Hotel Les Jardins de Porquerolles

The pizza was good, but at €19 it wasn’t worth the price. We waited over an hour from sitting down to getting our food, and the restaurant was dirty. The staff were unpleasant and started correcting our French. When we came to pay, the manager didn’t even say hello. We won’t go back, and I’d recommend bringing sandwiches to the island.

We left just 30 minutes after checking in because the stay felt completely awful. I asked through Booking for the €355 fee for two nights with breakfast to be cancelled, but the hotel didn’t reply. I had to call Booking support so they would send an official claim, and I’m still waiting for the hotel’s response. The location is on Porquerolles’ central square, which felt stuffy in summer, with lots of dust and hardly any air to breathe. I needed air conditioning just to stay in the room, and I even had an allergic reaction there, although I’ve never had one before. The service was below any acceptable level. While we waited to check in, we tried to order beer on the hotel café terrace. The waitress said it was only for people eating, not for drinks alone. We said we were hotel guests and weren’t leaving, so she brought the beer and nearly threw it onto our table. We were first given a room on the first floor with a toilet that didn’t work. The hostess offered another room, which she called “better,” since the plumber could only come the next morning. This other room, number 11, was on the ground floor with a narrow window facing a yard corridor that staff passed through every five minutes. It felt like living in a doghouse in the backyard. The bathroom was old, and there wasn’t even any hand soap.

We sat down after seeing people having breakfast and placed our order. What arrived wasn’t the fresh juice or the other items the hotel guests had. When I asked about it, the woman said those people were hotel guests paying €300 a night. I looked on Google and saw €170, so one of them was lying. We paid €10 for breakfast, which was far too much for what we got. Then I saw the toilet. Check the photos and you can imagine what the kitchen might be like out of sight.

At €250 a night in April, we got a dark, tiny room with constant noise from the kitchen ventilation system. It ran through the day, starting in the morning and stopping around midnight. We switched rooms, but the same problem continued. That’s ridiculous even by Porquerolles price standards. Poor experience, and I won’t recommend it or stay again.