for me, due to the time difference with my husband in Australia. Our preferred mode of communication together while I was in Paris was lots of text messages and calls. We just made the best of it. If mobile reception is important to you, make sure you have a room that does not face the interior courtyard. The free wifi worked perfectly.
Attention to finer details is not consistent at this hotel, but this may not be a concern to you. For example, I had no information in my room on how to connect to the Internet, nothing on how/when laundry was collected, or on how to use the phone to call reception. But I just had to ask and I was very nicely told all I needed to know. I personally just prefer to have information available to me in my room and not to have to ask.
The maid cleaned very well but left no laundry bag in my room, neither in my son's room. The first day she left one clean bath towel instead of two. She (there were two different maids during my stay) left no spare toilet roll on the second and neither on the third or fourth day. If I ran a hotel I'd like my guests not to have to worry (and hope) that they won't run out of toilet paper at an inconvenient time. Again, I only had to ask for a second roll and I got one. I ran out of tissues but just used toilet paper. So no big deal but for the price of my suite, I did not expect to experience these small issues.
The hotel is very well located, central to everything....2 minutes from the metro, 5 minutes to the Notre Dame, 1 minute to the Siene, 1 minute to delicious crepes - just go to endnof the street moving away from the river, go left at the Irish pub and after 50 metres on the left you come to a street corner with a friendly guy who makes nice crepes.....ask them to put only a little nutella on otherwise they load it on, 5 minutes to the Shakespeare English Bookshop, 10 minutes walk to Ludaree, & Paul's Bakery, 3 minutes to St Germaine des Pres Blvd and probably just a 10 minute walk to the Louve, oh and just 4 minutes to the post office which is very helpful and they are friendly providing you with a box if you need to send things home due to shopping too much :).
The main not-so-good was that my room door was opened with a key without a knock on the door, twice. Once by the owner with a maintenance man and once by a older maid the next day. At this hotel you have to hand in your key when you leave, so the hotel staff know very well when you are in and when you are out .....IF they take the time to check. The owner also opened my sons room door while he was sick and had just fallen asleep. Same thing happened with a older maid the next day to both of us. My son and I were in different rooms on different floors. For this reason, I feel it was not an accident, it was simply not bothering (or caring) to check with reception about who was in and who was out.
For me personally this was an invasion of privacy that I really didn't like and for that reason alone I persoanlly would not stay again. It would be a good idea for the hotel to implement a 'Do Not Disturb' sign available to guests. The bed was not very comfortable and that was the second deal breaker for me. The covers are wonderful, but the mattress was not comfortable.
If you like home style service, really friendly personal service, a clean and unique hotel with much character in a great location, and if the little things I mentioned are not deal breakers for you, then you will probably enjoy staying in this hotel. It certainly does have a personal family feel about it and it's very clean and unique.
