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.

Stayed there for 4 nights in May 2010 as a part of my wine tasting trip in Bordeaux region. GOOD THINGS: good and spacious rooms, very quiet, properly serviced as for this level of accomodation; perfect location for those with cars (takes 8-10 minutes to drive to Margaux). Nice golf facitities.
BAD THINGS: horrible staff (especially reception and waiters) - nobody offered to bring your luggage to your room (corridors are quite long, so I was very disappointed having to walk long distance with my bags), takes very long to make an order in the restaurant, waiters are timely rude. Dirty (not properly washed) dishes - tried to change several times but they bring the same. Breakfast offers small variety, though quality is OK.
GENERALLY, not bad, but not for 350 euro per room. Restaurants were all closed for dinner, so I had to drive to Margaux, Pauillac and Bordeaux. Car is required to get out, as there is nothing around except golf fields.

Booked the Relais de Margaux last minute but there were a number of rooms
available. Requested a double room. Room was nice, clean, spaceous. Location
lovely. The problem arose when going to bed. Discovered our double bed was
two single beds held together by a sheet. I know this is standard in alot of hotels
and normally I don't have an issue. But usually in other hotels the connection of
the two single mattresses is a little stronger than a sheet. Needless to say during
the night the mattresses started to separate and my partner awoke the next morning
lying in the middle with a pain in his back. I mentioned this at check out and go a "oops
look" and a shrug of the shoulders. Knowing the area better now I'd have kept going
and gone to another town/city.

We were booked into Relais Margaux for a family celebration for 2 nights. Having viewed the website and having eaten in the Brasserie a few times I was really looking forward to it but found it very disappointing. I tried to book treatments in the spa some weeks in advance but it was already fully booked so I thought I would just revel in a luxury room and make the most of it. However, the room was more like a commercial travellers overnight stay room than a luxury room. I found it slightly depressing in spite of the glorious sunshine outside. The bathroom was luxurious but the washbasin and bath would not drain away, we informed the hotel on the first morning and they did something to improve the washbasin initially, but by the time it had been used twice it was as bad as before and the bath did not change. I thought that I would have a swim but decided against it when I discovered that it would cost me 30 euros per day for the privilege! The food at the celebration was superb and the breakfats were good but we found that we had been charged for a dinner that we did not have when were checking out . There was no offer of staff to take our luggage or to show us to our room when we checked in or when we checkedout , in spite of the fact that we are getting on a bit. All in all a very disappointing stay for us and we will not consider going back.