The Relais de Margaux is that unfortunate combination of old/rundown, lacking sufficient and/or attentive staff, inconvenient location, overrated and terribly expensive for what you get. My wife and I are NOT terribly picky, and we generally have written positive reviews about the places we have stayed over these years, but we both agree this is the WORST hotel we have stayed at in Europe over the last five years of our travels. The cost of our room (400 Euros per night) is frankly a travesty. Particularly as this includes almost nothing but the room. Breakfast for the two of us (a functional but marginal - youth hostel type bread and cheese buffet complete with flies) was 42 Euros additional. If you want to use the pool or spa facilities - its an additional 30 Euro each. WiFI is an additional 19 Euro per night. Accordingly, with no effort at all, this becomes a 500 Euro per night hotel not including dinner.
The room had a youth hostel type, feminine napkin matress with thin, cheap blankets and uncomfortable pillows. While we had a nice view of the golf course, the can of bugspray (Raid) prominantly displayed on our entrance table caused us to question whether the golf course and its bugs were a good thing.
The location (billed as 800 Meters from Chateau Margaux) is classic marketing b.s. While an 800 M walk would take you to the back wall of Chateaux Margaux (with a distant view of the back of the Chateaux the actual entrance to the Chateau was at least 3-4 km from the hotel. There was absolutely nothing close by (town is a 2-3km walk) and there are no shops anywhere near the property to purchase water, bread or anything at the hotel. Without a car, you feel trapped - like you are at a sanitorium. And while the hotel will call you a cab, we found out from the cab driver that there are kick-backs to the concierge resulting in ridiculous fares (cost us over 120 Euro to be driven back to the train station in Bordeaux in a cab called by the hotel while it cost 65 Euro to take that same cab ride to the hotel from the train station).
The restaurant is poorly managed with average (at best) food, slow service, mediocre and overpriced wine and an unknowledgeable/untrained staff. One afternoon my wife and I ordered a "vanilla milkshake" listed on the menu at 4.5 Euro. It ended up being around 4 ounces of milk, sugar and ice with no icecream whatsoever. The menu is quite limited and the food marginal and overpriced. A 3-inch piece of seabass was overcooked and at 39 Euro one of the least appetizing things for the money we have ever eaten in Europe. The wine list is bereft of decent and well priced local wines.
Add to that an untrained staff (the two on duty in the restaurant were younger than 21) and it led to thirty minute waits for a beer or a glass of wine or even water. And this was not yet the start of the high-season. We watched as even the ever-patient Europeans finally lost their patience and began carrying their checks to the register to pay. Waits of 45 minutes-1 hour in an uncrowded restaurant are difficult to handle. A 4-hour dinner of 2 1/2 courses of mediocre food is difficult to digest.
I could go on and on. This is a 3-star hotel at MOST. Wallpaper and paint are peeling from the walls. Other than the clubhouse restaurant and spa, the rest of the hotel has not been upgraded in what looks like at least 30 years. At 125 Euro a night, it might be serviceable. At 400 Euro a night (without anything being included) it is sheer robbery; a clear ploy to pay the expense of the underused (and presumably expensive to maintain) golf course. Bottom line - DO NOT STAY HERE unless you are truly desperate or a glutton for punishment or if you are a very wealthy masochist. If you do stay here and are disappointed - you cannot say you were not warned.
- Relais De Hotel Margaux
- Margaux Relais De Hotel
