This is my second review of the Hilton Evian. I absolutely loved the hotel the first time I stayed there, and looked forward to returning there again--and in fact we went out of our way to stay again. After the second stay, I probably will not return. It's a destination hotel, so you really have to want to make a trip there, and it wasn't pleasant enough the second time to want to do so again. The most striking change on our second stay was in the attitude of the employees. The first time we stayed, everyone was warm, friendly, welcoming. On this stay, the people at the desk had that slightly adversarial quality you sometimes run into at hotels: unfriendly or at least uninterested. For instance, no one asked us about our stay as we checked out, only said, okay, you've paid. One of the joys of the hotel on the first stay was the spa and pools area; this time we were told that we would have to pay 30 euros extra to use the pool! It turned out that the person had mixed up 30 and 13, but nevertheless, it seems absurd to go to a spa hotel in a spa town (and it was high season, so the room was hundreds of dollars a night) and to be asked to pay extra to use the hotel pool. When I expressed surprise at the change, the spa employee said that the hotel had been taken over by someone new since our last stay--that perhaps explained the change in atmosphere. (The exercise room was still free.) The hotel has pay parking, but on our first stay, the person at the desk explained that one could park on the street a couple blocks down the road, next to the lake, for free. On this stay, when we declined the pay parking, the woman at the desk told us that there was no free parking anywhere and we would be ticketed or pay a lot for meters anywhere on the street. She either did not know the regulations or lied to us. (We parked on the street again.) The executive lounge was still quite nice and the view of the lake still lovely. One other point: the first time we stayed we were on the top floor of the hotel, and our room was very quiet. This time we were on the floor below the top floor, and we had quite a bit of noise coming from above. There were children in the room above, and you could hear them running across the floor. So the soundproofing between floors is not great. If you do end up on the fourth floor, there are no rooms above that floor once you get half way down the hall--so try to get a room on the far end of the fourth floor or on the fifth floor. So, in sum, I'd stay if I had to be in Evian, but wouldn't go out of way to go to this hotel again. This second stay well illustrates how important a friendly atmosphere is to a hotel.
- Hilton Évian Les Bains
- Hilton Evian Les Bains
- évian-Les-Bains Hilton
