The Westin Paris - Paris, France     

We choose the Westin Paris to celebrate the New Years holiday for its location and its relative price given the time of season. This hotel is currently undergoing a large renovation. We had 3 rooms, one older room and two refurbished rooms. Ironically enough, the older room had more interesting decor, a nicer television and better soaps and amenities, while the newer room had a nicer bed. If you are in the $500-$700USD/night price range during a normal time of year, I would go for one of the nicer older hotels in the area. The total cost is a non-issue for me, however there were little incidental charges where things start to feel like you are being pillaged. Some Examples: -80 Euro per person weekend brunch -30 Euro room service hamburger -16 Euro room service soup -150 Euro airport transfer.... and there are several more.... The hotel staff is very helpful and the concierge is excellent! The wait staff at both restaurants are marginal, but that is the case with almost EVERY Paris establishment. The "free breakfast" is VERY crowded and is usually being pillaged by hungry Americans. If you dont make it by the 10AM cutoff, you will get hit with a 30 Euro pricetag for a continental breakfast fee at the bar restaurant... Be prepared to lay down an extra 100 Euro per person per night in incidentals before staying at this hotel. Personally, I'd rather use the extra cash and stay somewhere a little nicer...

Stayed at the Westin Paris over New Year's eve, in two rooms with my wife and three teenagers. Overall I was very pleased. The location is phenomenal, just off the Rue de Rivoli. The hotel itself is very impressive, with a few rooms that would be comfortable in Versailles. The staff were highly efficient and helpful if not overly friendly. The rooms in the hotel vary widely in size. We were in two of the smallest. They screwed up my reservation, which had called for a third bed in one of the rooms. On check-in they said that the rooms they had for us would not accommodate a third bed, and they were very nearly correct. After moving around all of the furniture, they fit the rollaway in my kids' room, but just barely. That made the room virtually unwalkable, not that my kids cared. To be fair, part of the problem was that the rollaway was a full twin bed with a pillowtop mattress -- no cheesy cot. Nothing comes free at the hotel. MInibars and room service are priced for the jet set. I'd blush to put anything like that on an expense account. But the service was excellent, and the rooms (which had not been refurbished) were very clean and comfortable. The bathrooms were nicer than expected. The bar downstairs is elegant looking, though the crowd seemed a bit stuffy. We used the hotel mostly as a launching point for going out into the city, bringing back a bottle of wine for quiet consumption in the room, and that worked out just fine.