At time of booking this hotel was No 1 or thereabouts on Trip Advisor of many in Chatelguyon. I booked this mainly because the Novotel near Clermont Ferrand was full, where we had stopped before.
Anyway, I won't be stopping here again. The downsides outweighed the good. The bed was rock hard. The pillows were harder. No tea or coffee making facilities in the room. A mini kitchen in the room with fridge, but no means to make any meals as no utensils or crockery whatsoever. A receptionist that couldn't understand any English.
Chatelguyon was ok but the amount of closed hotels outnumbered those that were open, which tells its own story.
The Splendid Hotel was very old and quaint in its own sort of way, but getting seriously run down. We had a nice view of a very large closed hotel and the square below.
On the positive, the restuarant was old but attractive art nouveau style, and we had a very good and reasonably priced meal there.
Another issue were the breakfasts. The French way is to apparently charge for these whether you have them or not, and the cost is automatically added to your bill. Then they are discounted off the bill when you leave, if you have not had them. A strange way of doing things, as they have no way of knowing whether you are actually telling the truth. A much easier way would be to simply tick off the room numbers as you arrive at breakfast.
Unfortunately therefore, I cannot recommend this hotel, that is unless you want to be transported back 100 years.

the village is lovely, the area colourful and typical, th esurroundings lush and green... and amongst all that, stands what had to be a really grand and magnificent hotel.
about 40 years ago....
it still looks good and i could clearly see that some kind of renovation was taking place.
it is always hard to criticise those properties who's history and tradition put to shame most other hotels int he world.
the only thing that sadnes me is the factt that some owners jjust let their properties run down, and whilst the overall experience was quite pleasant, the whole hotel gave a feeling of old, moist, rundown has been palace.
the rooms are typically french: small, cramped, unattractive
the ameneties, whilst all present, were really nothign to write home about. sure, they renovated the bathrooms, nice clean job, but what about the rest of the room, the sheets, the matrass, the curtains, the doors, the balcony...
we had a "suite familiale" which is basically two rooms connected by a cramped little hallway. nothing to do with a suite.

the facilities of the hotel were quite a disapointment:
the so-called heated outdoor pool jhas been out of warm water for a few weeks already ("we are waiting for the quotation of the plumber" told me the pool man...), the restaurant did not accept to serve us outside (we just took our plates out for bfst), the staff was courteous, but not really helpful (they were not able to provide us with a baby cot or bed, despite us telling them that we were coming from farfarawayland... " what do you want me to do, to buy one for you??" asked the manager after the reservation clerk transferred the call...). the buffet breakfast was quite meager (some cheese, jam, old croissants and a tray with 4 tiny slices of ham, all this with bad coffee to wash it down). for god sake, we are in france... the *only* place in the world where croissants are actually good!! (tip: we just walked down to the little geant super market and got really yummie croissants)
having said that, dinner was actually quite good , with lotsof choice for diet and non diet guests.

all in all, it is just sad that sich grand and magnificent properties are allowed to be left to rot in this way. this place has so much potential.
i wont be back for a while, that's for sure!