Let me begin by emphasizing that on the train back to London we wrote a 3 page report of the amount of things that went wrong. To summarize: We were pleased with the central location to the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower. My fiancee, my mother and I were travelling from London to Paris and we booked a Eurostar 3 day package deal.

In terms of the price, it was a reasonable deal. The first challenge or rather disappointment of our trip which we experienced was upon arrival to our hotel. We had booked two rooms which we expected to be non smoking. After a 15 min wait we were taken to our rooms, which were smoking rooms!. Unless one specifies that they require a smoking room, it is now standard practice to book guests in a non smoking room. Therefore, we asked to be moved to a non smoking floor.

My mother who is elderly was of course tired from the trip. We were rather dismayed when we were told that we had to wait another 4 to 5 hrs!. We decided not to make a fuss about the wait and to enjoy our trip to Paris. We occupied ourselves during this time by enjoying the local cuisine near by. Finally after checking our watches several times, we were delighted to see that we could finally check in (our 2nd attempt). At which time, the young man at the reception tells us that he has to check with the room cleaning service to ensure that the rooms are ready, however he is confident that this should not take more than a few minutes. Therefore, we all depart to the waiting area in the lobby.

The chairs & sofas are extremely uncomfortable for my mother, because of the low (height)level seating design. We waited a further 20 mins until we decide it was unacceptable to wait any longer after the initial long delay. My fiancee returns to the check in desk and finds out "that of course the room is ready". We had expected to be informed under the circumstances, but that was clearly not the case. We reach the first room (429) and almost sufficate by the lack of air. It was stiffling. We turned up the air conditioning unit and we tell my mother to take the other room (420), which we hoped would not be so hot and stuffy. Fortunately, the temperature is fine and my mother is happy to finally relax in her room.

Meanwhile, we return to our stuffy, hot room and decide to go back out in hope that upon our return the room would be cooler. A few hours later we are back and to our disappointment the room is moderatly cooler. We finally get to sleep. Please note that due to the design of the hotel, non of the rooms have windows that open, unless you have one of the rooms with a balcony facing the internal courtyard.

The morning after: We are woken up by noises coming from the entrance hallway of our room. 6h45 am, is not my chosen time to wake up on my holiday! I walk to the corridor to discover that we have a heavy water leak coming from the air conditioning unit in front of our door (inside the room) and the carpet is soaked. No wonder we could not get our room cooled down efficiently. After 3 phone calls to the reception and a total of 1 hour passing by, my fiancee decides to go down in his bathrobe, to the main reception to report the matter and express his shock at the poor service.

Following that incident, we are moved to a suite and therefore upgraded. By the time we finally settle down in our new room, 3 hours have been wasted. We meet my mother, and find out that the temperature control tap of the bath fell in her hands, as she tried to adjust the water temperature. Unfortunately, she ended up taking an almost cold shower. It was so late that previous evening that she had just wanted to go to bed and was not going to wait on someone from the hotel to come up, after the long wait she had endured earlier.

Our internet access (room 717) did not work in our new room, eventhough we entered our new code etc...they had to call their internet service person to fix it. Of course, we decided not to wait and to go out to enjoy the sights. Once we returned to our rooms, my mother noticed that all the paint behind her curtains, was pealing off. It was the same case in our previous room and the current suite. Furthermore, half of the plugs in our suite were not working.

The electric automated curtains did not work and therefore had to be pulled open or closed manually. My mothers' light switches by the bed did not work either. Therefore, she had to physically get up to turn off the lights. Our shower door did not have a rubber strip at the bottom of the glass door to block the water from flowing out. There was a 2 inch gap, which permitted a flow of water to inundate the bathroom floor. Once again, another fault. We decided to only use the bath after that experience.

For those who like to have access to a good number of cable channels, this is not the place to have that wish answered. The TV's were old in style and had only 5 channels of poor image quality. What is the purpose of having a Bang& Olufsen, if it is a big old box model? It is also far to distant from the bed, considering the size of the screen. But ok, if we choose to over look that, we can't not notice the marks on the walls, and the paint coming off around the windows. With their energy efficient design, they have managed to have a very inefficient hair dryer, which did not even hold in its' casing on the wall and fridges that never got cold enough to cool down the drinks. I nearly forgot to mention, that our bidet leaked as well.

The 3rd day: We are delighted that it is the end of our stay at the Ascott Arc de Triomphe hotel. My mother was ready before us. As she sat in the lobby, observing the marks and stains on the wall across her sitting area, she picks up, as one does a newspaper. She is French and would expect in Paris to read the Figaro in French. But to her surprise it was in Chinese ( I presume Manderin). This would not have been an issue, if she had available the same paper in French, but somehow they had non left...typical.

It is such a shame, as the location is great, the hotel itself if it was properly mantain is lovely, modern and benefits from a gym and a pool. Unfortunately, there seems to be no management on site; if I am wrong than I am shocked at the poor level of service. Having worked in the real-estate industry for years for both commercial and residential properties, I can not understand how a hotel group of this level does not have an onsite supervisor to oversee the maintenance and level of service of their hotel. It does not seem that the staff are professionally trained either. The rooms are very spacious and the bed quality is excellent. Unfortunately, due to the poor service ( eventhough one young man at reception the next day, did try to assist us with the issues we were encountering & did upgrade us eventually, after the series of calls we made etc...), we will not recommend this hotel nor return.

Please note that the room which had the leaking air conditioning unit, had to be shot down completely, and the repair work was going to take at least a week,as everything had to be taken apart. I spoke to the engineers as I was moving out of that room.

Good luck. We sincerely hope that you will have a better experience than us.

Mr & Mrs Fletcher. Canada-BC