Hotel Trocadero La Tour
 

Has anyone stayed at the Hotel Trocadero La Tour in Paris? It is in the 16th Arrondissement's Passy area.

No one has any impressions of this hotel?

I couldn't find any information on the hotel, but perhaps someone will be able to help when this goes to the top.

I haven't stayed at the hotel but lived in the immediate vicinity for four years. The area has a lot to offer: convenient to metro lines 9 and 6 and RER C; rue de Passy is an excellent shopping street; rue de l'Annonciation is a small pedestrian street with good food shops and a few cafes; nearby is also the covered Marche de Passy. If you have young kids, you could walk to the parks at Ranelagh (with marionette theater, and an old-fashioned, hand-cranked merry-go-round) or at Trocadero. Good people watching at all points, as the 16eme has a culture all its own.

Thanks for the input!

That's very coincidental because I almost booked a room there last week for July. I reviewed a lot about it and thought it was the best in the area for the money, if you want a 3* with AC. There are some other good value hotels around there also -- Passy Eiffel, Regina and the Garvarni. The Passy Eiffel was my second choice.

I thought the location of the Trocadero was superb -- it is midway between La Muette and Passy metro stops. That is a nice area, and a good street with shops and restaurants. There is even a cinema next door as I recall which has some English-language vo films. It is near the Wine Museum (which I want to get to this trip, for tastings), and some nice shopping areas and market streets (ave Mozart and pedestrian street rue de l'Annonciation).

Anyway, I decided to stay in another part of Paris instead, but it was my second choice. Their summer rates were excellent and a real bargain. Do you have their web site? They are affiliated with the Hotel la TOur de Notre Dame, apparently. They changed names and used to be called the Massenet, so you may find comments under that name. Very good recommendation in Cheap Sleeps in Paris, but it's under the old name.

Christina: Any reason you decided not to stay at the Trocadero La Tour?

sure, but nothing to do with the hotel. I just decided I wanted to stay in a different part of town and go for a little funkier neighborhood than chic/well-to-do. There were some more personal reasons that are more complicated to explain, as to why I wanted to stay and experience a different area. I also wanted something a little more central Right Bank, and I'd just spent some time in the Passy area last summer, so wanted to explore something else.

Christina: Thanks. You say you spent some time in the Passy area last summer. If you were there in August, are bakeries, cafes, shops, laundromats, etc. in the area open? I am talking about the area around the Rue du Passy, near the hotel (Rue du Massenet). I know it is a residential area so I am wondering if the area is especially a ghost town in August. For example, the Trocadero La Tour is offering me breakfast for 5 euros per person. If all the local places that we would otherwise go to in the area for breakfast are going to be closed, it would seem like a good idea to take the hotel breakfast. However, if places will be open, my kids (ages 15, 12 and 8) might prefer the opportunity to pick out different things (kids are not generally enthralled with croissants, rolls and coffee!).

bet kids would like a pain au chocolat or two...

Christina, any info. and insights you can offer about the Passy area near Hotel Trocadero la Tour would be most appreciated!

I'll try a little. I was there at the end of June, so I don't know about August. You could be right, more things will be closed, but there are so many bakeries/patisseries around there, I wouldn't worry.

First, there is a good pedestrian market street very near that hotel, as I mentioned -- rue de l'annonciation. It has all kinds of things on it and many small, casual places to eat and it also has a branch of Paul's Boulangerie. This is a chain bakery/patisserie/deli but a pretty good one and I bet it will be open. Maybe you've read posts on here about folks who like the one in St-Germain. It is pretty good. There are also a lot of bakeries, etc. right on Passy and ave Mozart. For example, there is A la Flute Enchantee (a small local chain, I think, a bakery) at 46 rue Passy which is right near the hotel. Aside from that, there is a Monoprix at 17 rue de Passy, so no worries. That is a great general discount store (clothes, toiletries, cosmetics, paper, pens, dishes, etc, like Target in the US, only a little better, I think) but they also have a good grocery store section and I'm sure they won't be closed in August.

There are a lot of Asian restaurants over in that section for some reason, I'm sure you'll see them. The movie theater is the Majestic Passy and is at 19, rue de Passy. Check the display for "vo" next to the name of an American or English film, and that means it will be shown in English with French subtitles.

There is an Italian restaurant, Pasta Vino, at 30 rue de Passy (not to mention Pizza Hut on that pedestrian street I mentioned). I think a lot of the cafes/bistros around there are on rue de la Tour, rue Duban or rue de l'Annonciation or on rue de Passy more to the west a few blocks of where the hotel is. There are a lot of Chinese or Vietnamese places on Duban but also on various other streets around there. Just explore the neighborhood, you'll find lots of places to eat.

I can't say for sure about the breakfast, but I think you can find out after you get there by looking around a little as I suggested. Monoprix would be fine for a takeout bakery. 5 euro is a pretty good price, but with five people, that will add up.

Depending on how far you want to go, there is a very nice park nearby (even has a carousel and lots of kids), the Jardin du Ranelagh. You have to walk through that to get to the Marmottan museum. If you got rolls etc for takeout at Monoprix or the Flute Enchantee or Pauls, the park is only about a block west of the Muette metro stop. That's probably too much for breakfast, but maybe you'd enjoy doing that for some other meals, sort of picnicing.

Paul's boulangeries usually have some picnic or other small tables out in front where you can eat, also, although I don't recall about that one. It really is only a couple short blocks from your hotel so would be the best bet.

Thanks so much for the specific Passy advice. I am sure I will put it to good use!

You're welcome. I'm sure you'll have a great trip, it's a very pleasant area. If you could remember, it would be nice if you'd post a little report when you got back, adding to this thread, as to how you liked the hotel. I am thinking of staying there, perhaps next visit, so I'd like to hear about your stay. I'd also be interested in where you had breakfast and how much was open or closed in August in that area. Thanks.

Will do. I have looked around and I have not found another hotel that appears to be as nice and quiet for the price as Trocadero la Tour looks.

Christina: We are back and as promised, here is my report.

The Hotel Trocadero la Tour is a nice, clean, very European hotel. It is on a side street off the Rue du Passy, which is very quiet. However, garbage pick up was at 7 a.m. or so every morning and was very noisy (I fell back to sleep with no problem). The hotel is clean and nice but nothing fancy. We had a double and a triple. The double we had (Room 503) was a good size. The triple (Room 500) was really a nice sized double but with a rollaway -- tight, but we did okay. The windows were floor to ceiling doors that open to a railing, looking over the rooftops. There were metal folding doors with slots in them so that you can keep the windows open while blocking out the light if you like. The air-conditioning worked very well. The bathrooms were a nice size, especially the one in the triple, but they were not elegant or anything like that. Each room had cable TV. One very nice feature -- each room had a heavy door between the area where you enter the room and bathroom and the bedroom area. This double door set-up made the room even quieter. The walls do not afford silence but our neighbors were not very noisy.

The lobby is small and very nice. The elevator holds 2-3 people -- my 8 year old loved it! Our triple was directly behind the elevator (old fashioned, with an open back), but it was the quietest elevator I have ever seen. Each floor has 6 rooms on it with automatic hall lights (they turn on when someone steps into the hallway).

The staff is nice and pretty efficient. The one staff incident I did not like -- when we checked in, I noticed a flier for a 2-park, one-day ticket for Disneyland. When I asked the gentleman at the front desk if the hotel sold the tickets, he immediately dismissed buying such a ticket and presented a Paris Vision excursion as the way to go, which he offered to book right then and there (he even reached for the phone). I took the brochure and said I would let him know if I was interested. When I added it up later, the excursion he wanted to sell me would have cost approx. 180 Euros more for the 5 of us than just buying the tix and taking the RER (and the excursion van would have left the parks by 7:30 p.m., before the parades and fireworks). It would have been fine for him to point this excursion out to me, but it seems ridiculous for most people and I had no doubt that he got a cut for selling it and that is what he was interested in. Based on that, I did not ask staff for any recommendations during our stay at the hotel.

As you said, the area is great. In fact, we did not see an area in Paris that we would have rather stayed in. It was great to get out of the busier, more touristy areas and return to "real" Paris every evening. The 6 and the 9 lines are both within a 5 minute walk. The bakery you mentioned, A la Flute Enchantee, was 1 minute from the hotel and was fabulous (we tried a couple of others, since it was closed on the weekend, and they were nowhere near as good). Try the Zurick, it was outrageous! We ate dinner at Pasta Vino (very close to the hotel), which was very good, had good service and was very reasonably priced. We also ate dinner at Matsuri (a few minutes from the hotel on Rue du Passy), which had decent sushi -- not the best by any means, but the plates come around on a conveyor belt and you pick what you want as it comes by. They then count the plates and charge you at the end, like going for Dim Sum. My kids LOVED this.

For what it is worth, there is an SNCF Boutique within a 3 minute walk to pick up train tickets and a good size and very modern (but expensive) laundromat 3 minutes in the other direction (go up Rue du Passy, make a left and cross over to McDonald's, then make a right and go half way up the street on your right). Being August, many restaurants and shops were closed but it did not present a real problem for us (although we looked up 3 restaurants in Zagats and went to check all of them out -- each was closed for August).

Would I stay at Trocadero la Tour again? Yes, if the rates were right. We paid 109 Euros for the double and 129 Euros for the triple. Comparatively, this was an excellent value. I would not stay at Trocadero la Tour if it was a special trip, such as a honeymoon. For my family? I wanted the kids to get a taste of a real French hotel (not some Americanized chain) in a real Paris neighborhood. Trocadero la Tour certainly fit that bill.

Thanks so much for your help. Let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks for your nice report. It sounds like you had a good time and the hotel does sound like good value for a nice area for those rates, which I think are quite good.

I spent some time in Passy myself this past August on a couple days, and even took the bus down rue de Passy and saw the hotel and thought of you and wondered how your trip turned out. I was visiting Passy cemetery as one of my favorite composers is buried there (Claude Debussy), and another day I went to the Marine Museum at place Trocadero and a cafe around there. I was thinking of going to dinner at Le Totem which is supposed to have a good view of the Tour Eiffel at night and has good reviews, but I couldn't even find the restaurant. I think it may be under renovation and closed as there was some construction at the address where I think it would be.

The hotel sounds nice enough and I may stay in the area next time. I think your experience with the triple is probably fairly common (a largish double with a roll-away). I don't blame you about being annoyed about the guy trying to sell you a tour that was not such a good deal, I don't like that kind of thing myself.

The only question I have, you said you had a double that was decent size -- can you estimate the size in square feet or square meters, or approximate length x width dimensions? I know some people stay in doubles in Paris that are quite small by my standards and seem satisfied, so I wondered, although I don't require anything huge.

I am not sure on the dimensions. Our double was a pretty nice size (the bed was against the wall in the corner on the right when you walk into the bedroom portion. From the end of the side of the bed to the windows at the other end of the room must have been 10 feet or so). It had a minibar, desk and built in cabinet with hanging closet and drawers and some shelves. The bathroom had to be perhaps 8 feet long and 6 feet wide. The room next to our double also looked like a double and based on a very quick partial peek, looked a bit smaller. I travel quite a bit here in the States and am used to Hyatt type of rooms. Our double impressed me as a comfortable size.

Hi,

I wanted to say thanks for this great info. I just reserved an apartment at 41 Rue de Passy for June. It sounds the neighborhood is just what we want.

The neighborhood is great, I'm sure you'll like it. I'm going to Paris for a few days this summer and am now thinking maybe I'll stay in this area this time since I didn't last year.