The Royal Snail

We had a great time during our company offsite, with 15 rooms booked. The staff were attentive and understanding when we had to make a few changes at the last minute. I’d recommend it for business trips, and for private stays too, of course.

The food was excellent, but the restaurant staff kept speaking French after we explained that we didn’t understand. There was no English or Dutch. It’s the first regional capital in Europe I’ve visited where they wouldn’t speak either the country’s majority language or English. If you’re fluent in French, go for the food. If not, I wouldn’t. At these prices, good food should come with good service too. This review is about the restaurant, not the hotel.

The rooms were good, the pool was beautiful, and the location was great. When my wife was pregnant, the staff kindly moved us to a cooler room on the north side with a balcony. Fantastic service.

I’d happily recommend the restaurant, which is genuinely very good. The hotel rooms are another matter. Our room had a serious spider problem: all night we were killing them as they came from behind the curtains and crawled across the ceiling. There were dozens more outside, so opening the windows wasn’t an option. The air conditioning was broken too, and the room became unbearably hot. We got no sleep after a long bike ride. There were no warnings about the ongoing pest issue. Try the restaurant, but stay somewhere else in Namur. Management acknowledged the problems but offered only a 50% discount on a future stay. When we asked for a reasonable refund, they became hostile. I said I might share our experience in reviews, and they threatened to complain about “false statements,” even though their emails had already confirmed my account was accurate. They also said they’d respond to any review, so I’m curious to see what they say. UPDATE AFTER MANAGEMENT RESPONSE: Thanks for showing exactly what I meant about your unprofessional customer service. To correct the inaccuracies: I did tell reception the morning after our stay, as I said in my emails. You have those emails, so you know that’s true. The receptionist acknowledged the issues and specifically told me to email management, which I did. We didn’t ask to move rooms at midnight. We were exhausted after a long bike ride, had unpacked, and kept hoping each spider we caught would be the last so we could finally sleep. When you’re that tired, changing rooms at midnight is the last thing you want. You just want the problem to stop. Your claim that “nothing unusual was detected” conflicts with your own emails. You acknowledged the spider infestation, writing, “with the green facade and the river in front of the hotel, we have to deal with this problem,” and the broken air conditioning, saying, “our technician came to the hotel and had to deal with a leak.” You can’t acknowledge these problems in writing and then claim they didn’t exist. And “extortion”? Asking for roughly €100 back for accommodation we couldn’t use must be the smallest attempted extortion in history. I was clear that unresolved customer service issues naturally lead to honest reviews. That’s not blackmail; it’s how customer feedback works in 2025. Please also state accurately that the 50% discount was offered for a future stay only, not the current one, which we would have accepted. After a sleepless night killing spiders in a broken room, we obviously wouldn’t use that offer. It’s hardly meaningful compensation when no reasonable person would want to use the service again. A simple apology and a reasonable refund would have settled this privately. The gesture mattered more than the amount. Instead, you chose threats and accusations, and your hostile, dishonest response shows why this escalated unnecessarily.