Has anyone stayed at the Paris-Hotel-Londres-Eiffel hotel?
 

Has anyone stayed at the paris-hotel-londres-eiffel hotel? If so, what was your experience/impressions of the hotel? Thanks.

This is a very old post, so I doubt my reply will help Original poster, but for anyone else who finds this by searching using the name of the hotel, I've decided to reply.

I returned from a 2 week stay there July 3-17, 2005
I booked there because our Rick Steves tour used that hotel. Instead of looking for other hotels, I just extended our stay another week. Bad idea. Rick Steves' 2005 Paris guidebook (p.340) calls it "immaculate". It is not. The room we stayed in, #41, had not been dusted or vacuumed for a long time. The dust buildup on the baseboards behind the doors seemed as much as I would get in a forgetten corner of my garage,certainly weeks old. I'm guessing that the maid never looked there because the door would be propped open while she was inside. The rugs were filthy and stained. There was mold in the grout, and on the shower curtain. There was a hole, about 5 in. by 5 in. behind the toilet apparently to allow access to the plumbing but the tile cover could not be made to stay put. The wall paper in the hall was tatered, then removed, exposing more mold.

I am allergic to mold, and dust. I did ask the maid, actually taking her to my room and demonstrating to her, but she never did anything. I did not report this to the owner because I was still intimidated by the less than helpful disdain when I asked to have the shower and mini 'fridge repaired.

The desk clerk and owner finally did fix the shower (we had to kneel down to shower, or use it as a hand held); the plastic screw was stripped so the had held could not be made to stay in it's highest position. And they fixed the mini fridge that was heating rather than cooling (I'm serious. The air conditioner kept things cooler!) after a couple of complaints but only because I finally told her that I was sorry to have to give a poor evaluation on my Rick Steves report. The owner enthusiastically showed me the newly renovated room andbath on the second floor. However, I'd have preferred some immediate attention to my comfort, not the preview of renovations. We were there paying for room #41, (not newly renovated room #25) at 143 Euros a night. I can only think she hoped I'd not report my discomfort.

The other annoyance was a policy that stated "no food or alcohol is to be consumed in the rooms." Tis is not mention by Steves, nor published in any printed way by the hotel. It was explained by our tour guide as necessary because spileed red wine stains the rugs. Since I don't drink red wine (migraine), I paid no more attention. After all the mini fridge was stocked with the usual drinks. We were invited to eat our picnics in the breakfast lounge. With Rick Steves tours leaving from there, that lounge was far too busy to use. Besides, why would anyone be expected to either dress or wander in a hotel in their nightclothes for a bedtime snack, or for breakfast? We were loudly and publicly reminded of the policy, on the Monday after our tour was over, when she saw us carrying bananas, cheese, and yoghurt etc to our rooms. Her explanation was that "vermin" were attracted to rooms where food was consumed. We then obeyed the spirit of the rule, storing all foodstuffs in the (now new) mini fridge, using our towels as huge 'bibs' to catch any possible crumbs (though if they'd vacuum ... ) which we shook out the window and by carrying all wrappings and banana peels out of the room.

The hotel offered a decent breakfast but at 13 Euros per person a day, it was much too expensive. Given that Steves' philosophy is to shop in local markets and to eat picnics, we were mystified by this policy. I did ask at other hotels in the area and in the Marais. One other hotel posted the same policy. However, I found 4 more at the same price that could not understand my question , "Are we allowed to eat in our room?" The desk clerks explained in extreme politeness that "Madame could eat in her room, of course." They seemed to think I was slight daft! Without enough French I hated to take their time to try to explain why I was asking such a question.
So anyone going to Hotel Londres Eiffel may get a newly renovated room, especially if they book on a lower floor.
Has anyone else experienced this "food policy" in Paris or any other place?

So sorry to hear about your awful stay. Rick Steves obviously does not review his recommendations.

Thanks for the kind words, Francopile03.

I did post an evaluation, and a separate email to Steves' company, but so far all I've had in reply was the standard formula, "Thanks for the information." Steves is in Paris this week, but with all that's been going on in London, I'm not surprised that he hasn't replied. The hotel has deteriorated obviously since it was last inspected. The 2005 guidebook is not accurate any more. But I'm already booked for another tour with ETBD company.

As I said, the hotel was a disappointment and annoying. But despite that we actually we had a lovely time. The tour was excellent. We met some lovely people taking the tour. And the locals were so helpful that we began hiding our map! Well, maybe it wasn't the map. I had my lovely young daughter with me. ;)

I hope your next hotel will make up for this disaster. Your hotel can really make your trip a sad one if it's not good.

I have taken a look at a few Steves recommended hotels and, frankly, I would not stay in any place on his books' recommendations. And the worst meal I ever had in Paris was a Steves' rec. Some of his museum and sight seeing tips are good, but food and lodgings aren't his strong points, IMO.

Also, I believe you said the room was 143 Euros plus 13 Euros for breakfast. 156 Euros for a crummy room and breakfast! Next time, look for a room in Paris on this forum: it is loaded with good recommendations at better prices.

I was in a room at the Poseidon Hotel in Positano, Italy that asked that food from outside the hotel not be brought into the hotel rooms.

(accidentally hit the post button before finishing the above)

Everyone I spoke at the hotel seemed to resent this. I know I just ignored it, and ate and drank what I wanted to in the room. However, this is different than no eating or drinking in the room... that seems crazy. So many hotels will offer breakfast in the room, especially in Paris.

I feel that is the case with R. Steves's recommendations too. Not all are winners if you read comments on tripadvisor.com. Even he recommends hotels that he konws are not that nice such as Hotel du Cadran which he describes as having a 'shiny lobby but no charm and tight, narrow pricey rooms'.

Tuscanlifeedit,
I did wonder if they were cross because we weren't eating their pricy breakfasts.

But, the filthy room condition as as inesplicable. I just kept expecting cleaner. My daughter wondered if they just didn't have a decent vacumm. But, mold? That can be cleaned with regular bleach and a scrub brush!
No, they must have had new owners since Steves first evaluated the room.

Now I'm leery of the two hotels I;ll be in next:
Hotel Belle Arti in Venice and Hotel Accademia in Florence in October.

ttt

Hotel de londres Eiffel paris

To answer Ms Everitt e-mail, I’m very shocked by the way this lady is describing our hotel.
I do agree that we had to sort out some problems in her room but as soon as we’ve been aware of those problems we took care of them:
Shower holder broken
Trapp to access the pipes under the shower in bad condition

Some of the wall paper in the corridor had to be taken out because of a leek and couldn’t be replaced before the wall would dry.
About the vacuum cleaner in the rooms the cleaning ladies are using it very carefully every day.

Now I would like to answer to some lies that I read in this message:

For the mini bar, this lady says that it didn’t work, we went to check and found it unplugged. We plugged it back and tested it. It worked perfectly. In case this lady wouldn’t know that: to create cold you need a resistance creating heat around the appliance itself.

This lady says that I showed her the new bathroom to avoid a report from her after those troubles. How mean!! I just did that to explain that we were in the process to redo all our rooms and bathrooms. And if I had any of the new remade rooms available for her I would have moved her to one of them.

About the breakfast, it’s not 13 but 12€ and I checked on her bill and realised that we didn’t charged her for any breakfast!!!

For the food in the room it is correct that we ask our customers not to store food in the rooms (like most of our colleagues around) for obvious hygienic reasons. What Ms Everitt forgot to mention is that we offer our clients who want it to store food in our fridge in the kitchen. And I never mentioned anything about alcohol, it’s an absolute lie, lot of our clients borrow cork screws, glasses or ice cubes from us. She also forgot to write that we offered her the use of the breakfast room whenever she wanted with plates, napkins and knives and forks from our kitchen…


I want to finish with a simple question: If this hotel is that bad, why did she stay 9 more nights after the end of her organised tour?

Now I’d like you to read the note that Ms Everitt left handwritten on one of her professional card/
« thank you for your prompt attention to the shower and also the mini bar is most appreciated. I apologize for not being more prompt in bringing these matters to your attention »


I can scan it and send to anybody interested!!

Now I thing that that type of person being so derogative and mean shouldn’t see the net as a way to pass their bad moods.

Nobody is perfect, my staff and myself have been trying for the last 7 years to give some character to our hotel, most of our clientele is happy with that. I just hope that those who will read this message will understand how we are moved by that kind of lies and meanness.

Thanks for your understanding.

Madame Prigent Isabelle (the manager)

londreseiffel: nadiafrance said "The hotel offered a decent breakfast but at 13 Euros per person a day, it was much too expensive." Sounds like she didn't order it, which was why you didn't charge her for it!

It was inappropriate of you to use her surname here on this forum.

<It was inappropriate of you to use her surname here on this forum> MY MISTAKE! I didn't realize that nadiafrance posted before everitt.

My comment about breakfst still stands.

To londreseiffel: 12 or 13 E is still too much for breakfast no matter how you look at it. As a traveler, I feel if the room wasn't in perfect condition, you shouldn't have put a paying guest in it. If you are renovating, that's your problem. We are paying for a good room.

To me the breakfast charge is typical for Paris nowadays. The renovated rooms may have been offered to individuals instead of to tour bus clients. However, the guest decided to stay there after her tour so it would have been a nice gesture to have been offered a newly renovated room instead. Yet that was not possible as the owner claims there were none available. But it is unfortunate the same rate is charged for an unrenovated room yet I don't think anything else could have been done differently.

We stayed in a lovely hotel in Paris recently and the breakfast was offered at 7 Euro. Not 12E.

I think I looked at about 100 hotels over the last few days, trying to book something ~100 euro per night, and most of the ones I saw charged 10E.

It depends also on the hotel category, location, and the type of breakfast they offer. I have stayed at Hotel Verneuil in St. Germain where they offer a continental buffet breakfast for 12 euro. The Hotel de Lutece on Ile St. Louis charges 11 euro for a continental breakfast. But St. Christophe in the Latin Qtr. charges only 8 euro. So there is no one set price. The Londres Eiffel breakfast cost is typical to me.

I would be more concerned about the idea that the room was dirty than worrying about the cost of breakfast. If I read it correctly, it doesn't sound like everittp took breakfast, even though the owner makes it a point to say she wasn't charged for it.

If breakfast is too expensive at the hotel you simply go to a cafe. If the room is dirty and moldy you have another problem which is more time consuming and more expensive to solve.

Everittp, are you entering a report on tripadvisor?

I would like to know what is the issue about the breakfast charge. It's optional and the hotel is not overcharging as the cost is typical. Sure you can find hotels charging more or less than the 12 euro, but the cost is not unusual at all.

What is questioned me is that since the manager's reply and her offer to everyone to have the thankfull card of
everittp, we have no news from everittp...

Is she trying to find an answer or is
she ashamed to have given an opinion without thinking that hotel's manager
inform them on this kind of forum...

I am dubtfull about someone who gives a so bad description but who is stayed 10 days+ in the room...
And the hotels are not missing in this part of Paris...

For the Breakfast's price it seems me always too high for a continental
breakfast over 8 € and so a coffee with a croissant in a cafe is a much better solution...
Erik.

Several years ago some friends made their first trip to Paris. I don't know the name of their hotel, but I know that it was small, family run, probably in the 5th or 6th, but I'm not sure.

They usually ate large lunches and then ate dinner in their room or on the back patio. (eating dinner in a restaurant is usually the highlight of our day, but to each his own).

One evening as they were heading back to the patio, bags of food in hand, the owner stopped them and told them, 'no, no, you must wait here'.

They thought that he was telling them that they couldn't eat on the patio, but they followed his instructions and waited in the lobby.

A few mintues later the owner reappeared and summonded them to the patio. Lo and behold - he had put a table cloth, silverware, glasses, plates, AND a candle on the previously bare table.

Only in Paris.

Nina

Whichever way you look at it Mdm.Isabelle, the customer is always right and even if you disagree you should not have attacked her in the manner in which you did.
I reckon you need to do some really professional housekeeping and some major sucking-up.

I thought the owner had a right to respond, also, and some of those things make a lot of sense. I thought the complaint was whining, anyway. It seems a lot of hotels Rick Steves use may have this food policy, and I wonder if the correlation is with his groups and the desire for these people to eat so much in the rooms and make messes. I eat in rooms in my hotels, but nothing unusually messy, nor do I ever leave garbage in the waste can to spoil or make a mess (I can't stand the smell of banana peels myself), nor ever leave crumbs on anything. I don't really eat much but sometimes some cheese (or chocolate, of course), and occasionally a roll with the cheese. I really do not get the no alcohol in the rooms, but again, maybe a lot of Rick Steves people spill things.

That is true about the minibar, I have noticed in some hotels it is warm around the minibar and figured it was some appliance thing I didn't understand.

And that is a typical hotel breakfast price, nothing that unusual, but you aren't forced to eat it. I never do.

Monpetit....She posted that message a month ago!!! Maybe she isn't reading Fodors now! Don't question someone's reasoning until you see the date it was posted.

Tod is 100% correct.

We've never stayed in any Rick Steves recommended hotels, but years ago ate in several of his restaurants in Paris.

Bad choices ... mediocre food, and poor service. Obviously the recommended hotels and restaurants know that through Steves, they will have their rooms and tables filled and don't have to go to any extra pains to update or improve service.

A girlfriend is going to Paris for the first time in over 30 years and has just 'discovered' Rick Steves. She lives in another city and emailed me the other day about how wonderful his books are and how she has given them to several friends as gifts. She asked if I am familiar with him .. (Linda if you are reading this, I'm sorry, but the truth is the truth).

I tried as gently as possible to clue her in. Fortunately she will be staying with local friends and will probably eat at restaurants of their choice.

Nadiafrance, I'm glad that you enjoyed the tour. My friend who looks like she exists on lettuce leaves, rail thin and I don't think I've ever seen her eat a meal, said that on his Ireland tour, they almost starved to death. Finally the tour guide took pity on the group and told them to order whatever they wanted and he would take care of it with Rick Steves & Company...

Nina

Some of Rick Steves picks are ok, some aren't. The thing that bothers me is that some hotels we've gone to out of his book tell us that he says who he is when he comes to see the establishment. Of course they're going to show him the best areas. That shouldn't be. He should send unidentifiable people, pay for the night and give a real recommendation. We recently stayed in a B & B in Bruges he gave a good review to. They didn't have soap in the rooms. We had to go out and buy it. When we were finished with our towels we put them all in a heap on the bathroom floor(a sign we wanted new towels) we found them hanging when we returned. We took them to the owner and insisted on clean ones. Other guests there had the same complaint. Another time he gave a horrible review to a hotel that I had already made reservations at and when we arrived the hotel was beyond fabulous.

So you can't rely on one person for recommendations.

According to her other replies in the european forum she was there the 23rd., the 26th and the 27th..

Bad luck she is not going to see which responses were to her reply...

I have never made a so bad reply to a
question, but if one day I'll make it,
I would see sometimes if I have got some respons...

So I am always questionned...
Erik.

Of course owner had a right to respond - no one said she didn't. However, as far as the complaint being whiny, I still say that there is no excuse for dirt and mold (something that everittp complained about but everyone here is focusing on the price of a breakfast that she didn't (seem) to order and therefore didn't pay for. Sometimes an experience is not totally fabulous and wonderful - would you prefer for someone to review a hotel and say "the bathroom was moldy and the dirt was an inch thick behind the door" or "we found the mold so refreshing as we don't have that at home, and the dirt behind the door really added texture to the room" ?

Maybe her delivery wasn't the best, but I would certainly rather hear of a hotel's shortcomings then for someone to gush over something that wasn't worth the 143 euro they were charging.

To update all of you, the following was posted on the Rick Steves board:
'Best: Hotel de Londres Eiffel
Why: I just wanted to post a note about the hotel and specifically room '&. my son and I just finished our stay in that very room and we had none of the issues noted previously. We found the hotel to be quite clean and comfortable. The staff was exceptionally friendly and helpful. We would recommend the hotel to anyone coming to Paris."

So by September apparently, the problems that concerned me most, (mouldy shower, hole in the bathroom wall, filthy carpets, inch of dust on baseboards) had been remedied. I should hope so!


As has been noted by other readers here, we did not choose to eat their breakfast, so of course we were not charged for it. I can only attribute the owner's note about not charging us for breakfast to a problem with reading English. Since I have even more serious problems reading French, I didn't think it necessary to respond here to that comment. We did, of course, carefully announce to the receptionist, as soon as the tour part of our stay was over, that we would NOT be eating their breakfast. At 13 Euros per person, my daughter and I were much happier doing as Rich Steves suggests and shopping at local markets for 'picnic' foods. We has purchased cutlery sets from Steves' store and used them in the room with bandanas for tablecloths which we then shook out the window. I can only assume that the owner doesn't read or watch Rick Steves travel suggestions, or she wouldn't have been so surprised by our preference to "eat as the locals do.". After the owner fixed the mini bar, we stored our morning ration of a banana each, yoghurt, and granola bar and bottle of fruit juice in the mimi bar, which we then consumed as a leisurely start to our day. We did carry our containers and banana peels out after the owner complained that she feared vermin would be attracted to our room. Before that, we were depositing them wrapped in the plastic bag in the waste basket. However, being on the 4th floor, perhaps the housekeeping did not empty those waste baskets soon enough. I will say that we did not observe any vermin at all.

I've just returned from back-to-back Florence/Venice Rick Steves' tours where I did eat in the rooms. Both hotels were clean, quiet, and very hospitable. As I mentioned in my original post, I was fearing that I would encounter more of the same 'false advertising' but I was pleased with both hotels. So perhaps, Londres Eiffel Hotel had not been reviewed recently or the reviewer had been shown the newly renovated rooms, not the upper ones.

Londres Eiffel at 143 euros a night was the most expensive. It is very conveniently located, so I did not mind the price. However, had we used their breakfast, we'd have paid another 26 Euros a night for what I consider a mediocre breakfast. In Florence, I stayed at Hotel Accademia for 85 Euros per night (single occupancy, Steves' discount) and that included the very adequate breakfast, similar to Londres Eiffel (i.e. yoghurt, juice, fruit, bread, cereal and coffee). 85 Euros was the Rick Steves' discount charged me as a pre-tour price. The bath did have mould on the grout. I quietly asked the owner to look at it and my room was bleached! No question, no attitude, no recriminations. Even though I was paying the discounted price, the room was cleaned to my standard.
In Venice, I stayed at Hotel Belle Arti at 120 Euros including the same breakfast. The room was clean, quiet, central and the staff hospitable. I received the discounted rate for all the 5 extra days that I stayed post tour. In both cases, I openly brought fruit, granola, chocolate etc. for my bedtime picnics and left it out on the desk in the room. No one questioned the practice. The staff was helpful in showing me where I could buy local produce.
Steves is right. Shopping at the local grocery store or outdoor market is a lovely way to sample the real life of the local inhabitants. I confess I appreciate being able to do a week's grocery shopping at a time after daily loading my purchases in my little day pack and hiking all those steps over each tiny canal in Venice. I enjoyed playing patty-cake with the cranky baby while his mother stood in line with her fruit, milk and diapers.

I did reply in writing to thank the owner of Londres Eiffel for fixing the shower and the mini bar. Normally, I'd have just thanked her verbally, but she was not at the front desk and I did want to acknowledge that she had fixed the shower and fridge. By the way, the bar was definitely NOT working. It was warmer inside the 'fridge' than in the room. We had been leaving our fruit and yoghurt on the windowsill outside until the fridge was fixed. I disconnected it and reported it as I really feared it to be a danger. After they exchanged it for another, I removed all the drinks, and used it to store my food; an action I don't normally do, but given her fears about food smell attracting vermin, I though that prudent. In fact, several other couples on the tour reported doing exactly the same thing. Of course we replaced all the contents exactly as we found them before we vacated the rooms. And I'll bet lots of you do the same thing!

I hope this now answers all the questions raised by my July 30th post, by the hotel owner's response, and by those of you who responded. I was very surprised to see her response posted here, (and emailed to me directly as well). Obviously, I expected her to read the evaluations on the Rick Steves board. However, Fodors must be another site she monitors. Perhaps more of those whose income depends on tourists read Fodors (and other boards) than I expected. This encourages me (and I hope all of you) to also use these travel boards to rave or rant. Paying high prices out of savings and limited retirement pensions means we have to at least try to make our dollars purchase reasonable services.

Happy trails to all of you.

Just wanted to add my 2 cents, or Euros in this case.

I have stayed in the Hotel Londres Eiffel three times in the last 16 months, each time for 1 week (June 04, Sept 04, and Oct 05). I too originally stayed there as part of a Rick Steves' tour (June 04).

This is a great hotel and is being represented unfairly in this thread. In fact, I have stayed in a different room each time - including the "dreaded" room 41 in 2004, and never had a problem with dust, mold or non-functioning plumbing.

The rooms are clean and well maintained. The breakfast is optional. It features coffee, croissonts, baguettes, fruit, yogurt, etc. If you desire a full breakfast with eggs, etc, there are cafes nearby that offer that. Guests are not obligated to have breakfast in the hotel.

In the positive sense, the hotel is quaint and clean; the hotel staff are friendly, and the location is unbeatable (literally 5 min walk from the Eiffel Tower), which means you can walk there and see it close up at night.

As far as not eating in the rooms, that was not an issue for me. Usually ate at cafes nearby.

Anyhow, sorry about the length of the reply, but I've stayed at this hotel a total of 21 days in the last year and a half and have NEVER had a problem & am in the habit of recommending it to friends. I was very surprised to see it represented so poorly here.
--TB; Phx AZ, USA

Now I know to avoid Rick Steve's hotels if those people like to throw their crumbs and garbage out the windows, and put garbage (ie, banana peels) in a wastebasket, which is meant for trash, not garbage. I guess it's too bad the hotel owner doesn't realize what Rick Steves' followers like to do and that Rick has told them to shake their stuff out the windows, so of course they must because they do everything he says.

I just happened across this thread while I was looking for the hotel’s website in order to send an e-mail there hoping to have it delivered to my wife (staying there with friends). Wow! I hope it’s true that the place has cleaned up its act in the last few months!

My wife reports that the place is very nice, and it’s important to note she would scream if she saw mold or the kind of dust described earlier.

Regarding the whole Rick Steves phenomenon … it’s sad but the places he recommends almost invariably get spoiled by hordes of novice travelers. It’s too bad, really, because certain picks of his (e.g. the Hotel Champ de Mars) are really great deals. I found that place on my own back in 1998 right after Stephane and Francoise took it over (a French friend called and got the scoop right from Francoise), only to find to my horror that everyone with Steves’ book soon knew about it! Oh well, now I can’t get in unless I book months in advance, and the crowds are slowly overwhelming the owners’ ability to keep up with the maintenance. On to new (and hopefully not so well known) gems …

I browsed through old posts looking for reports on this hotel. It has good reviews in TA (#50). I wonder whether any fordorites have stayed there since 2005. I am very ahead of my planning for next year.