Hôtel Le Picardy

I simply don’t know where to begin. This place is a disaster with a facade of cool and luxury on the outside and on the inside.. it’s FAWLTY TOWERS. The only reason I am taking the time to write this review is because of the hardworking staff. If not for them, this shambles of a hotel, would not be much. Let’s start with check in.. one, yes, ONE, staff member, running the WHOLE hotel solo, check in, answering phones, running to the bar and the beck and call of all the hotel guests. But wait.. there’s more.. she was also trying to conduct interviews with the three ladies waiting on the foyer - new recruits (no surprises here). We arrive to our, inter-connecting rooms to find the doors closed and a bedside drawer and chair in the way.. we manoeuvre the furniture ourselves so as not to bother said solo staff member downstairs. Upon entering the main room, we notice one of the single sides to the king bed is seriously drooping into the middle. Not to worry, I’m exhausted, it will be fine. Mistake.. I did not sleep well for the entire stay. We call to have ice delivered to the room, we would like to chill our warm wine we’ve bought and the very small fridges do not have room for wine bottles of any kind and are filled with a few bottles of complimentary water and snacks to purchase. We wait… whilst waiting … we discover, only paper cups in the entire room. So I head downstairs so as not to have to call solo worker, rather, O’Brien glasses for wine, ice bucket and tea cups for morning / paper cups and wooden stirrers only provided! Oh, and, no milk! After a horrendous sleep in the sloping bed and extremely loud AC.. we head out for the day, tidying our room for the cleaner, placing towels on the floor and pulling back the quilts of the bed to display said slope in case anyone wants to take time to fix it. We are out for 8 hours. Upon our return, our rooms have not been make up except for bins emptied. I am bemused… why? “Because I did not place the card on the bed to chafe the sheets”. Okay.. but I have never, in my, hundreds of hotel room stays, ever seen such an excuse for not at least making the bed. When questioned, the excuse given was I had items on the bed.. this was not the case. I had our personal pillows and that is all. Frustrated, we need wine! Ha, but alas, the ice machine is broken and there is no ice madam. We drink warm wine, fall into sloping bed and listen to the AC drumming all night. We wake with little sleep. I need to iron my clothes, mademoiselle brings me the iron, but no board. “We do not have a board” ..???!! What?! How am I supposed to iron? “On the table madam, this is the French way” ….. we head out for the day with a promise and guarantee our room will be serviced. We are gone for 5 hours 1-6pm. We return again to an unmade room. The cleaners, two young women who look to be contracted, have been too busy. We are told they can come now.. desperate for a good night’s sleep, I guide them to the room and ask them to simp

What can one say? It’s a perfectly acceptable, modernised city hotel with friendly staff and a car park opposite! The aircon system, in the room we had, was right next to the bed at about waist height and despite having it blasting away all night it made very little impression on the temperature of the room. Its noise, on the other hand, made quite an impression on one's ability to sleep through it! We got the distinct impression we should have had breakfast earlier than 9:30 because there was very little left in the cold cabinet and the scrambled eggs, in the heater, looked to be fried to the base of the container. To give them their due they did get some made freshly for us.