Novotel Le Mans

I was pleasantly surprised by this hotel as had seen some recent negative reviews. The hotel is nicely decorated and spotlessly clean. The beds are extremely comfortable and a good powerful shower. I have stayed in Novotel before and in my opinion this is of a good Novotel standard. The only sign of wear and tear is the stairwell and some of the paint on the outside. The interior is otherwise is in good shape. We stayed for 2 nights while in transit from another part of France and this hit the spot for us for our needs. Family vacation with teenagers. The restaurant offers food choices for dinner and the breakfast buffet was of a high standard with lots of choice. I found the accommodation good value for money but we had booked about 5 months in advance. The wine at the bar is a bit pricier than other parts of France and on a par with major city prices. The pool area is small but well kept and a nice oasis in a busy city. The location is fine to teach by car from the main motorway (A10) with ample parking at the back of the hotel. It’s beside a green area but also some high rise apartments and graffiti but it seemed safe enough for walking in a group. It’s beside the tram you can take to the city and the old town however this was closed for works over the summer. There was a bus instead which was quite crowded despite being quite frequent.

Location is great for a stopover, and this hotel was great about 3-4 years ago when we first stayed there. But this time it was in need of some major renovation. 1st room we had was boiling hot - heating was on, which I realised later was to try and dry the damp in the room. We then had a leak from the ceiling in the bathroom - staff were great and moved us quickly to a new room, but it also smelled very damp. Would not recommend staying here. This is the second bad experience of a Novotel, they used to be so good! Staff are working hard here so do not fault them at all, but management needs to invest to update the rooms, remove damp etc.

Was looking forward to my stay in Le Mans but was disappointed in my Novotel stay - probably the worst one I've stayed in so far. Positives: - 4 x 11kw chargers (quite new and well priced) - Nice seating area at the back near the pool. Negatives: - Really run down hotel - you can see it's been patched up over the years but in dire need of major renovations. - Inexperienced staff which I suppose is due to the summer holidays with many young staff doing a summer job. You can tell they are doing their best but the lack of training and a stand our manager keeping the ship running well was very apparent. - The Chicane restaurant was average with the service lacking due to the poorly trained staff (4-5 new employees standing around the entrance / till and 1 person taking orders and 1 other clearing up... tough gig for them). - Breakfast was poor, I've had better choices in an IBIS.