Chateau de l'Ile - Ostwald, France 

My husband and I have stayed at the Chateau de l'Ile on a yearly basis for a number of years now, say about 8-10. I've not had the opportunity to review this establishment but now being a member of Trip Advisor I make the effort to review all the hotels I visit. We've always been happy with the hotel and particularly with the semi-gastronomic restaurant, which is actually no longer a gourmet restaurant. We've always gone for the standard rooms which are adequate, quite nicely decorated and the bathroom has always been pretty nice. However our room started to look a bit dammaged so it's time for some refurbishment I think. I must say howevevr, there is a strong overwhelming chlorine smell coming from the swimming pool, if you get a ground floor room. We've always considered Chateau de l'Ile as our pre-gastronomic etape, on our way to our favourite 2 michelin star, Relais Chateau in Reims. A trip we do every May. We were looking forward to our usual 4-5 course menu, in one of the nice dining rooms, but on arrival to the restaurants area, we were lead to a room which we had not visited before. The nice dining rooms we were used to dine in, were simply not open. When we were handed over the menu, it was clear that the formula had changed. There was one menu with no choices, comprising of only one starter, one main course + cheese and dessert which did not appeal and a very limited a la Carte. We chose one starter, the Foie Gras, that was nice. For the main course we chose the Filet of Beef Rossini. We had the dreaded question at the back of our head, will they really cook it rare, as requested, or will it be another one of those episodes where they'll just cook it any ole way. The serving lady taking orders for wines and water asked if we would like water with our meal and would that be still or sparkling. I immediately replied, "sparkling please". She went on to ask "sparkling or still", when she actually had meant to ask "big or small" she immediately realised she had just asked the same question. Sure enough when the water arrived, it was still water. I said to the waiter, I asked for sparkling. He proceeded to her to explain and I could hear her say to her colleague "but she asked for still", well clearly not...but she realised immediately when rewinding the conversation that I had indeed ordered sparkling. That was already too much for just a water detail. When it was time for the beef to arrive, after cutting through it, my one was clearly not only medium but well done. My husband piece was medium, which is slightly more acceptable than well done. I am not the one for sending food back so I simply mentionned it afterwards. It was nice that we were offered a glass of Cremant, although it was not what I had aimed for when mentionning the mistake in the cooking. We enjoyed the dessert immensly, I think they must have a good dessert chef there. Unfortunately this is now the second Grandes Etapes hotel which we've have to give up on, the other one being Chateau d'Isembourg, where some other funny hapennings took place