Citotel Du Midi

After a long day of travel, this was a huge disappointment. We arrived in Narbonne by train at 3 pm, half an hour before check-in, hoping to check in early or at least leave our big bags. The hotel was locked, dark, and completely empty. A note said reception opened at 3:30, so we had to wait outside with our luggage. I’ve stayed in hotels across three continents and have never been locked out when I only wanted to drop off my bags. When we finally got in, there was some problem at the front desk. The agent wasn’t comfortable explaining it in English, so she called the owner on her phone and asked him to come speak with us. He said he’d tried to charge my card the night before, the payment failed, and he’d cancelled the reservation and emailed me. I hadn’t checked my email while travelling around Europe. I also hadn’t seen anything in the confirmation saying they would charge the card the day before. The owner was very aggressive and basically said he’d cancelled because I had no money. I told him that couldn’t be right: I’d paid for a Paris hotel that morning, at eight times this price. I asked him to try my card again in front of me. It failed, then my partner’s card failed too, and so did our emergency card. He asked if it was because we had no money. I said we had plenty on the cards and asked if it might be his machine. He said that wasn’t possible because he’d taken payments from other people. He offered to let us go to an ATM and pay cash, saying he’d “allow that” because he preferred credit cards. He also offered to keep our bags while we went, but we didn’t trust him. His behavior was eccentric and made us very uneasy, and we no longer wanted to stay there. We left and checked into a much more expensive four-star hotel in the historic centre, where my card worked without any issue. We’d booked this place because it was recommended through our Grand Buffet reservation. I should have read the reviews first, especially the owner’s condescending replies to negative ones. He can’t take criticism and thinks he’s ALWAYS right. The hotel felt sketchy to both of us, and we couldn’t get out fast enough. We checked our card statements to make sure he hadn’t run all of our cards to scam us. Please do yourself a favor and don’t stay here.