France Paris Westin Louvre Marais

[Rhine-and-Roses]

First impression was WOW, very nice hotel. Fabulous location between the Tuileries Gardens and the Place Vendome. Staff was 100% friendly, courteous. The public rooms were attractive, welcoming. After exploring a few minutes, we found additional rooms as grand as Versailles itself. This was a truly beautiful place to stay.

Our room was lovely to look at, with comfortable beds, an adequate, but older bathroom with robes, slippers, and standard Westin toiletries. The room would have been large but there was a lot of wasted space- an absolutely unusable 3-4 sq meters at the entry, and the wardrobe area similar. Nevertheless, the room was inviting and comfortable.

The room looked out onto a small courtyard. It was attractive but dark as the other parts of the building were close.

They left us some complimentary (and delicious) juice, along with what looked like an expensive box of mini-jars of unusual jams. (But no bread, so it seemed a little odd- maybe a souvenir? We appreciated it, in any case, and went out for our own baguette.)

The restaurants and cafe were very expensive, but no more expensive than the other places in the area. We chose to go to Angelinas, only a 1/2 block away instead of having tea at the hotel. Same for meals, although the menus looked pretty good. Breakfast was the standard SKY HIGH overpriced affair at 30-45 euro. For some reason they tried to insist we charge it to the room, but they finally took our cash. We ate in a cafe the second morning.

Metro was close by if you want to use it. The doorman had us a taxi within 30 seconds each time we needed one. Taxi was under 10 euro to many places, including the Orsay museum and Notre Dame. It actually came out to be just a bit more than the subway with three of us.

There were a few events going on one night and it appeared staff was directed to those events. I had to wait twice for about 10-15 rings to get someone to answer the phone. I had to call because toiletries were not replaced, nor was the bathtub cleaned or the waste cans emptied, and towels for only two were left. I was disappointed by housekeeping, although I had left a tip, as always, for these hardworking people. We ended up going into the hall and raiding a cart for towels. I had to call earlier as well (same wait) because we found the lobby restrooms in dire need of attention, probably due to the large wedding going on in the ballroom.

Significant problems with reservations- we had booked a room for three (2 adults, 1 child according to the Hotwire policy of age 2-17) I was pretty surprised to find they actually considered a 17 year old a child. We had paid about $270, which we thought was reasonable for three at this hotel. Reading Trip Advisor reports, we saw we were going to have trouble with three in a room and called to confirm in March for our June booking. We were told we would have a supplement of 80 euro for the extra bed for a child older than 11. I pointed out the original booking said 17, but they would not budge. Hotwire agreed to reimburse me and deal directly with the hotel. (I have not applied for reimbursement yet, so cannot say if this will actually happen!) Then a few days before we were to arrive, the hotel claimed the hotel employees were on strike and they were canceling our reservation. They had indeed been on strike, but the strike had ended before I received the email. Not sure if they were trying to cancel a lower priced reservation in order to sell the room at the rack rate of 800 euro. I called the hotel and Hotwire and was able to keep the original reservation.

All in all, we found this to be a nice hotel. We would probably stay here again if we could identify the property or if on business.

[Rhine-and-Roses]

Follow up on HOTWIRE: They did indeed refund the difference that the hotel charged.