We stayed here on the last night of our French holiday, Arriving in Barneville-Carteret we found the hotel really easily and what a location, right on the sea front, absolutely lovely. We checked in fine and were shown to our room, a sea view at the top of the hotel, a bit small for the price but fine. Looked like it had the idea to be top-end but had failed in the design and execution. The hotel is done up like one of those shops for ladies of a certain age with too much time on their hands, lots of wicker, throws and daft candles but i'm sure some people like it. We decided to stay for dinner and our French isn't great and the menu was very pretentious, with lots of unusual words so we asked for help which wasn't forthcoming (do you know what a 'cigarette of vegetables' is?) we sat there struggling with a 16 year old trainee waiter for half an hour before someone finally said would you like the English menu, after calming down and remembering the view was fantastic we ordered and the food was fine, overpriced but fine, the wine was the same.
A lovely location but to be honest I wished we hadn't stayed here and I must remember to wear a jumper around my neck next time!

Although we are not American but French, we had a similarly bad experience at Hotel des Isles. We had booked (long in advance) for two nights, for what was supposed to be a romanting and enchanting stay. We had some difficulties locating the hotel, since nobody had given me any directions when I had called them and they had not explained that there are actullay two separate towns, Barneville and Carteret. When we finally arrived on the Friday evening , there was nobody at the reception desk and we had to wait for a good 10 minutes to get our key, although there were quite a lot of staff members around but they just pretended not to notice us. The staff seemed to be a bunch of summer interns who couldn't have cared less. We had to find our way to our room, and to carry our own luggage up three flights of very narrow stairs to the top floor. The room was approximately the size of a shoe box, there was nowhere to put our luggage and we could just not move around. I had to be very careful not to bump my head everytime I used the bathroom. The room and the bathroom were not very clean, the decoration was very cheap (one of the lamp shades and the curtain hooks were actually broken). The swimming-pool is very small, we did not even want to try it but I don't think one could actually swim in it. Breakfast is OK, it's a buffet so again, you just help yourself and there is absolutely nobody to attend to your needs should you have any.
This hotel is clearly not up to the standards of a three-star hotel (although the price clearly is.....).
If we ever go back to Barneville-Carteret, we will try the hotel La Marine where we had dinner. The restaurant was fantastic and the hotel looked nice.

Their web site is brilliant. It is NOT the hotel however. The room had paint chips peeling off the wall. The front desk was pleasant and helpful. We traveled extensively throughout France for almost three weeks and spent two nights at this hotel. The food in the restaurant was of excellent quality, but the service was awful. All of the cliches that you hear about rude french people - there it was. I have never been treated so badly by a waitress because I am an American. They would purposely skip our table and dote on French locals at another table. I even caught the waitress taking in French about our table to other patrons and laughing about it! I would never stay here again. There are lovely places along the coast of Normandy to stay at - and almost every place I stayed at - even in Paris - had friendly and mostly helpful staff. SKIP THIS HOTEL. ITS JUST NOT WORTH THE RISK OF RUINING TWO VALUABLE NIGHTS OF YOUR VACATION.

We originally wanted to stay in its sister hotel a mile or so away but it was full and were luckily directed to the des Isles. The first two rooms overlooked the sea but were quite small. Then I was shown a double room at the same price. It was really comfortable and airy, though the hotel is a bit of a rabbit warren with little corridors everywhere. We ate in the hotel, totally non-stuffy, smart casual. The food was probable the best we had had in France so far. I would probably only have a starter and a pudding next time, though. Breakfast is do-it-yourself but to a good grand hotel standard except that omelettes on the hot plate had been there quite a while. There was a smallish outside pool but the busy beach looked more enticing in the hot weather. Parking was easy on the road outside.