Frame of reference: we eat in Michelin restaurants every month in various European cities. We live in Monaco and have realistic benchmarks for restaurants and hotels which charge upwards of EUR 400 per room per night.

My wife and I were going to stay in this hotel for 2 nights, but once we arrived we decided to shorten our stay, and here's why.

- Upon arrival from the ferry which departed Hyères, we spotted a dirty white van which read "Mas du Langoustier". Our luggage was loaded in, and we took our seats. This van was not air conditioned, and the handle on the door was replaced with a coathanger wire (see photo). The seats were unconfortably small and the knees of the person behind you poke in your back.

- Once we went through the gates of the property, our first impression was that we had arrived at the servant's quarters, with unkept, pothole-ridden dusty roads and old dirty trucks parked in plain sight and littering the lot. However, the main building of the hotel was well kept. The first impression of the property & management was bad due to the above points.

- we were politely greeted at the well-kept reception (no airco though), and our luggage was stored in the luggage room, since our room wouldn't be ready until check in at 15:00. We were offered to change and shower in the semi-public shower & changing room adjacent to the hotel bar, which we did, so we could explore the premises.

POOL: we walked to the pool from the main building. Our shoes and legs were filthy by the time we arrived because there was only a dusty path to the pool. The pool was disappointingly small (I estimate 6 x 12 m) and the grounds were unkept. A big sign declared that the pool had been built in 2005, and by whom. I don't see how this is relevant to guests. The pool was not nearly as nice as it looked in the wide-angle arial shot in the hotel brochure. There was no staff in sight to give us a towel, chair or refreshment, so we continued exploring the premises.

BEACH: poor signage first led us to the wrong beach, we then found the two small, littered, nearby beaches which are so prominently advertised by the hotel. First off, the hotel does NOT have a private beach. The hotel has claimed a littered, sandy strip of 70m which is staffed by by a non-uniformed, bare-chested, unshaven young man who let us wait for 15 minutes before we saw another person return a towel, and understood he was with the hotel, and we approached him. We would never have thought that he belonged to the hotel, considering he looked like a teenage tourist. After we asked him if we could get some chairs, he moved two worn foam matresses on the sand under an old parasol and gave us two old towels. There is nowhere to buy water or a snack and there is not even a logo on the towels.

The water is wonderful, albeit busy with boats. The beach is littered, in part thanks to the one hotel staff who had littered his station with empty plastic bottles. There was much debris on the beach, which nobody had bothered to rake. Unacceptable.

ROOM: we booked a superior room. Upon entering, the room was ca. 20m2 and smelled of chemicals, presumingly pesticide. The furnishings were old. Not in a charming way, but in a let’s-Cut-costs-and-milk-this-guest-out kind of way. Spacious bathroom, but no new roll of toilet paper upon arrival and a misaligned bathtub. A mismatched, wooden glass table was standing in front of one of the wash bassins for a mysterious reason. Outside the room, some cheap plastic furniture was meant as a patio. This place seems to miss an eye for detail. At these prices, we expect more.

RESTAURANT: no real complaints. Food was good, but it surprises me that they received a Michelin star, but perhaps these ratings aren’t to be taken too seriously anymore. Also here: a missing eye for detail. They mixed up our order, and the waitress didn’t hear us, so we had to swap our own plates (this may sound fussy, but when you’re used to eating and paying for a Michelin starred restaurant, you are allowed to be fussy). The quality of the food was good, but certainly not exceptional. Breakfast was good. Lunch was good. Fair prices on the latter.

PREMISES: our favorite feature of this hotel was the chairs under the pine trees in the back yard of the hotel. This was unique and very pleasant and relaxing up until people started shouting and yelling at each other because there were no chairs left.

CLEANLINESS: we noticed blood drops on the floor leading from the restaurant to the bar to the aforementioned public toilet, most likely from a heavy nosebleed. The disturbing fact was that these (now dried up) blood spots were still there the next morning and afternoon. This is very bad hygiene, also considering there were lots of young children present.

SERVICE: the staff is very young, perhaps too young and unexperienced, considering the informal attitude carried throughout the hotel, with the exception of the front desk staff which is up to par.

WHY WE WILL NEVER COME BACK TO THIS HOTEL: After breakfast (09:30 AM), we went back to our room to change for the beach, only to find that our luggage, which we had not yet completely packed (bags were still open, magazines and shoes were still laying around, safe not emptied), had been moved to the luggage room, and our magazines had been thrown away! We had not yet checked out, since checkout is at noon and we wanted to go snorkeling. We have never encountered this in our travels. To make matters worse, the maid was very loud, aggressive and rude and told us to change and shower in the public bathroom. When we told her that we had the room until noon, if we wanted to, she proceeded to clean the room while loudly protesting to her superior. It was a horrible feeling being “kicked out” of our hotel room.

CONCLUSION: This place is overpriced and overrated! The island is wonderful, but make it a day trip and stay in St. Tropez. For the amount of money that this hotel charges, you can find a better hotel for sure. If you want to stay the night in Porquerolles, stay elsewhere. In our opinion, this hotel would have matched our expectations of a 3-star hotel (it claims 4 stars).