Azur

We ended up staying all three nights, but spent the whole time wishing we’d paid more for somewhere nicer. The walls are paper thin, so you can hear everything throughout the hotel. We found a hair tie on the floor that wasn’t ours, and the bed sheets in our second room had rips and stains. Its sliding bathroom door took a lot of effort to open and close, then the heavy trim above it fell off the next morning. We wanted to leave, but they wouldn’t give us even a partial refund. This was a huge letdown after we booked Boutique Hotel Azur on the New York Times article “36 hours in Marseille.” The place felt tired and badly in need of a refresh. At first we were sent to room 4, where the room was stale, the bed corners were stained, and it was as hot inside as outside after our 20-hour journey. The air conditioning wasn’t on and wouldn’t work. I asked the man at the desk for a refund, even a partial one, so we could check out and find somewhere else. He said it wasn’t possible and insisted the AC worked. When he came up to try it, he admitted I was right and moved us to a slightly nicer room with working AC.

Breakfast cost us 12€ per person and was advertised as a buffet, but there was just some cereal and a few croissants. The rooms were clean, though small and minimally equipped, and the bed felt like it might collapse. With paper thin walls, we could hear everything our neighbour was doing at 2am. The staff seemed unfriendly and annoyed by every little question or request. I wouldn’t recommend staying here.

The rooms were small and pretty loud. We tried booking one room through the hotel website, but never got a confirmation. A miscommunication left us with two rooms, which the hotel could have cleared up by replying to our email or answering the phone. They didn’t, and we were charged a late cancellation fee. The receptionist offered free breakfast as an apology, but when we checked out, we got an invoice for the breakfasts we’d eaten. Also, if you don’t speak French, don’t bother. Nobody speaks English.

Most of the furniture was broken. The toilet leaked, the bed wobbled badly, and the lamps were broken. Breakfast cost 12 € each, and it wasn’t great. They called it a buffet, but it was just two kinds of cheese, two kinds of preserved meat, and some bread. I’d go somewhere else for something worth the price. The receptionist was rude, kept interrogating us, and asked the same questions over and over. The rooms were stuffy, so we had to leave the windows open. Then we could hear all kinds of sounds, strange birds, meowing cats, mosquitoes, and the neighbours. The walls are so thin that you can hear everything from the adjoining rooms, even people moving bags, brushing their teeth, or plugging in phones. Imagine all that late at night.