I haven't really stayed in many hotels, but I wouldn't say this is a four star hotel comparing it to the British rating. It is clean, tidy and the staff were friendly, especially the room service lady, who couldn't speak English but miming and my little knowledge of French got us through.
If you have the option of paying more to receive breakfast, save your money and go to a bakery. The food was served at 7am till 10.30am, so by 9am the coffee was cold and the general selection of food was poor. I mean I wasn't expecting a cooked breakfast or anything, but it was limited. Hot coffee was served when a staff member was found, but that was sometimes difficult.
The room had the usual toiletries, but no kettle to make tea/coffee. The pillows for the bed were hit or miss. Two of the pillows felt like they were full of little foam balls and the other was full of the normal synthetic filling. We asked for replacements for the bad pillows on the first day at reception, who said they would sort it, but they didn’t. So we ended up asking the room service lady who was kind enough to get us pillows immediately.
The rooms are small and not ideal if you want a hotel holiday, however for a sight seeing tour this hotel is adequate. It is far from the main attractions, but it took 45-60 minutes to walk to the Eiffel Tower, which gave us a chance to see some of Paris. The Metro and RER were brilliant methods of getting around the city. The Metro station Porte de Orleans was 5 minutes from the hotel and the RER station, Cite Universitaire, was not much further, so getting from one end of the city to the other was very quick. I personally would advise to get the 10 tickets for the metro if you are planning on using it a lot as it does work out cheaper and allows you to go straight to the train instead of queuing at self-service machines which can be very busy.
Also of you are travelling in for CDG airport get the B line to Cite Universitaire, which saves you from changing trains and getting lost if you’re not too use the system at first.
Overall the hotel was lovely and I would go back, as long as I got another good deal, as I personally wouldn’t pay the rates that they were asking for.
- Hotel Royal Montsouris
- Royal Montsouris Hotel
