Hotel Jacques de Molay

The location is incredible, and the staff are friendly. Breakfast was a decent continental spread, and we had a pretty good stay overall. The room was okay, somewhere in the middle, but the price is very high compared with nicer hotels. And the “gym” barely deserves the name, it’s probably the smallest hotel gym in the world.

There are plenty of places to eat nearby, plus a supermarket around the corner. Laundry, coffee shops, and a bakery are all on the same block, and public transit is easy to use. The location is great, and the staff were really nice and accommodating with English-speaking visitors. The room’s A/C worked very well. The bathtub is a little awkward and could be treacherous, but it does the job. Weekend nights can get somewhat noisy, though the windows block a lot of the sound.

The reception looked lovely, and the confirmation on Amazon showed a modern room. What we got was in disrepair, with damp wood, peeling paint, and mold. The mattress was painfully hard and I could feel the springs. My daughter was upset the next morning, wheezing and with a desperately sore back. We left promptly. Reception said the owner sleeps late and told us to email so they could see what he might do. We sent photos, but more than a week later there’s still been no reply.

We booked this as one of the few hotels available in Le Marais for our unexpected few nights in Paris. The highlight photo made it look like a good fit, and when we called, they said they had a room for two. After checking in, we found our room was so tiny that we couldn’t even open one suitcase, let alone fit a second. We asked downstairs and were shown another room with a key, but it was hardly any bigger. We’ve stayed elsewhere in Europe and understand rooms are smaller than in America, but neither room had space to open our luggage. The whole thing took about 20 minutes. I said the room wouldn’t work and asked for a refund. The man at reception agreed and called his manager, then said I’d have to come back the next day to get the money, which was odd. The manager only refunded part of the nights and charged us for the one night we’d spent those 20 minutes in the room. They sold us a room that wasn’t suitable for two and kept our money. It was really discouraging. The place isn’t as advertised, and the photo wasn’t of the building or a room view, it was something totally different. Don’t stay here.