New Hotel le Voltaire

Great design, superb room service. Beautifully designed. Service meets 4 start standard. Room service everyday. Solid breakfast, especially quality juices and pastry. Clean and comfy beds. Amenity kit in the bathroom. I had few inconveniences during my stay. My card stopped working once and meal I ordered was delivered without utensils.

Nice and crowded old town location. Rooms are very small and simple. Breakfast has few dishes. Expensive room

Had a 2 night stay recently in May. POSITIVES - Room and bathroom were tastefully decorated and clean. Location is good, near range of bars and restaurants and Voltaire metro and a bus stop. Bed good size and comfortable. Breakfast had good choice and was open until midday if want a lie in. Water /Tea /coffee making available in room. Room had tv / phone/ small safe and free wifi. Free Toiletries and has a hairdryer. NEGATIVES - Thought it was rather pricey for the very small size of room. We paid GBP142 including breakfast per night, we stayed for x2 nights. Given Room 501 next to lift. Could only walk round our bed, very limited space for movement around room and placing our suitcase. Could only lie on the bed, not freely walk round room. One of the smallest rooms we’ve ever stayed in around the world. Don’t think it merits a 4* rating. No mini bar. No fridge. Maintenance not open x24 hours a day if required. Eg - when our AC was not working. No closed cupboard/hanging space, just mainly open shelving / open hanging rail. View from our room was a wall and darkish courtyard. Now the very disappointing fact. Our Air conditioning DID NOT work during our stay, so the room air was still and stuffy due to its small size, hence we had an uncomfortable x2 sleeps. It was one of our booking requirements, so it’s a “breach of contract” as it’s mentioned on the booking website and we didn’t have it. We reported it on numerous occasions to 3 different reception staff , 1st was soon after checkin, and 2 other staff including the nice housekeeping man for followup. ( I’ve not mentioned their names in this review ) We Checked in early evening. When we rang the receptionist on duty and 1 of us even went to the lobby to tell the same lady, she said NO ONE was available to come up to look at it. She said she’d get it working from downstairs but she had no luck. Said she was all alone so couldn’t leave the desk.She said she’d log the fault. Next day , someone must’ve looked at it whilst we were out, and it was confirmed by her that yes there was something wrong with the thermostat, hence it still didn’t work. We were advised to put it all in an official email the night before checkout which we did for the manager/ owner. At checkout early afternoon, both receptionists on duty said they’d followup with the owner/ manager. She ( name withheld) did reply after our return apologising and saying she’d give us a discount of another stay and that it was working before our stay. Didn’t find her very empathetic , not apologetic enough nor very interested in caring customer service. We had earlier suggested some compensation as a good will gesture/ inconvenience caused as we don’t intend staying with them again. Any decent hotel would be apologetic and own up to a fault/ maintenance issue, not make us out to be the guilty party. Now our followup emails chasing the latter are being ignored by the hotel. Even the travel agent on our return rang them, and the lady he spoke to said it says on their file, that there there was NOT ANY problem with the AC. He said he can’t do anything more on our behalf. If it’s fixed now, or if it was working previous to our stay, all well and good, but it WASN’T working during our stay and despite bringing it to the attention of 5 staff, it still wasn’t working on our checkout. They couldn’t move us , as the rooms were all taken. Based on the above surprising and very disappointing experience, certainly unexpected from a 4 star hotel, or the hospitality industry, it has resulted in us giving this negative review. If the AC was working during our stay, why on earth would we say it wasn’t and would we go to such lengths and wasting time and energy alerting so many staff and asking for someone to mend it?