we unexpectedly ended up in the loire valley in the middle of a trip of eight months in italy. we thought; "let's book a chateaux"! we researched and trawled the internet. we were going to stay two nights but high tailed it out of there after one night. where do I start? we found out when we got there that they didnt have a room in the main chateaux, only in a side building with terrible outdated rooms in need of some serious updating and repairs.
as the hotel is in the middle of nowhere we wanted to eat in the restaurant (naturally).
nope, booked out (maybe a function?) surely the guests canalways be made room for?
we were told there was a "brasserie"...more casual in the second building.
ok, what choice did we have with a 4 year old and not wanting to drive miles?
we went to the "brasserie" which was a golf pro shop with a few sad tables, bad french radio (pop music interspersed with loud bad ads), golf posters, and advertisements for golf socks that wont smell. bad food, shocking waitress, no atmosphere. the few of us who ate there exchanged looks of "how did we end up in this place"?
it's basically somewhere for people to play golf, but that's about it.
the staff were rude, uptight, cold, unhelpful and unwelcoming.
finally after getting our daughter to sleep, the fire alarm went off in our side buildin...apparently no-one cared. I rang reception and there was no apology, no explanation, nothing.
It was the loudes alarm i have ever hear. Ever. ear splitting, and it went for about 10 mins.
I asked them about it the next morning and they shrugged "oh there msut be something wrong with it...". maybe if there had been a fire we might have got up and found another hotel, or ended up in hospital which probably would have had better ambience, service, and food!
quelle disastuer!!!
breakfast; we were shuffled in to a dark room with no view, when a perfectly good conservatory ith free tables was available with an amazing view of the golf course.
when we asked to sit in there, the waitress literally threw the knives and forks on the table (I am not exaggerating). I asked, "I'm sorry is there a problem" (in french even!), she said "non! madam!" and then scraped metal chairs along the floor around us to make her point.
we complained about her and they smiled to eahc other and said yes, she's like that. acceptable apparently.
what was good?
leaving.
it shouldnt be "seven towers" it should be "fawlty towers" but without the humour.
what a shame...great building.
please note, I am not a negative person...read my other reviews.
- Chateau Des Sept Tours Hotel
