La Mandarine

My husband booked a room online for three people and the compulsory parking, and our confirmation said we'd paid for both. We relied on that confirmation and only later found that the payment we'd made was non-refundable. If we'd checked older reviews first, we wouldn't have booked. When we arrived, I was shown a room for three. My French is limited, but I understood that the woman wanted to discuss breakfast and other details. Using Google Translate, she told me we had only paid for one person and had to pay another €50, including for breakfast. We wanted to leave well before breakfast started at 8:30 a.m. My husband showed her the confirmation for three people, but she wouldn't accept it and kept insisting we owed more. She tapped her watch to indicate it was late, closed the outside shutters, and then, when someone else arrived, indicated she would deal with them instead. We refused to pay extra and drove through the night. Back in England, our bank said the payment could not be refunded. The room and parking were just about worth €80 for three people, but after seeing the room I wouldn't have paid €135, especially as breakfast was too late for us. The room looked clean, but it and the ensuite bathroom were dated. It also didn't look finished: a scrunched-up duvet had been left on the covered double bed, and she made clear it would stay that way. She wasn't helpful, friendly, or welcoming. At the time, we felt she'd tried to charge other people extra on arrival too, and we've since found multiple examples of this claim across several websites. The experience has put us off independent hotels and B&Bs when travelling through mainland Europe. From now on, we'll stick to international chains.