We booked this hotel primarily because it had a kitchenette and we felt this would be useful as my boyfriend is vegan and we would be able to prepare snacks in it...or so we thought. When we arrived at the hotel we felt the room was clean and comfortable if a little dull and dated. When we explored the kitchenette in a cupboard what we found was shelving, a sink, a fridge and an unconnected hob with no controls (so therefore unusable) and ZERO utensils - not even a spoon or a glass. We have stayed in rooms with kitchenettes before so we weren't expecting a Michelin establishment standard kitchen, but something more than a sink and fridge would at least have been functional.
You might ask yourself at this point why we didn't go and complain to reception. Well, there wasn't one.We had read the reviews so knew it was a no-reception hotel, but the process of getting access and keys had already proved a trial and I didn't feel up to a further bi-lingual fight at that point. To gain access we had first had to ring on an outside phone - this took two attempts as the first time the receptionist answered , took my name,and then there was silence for 5 minutes until we tried ringing again. Having been eventually let into the lobby we than had to await a second call which gave us a code which opened a box which contained the key. All in all, I felt like I was competing in some sort of gameshow.
On the plus side ( and there were some) the hotel was cheap for Switzerland, it was extremely well located near the main station and a metro station, and the free transport cards were an excellent bonus for navigating Lausanne's steep hills. I can't say we didn't have a good holiday( including two extra unplanned days courtesy of Easyjet but that's a different story) but I don't feel the hotel delivered what it advertised. I filled out a rating form when we left, but have yet to receive any reply or acknowledgment a month later.

I'm not a fussy traveller and I never got this dissapointed with a hotel like with this hotel.

Some of the reasons I picked this hotel were because they claimed that they/the staff understood English and they had internet access/wifi. I needed internet access because I had to check on my business back home for half an hour everyday (this was a 3 week trip, quite long to warrant a short checking on my business).

Alas, there was no instruction in the room on how to access internet. I tried with both laptops and blackberry but none can get internet access. I am very tech savvy so I seldom had problem accessing wifi in other hotels when there was such service available. So I called "the manager" by phone (since there was no staff at all in the hotel, everything must be done remotely by phone) and ask her very politely how to access internet. To my surprise, she was very rude (her name was Martha) and she could barely speak English. She understood what I said but had difficulty answering back. She said other customers did not need to ask how to access internet therefore I should be able to do it myself and that she was busy and had other things to do so she couldn't help me much. and then she hung up the phone. I was flabbergasted at this rudeness, so I called again. This time she said she forgot to tell me that the wifi required a password and she gave me one. I tried again and fail. Called her again and this time she was impatient with me and hung up the phone again. I tried again 3 more time and she totally ignored my calls. I then went down to the lobby try to look for someone (and there was none), so I called "the manager" again via phone in lobby. This time Martha answered the phone (maybe not knowing that it was me who called) and she said "oh I gave you the wrong password. Try this one......". As expected, the password failed again. Called her again and begged her to connect me to someone else who can help me. She rudely said "no one else. I am the only one. You can only talk to me". I gave up after that.

Then came shower time. The soap canister in the shower was empty! Tried to call Martha again to ask for soap. No answer!

Imagine if it was not just soap of internet access problem! What if the room was leaking? or the room was too cold or something worse, like your belongings were stolen? And there absolutely NO ONE there who can fix the situation and help you. Never before I felt so hapless...

I was so furious at this hotel that I planned to just leave and stay somewhere else. But by then, it was too late at night so I decided to just stay for the night and leave early the next morning.

Apparently this hotel is part of a bigger chain called Hôtels et Patrimoine. Their other hotels are Hotel de la Nouvelle Couronne, Morges, Vaud; Hôtel AlaGare, Lausanne; Hôtel des Horlogers, Plan-les-Ouates, Geneva; Hôtel les Nations, Geneva. I list the names here so that other travellers can avoid a disaster night like mine.

From the website, I found out that the owner was a member of the board of Migros, a large and respected company in Switzerland. This puzzled me even more. How can someone who's used to manage a fine corporation like Migros can screw up so badly with such a small hotel like de Boulevard. What a pity.

This small hotel was the lowest point in my 3 week amazing vacation in Switzerland and other parts of Europe.

We stayed 2 nights. It was two blocks from the train station, all services nearby, including restaurants, etc... Unfortunately, the Internet was down, through no fault of the hotel, but it was one of the reasons for staying there. We didn't take the breakfasts, they were at the restaurant across the road, where we twice had dinner and it was great both times. Walk to the Metro was flat, which is always a plus. Short walk to Lake Geneva and relatively short walk into the centre of town, but uphill all the way. However, the Metro is a convenient option either way.

Well located close to the train station. However our room faced a major road and was very noisy into the night because it was too warm with the windows closed. Room was fine otherwise.