Le Claridge Champs-Elysees - Paris, France     

I stayed in Hotel Claridge in May for 6 nights. It is in a great location in the so called 'golden triangle' near Champs Elysees, Avenue Montaigne and George V. It is a small hotel and the room we stayed was very spacious, it was a superior room but I stayed in much smaller rooms in Paris for this price. The decor was tasteful with antiques, the ceilings very high and bathroom well appointed. There are only 5-6 rooms on each floor so the hotel is quiet. Our room overlooked the main street but the double glazing cut all the noise, with the quiet, heavy curtains and comfy large bed we slept late every morning :-) The hotel staff is friendly and smiling, eager to help. Reception staff is very helpful. After the first day the mini bar never got restocked, despite this they tried to charge us as if we were drinking them every day, but when we pointed this out at check out they removed them immediately from the bill. Overall a great little hotel in good location, clean and tastefully decorated, a bit old fashioned, a bit expensive but this is Paris. The surrounding area's cafes and restaurants are very expensive as well so we ended up spending most of the gloriously warm days and nights in the cool and trendy Marais area and next time I'm in Paris I'll probably try a hotel there.Claridge is a better hotel for first time Paris visitors.

I booked the hotel on the Fraser Apartment website. Having stayed in other Fraser Hotels in other parts of the world, I assumed that the Le Claridge would be of a standard similar to other Fraser hotels. I was so wrong in making this assumption. I stayed from 21 to 23 May 2008, the follwong is my nightmare experience. When I cheked in, I was informed that I was upgraded to a larger suite, which I thought was great. Then I found the room I was allocated was 2 levels with a tiny timber spiral stair to the bath room and bed room upstair. Mind you I had a pretty large luggage bag and there was no way I could carry my bag up the tiny spiral stair. As I was eager to get out and explore Paris,It didn't worry me too much. I then found the air conditioning was not working, so I informed the front office staff to fix it whilst I was out. Upon my return 7 hours later, the air conditioning was not fixed and I informed the front office again and asked if it could be fixed whilst I am out to dinner. When I got back to the hotel room and turned on the water to have a shower, I found the water was a brown muddy colour, I kept the tap on for more than 5 minutes and discovered the brown coloured water was coming from the hot water. By this stage, it was 12.30am in the morning, I thought I would just go to bed and hope that the water would be fixed by the morning. The air conditioning was fixed in the bed room, but the noise from the air conditioning was so lound and cold that it was like I was sleeping inside a plant room in a freezer, It was so loud I tried ear plugs, but after almost 1.5 hours of trying to sleep, I finally gave up and walked down to the front office at 2 am in the morning to inform the staff of the disaster. The receptionist came in the room with me and agreed that it was too loud and he could not explain why the hot water was muddy brown. So I packed up, went down to the reception and insisted that I be transferred to another room. The receptionist spent almost 20 minutes on the phone, speaking in French, I assume to his Manager, I was finally transferred to another room, time was 2. 45 am in the morning. I woke up the next morning and discovered that again the air conditioning was not working satisfactorily. I got a call from the receptionist as they have mistaken I with another guest, who was also relocated to another room the same morning. Then when I returned to the room that afternoon, I was shocked to find there was someone in the room, I found out that he was a tradesman trying to fix the air conditioning. He was later joined by another tradesman, and it took almost 3 hours to fix. At last, I thought all should be well ! No such luck, when I tried to turn on the TV, yes you guessed it, it was not working. By this stage, I gave up and didn't even bother to ask for help. I have been to numerous hotels all around the world, but I have never encountered a hotel like this. The staff was unhelpful and rude, not one of them apologised and said 'sorry '. I therefore will not return to this hotel and will advise you to avoid it.