Hi,
I am going to the Loire Valley in September and would like to stay at a chateau around Amboise. Looking for a place that has charming atmosphere, great service, convinient location(though we will have a car) and great appointed rooms. Any recommendations?

This meets all your criteria and I can highly recommend it:

www.tortiniere.com

Wish I would have the opportunity to stay there again soon.

Manoir de Minimes in Amboise is also very nice. And you could do Chateau Chissay or Chateau D'Artigny. Do a search on this site on any of those names for more info. We've stayed at all three and found them delightful.

Chateau de Pray, near Amboise could be a good choice.
Nice room and atmosphere, good restaurant for diner if you are too tired some evening to drive to another restaurant...
web site :
http://praycastel.online.fr/

In the website of chateaux de France, you have some other adress : real hotels restaurants in old castle like Chateau de Pray, but also private castles,...
http://www.chateauxhotels.com/

It's difficult to be disappointed with those adress and there are often less expensive than the relais & chateaux :
http://www.relaischateaux.com/fr/

Erik

We stayed at the www.Chateau-de-Perreux in the Montespan Suite in Sept. '07 and really enjoyed it. They have breakfast included, and the suite and public rooms were beautiful. It was just outside of Amboise. The owners, Victoria & Alun were very gracious hosts, and helpful in setting up dinner reservations, etc. L'Aubinere was oneof our favorite restaurants, and about a 20 min. drive from the Chateau.

Trip Advisor has almost all good reviews. Just a few bad, which baffles me.

We will definitely stay there again when we return.

As far as service, I don't know what you're looking for. This is an old Chateau, very charming, but no elevator, TV or room service. We felt like we were staying with friends in the French countryside.

Last fall, we stayed at Château de la Bourdaisière near Tours. The rooms are beautiful and so are the grounds. They have a world-famous tomato garden and they host a tomato festival every September.
http://www.chateaulabourdaisiere.com

We second the suggestion of Manoir de Minimes in Amboise. We stayed there a number of years ago and loved it. Tried to get in a few years ago and it was full, so I'm sure it's still popular. Easy walking to everything in Amboise from there.

We have been looking at doing the same thing...Thanks for asking the question.

I finally decided to go with Chateau de Perreux though I am a bit concerned that they got mixed reviews on Trip Advisor.
But it seems that's the story for most of the chateaus, they all have a mix of great reviews and bad reviews. I guess it depends on expectations, especially when it comes to service and conditions/appearances. I scanned the board on the Chateau de Perreux and found that it constantly gets praises from TPAYT, nobody else posted anything about CdP, wonder why. They also have a gracious cancelation policy, 5 days prior to arrival. For now we are booked with them.
I think we know pretty much what do we want to see. time to pick places to eat in the area. Appreciate any recommendations.

We have been travelling to Europe for years and have stayed in a variety of accomodations. We just happen to have really enjoyed the Chateau de Perreux. In their price range, it was one of the best.

We looked at many other chateaus with more amenities, but didn't want to pay $500-$700 a night. Everyone has different tastes in hotels, this just happened to suit us.

As I said before, Victoria and Alun couldn't have been nicer to us, and it was like staying in their home instead of a hotel.

The bad reviews? Who knows, but I have found that you get what you give, and if you go in with a bad attitude, it will probably be returned.

Right in Amboise we found some very good restaurants. One we enjoyed that was more casual and inexpensive was right on the main road to the Divinci House, something with Florentine in the name.

We were there 4 days and went to the usual Chambord, Chenenceau, Villandry, and Davinci House. We enjoyed them all, and stayed a little to long at each of them, so now we plan to return and see more. This year it's Paris only for a short 10 days. When the $ gets better we'll go back to longer trips.

Enjoy the Loire!