Novotel Orléans St Jean de Braye

For a long trip, this makes a great stop. The location is convenient, the rooms are really clean, and there’s a nice outdoor pool, plus places to lounge inside and outside. The staff were lovely, but the restaurant let the stay down. It was expensive, the food wasn’t good, and service was slow. It felt like it needed some investment, maybe more staff. I’d stay again, but wouldn’t eat there. It needs a bit of care. Novotel restaurants are usually great.

The rooms we booked seemed like a category of their own. One had a terrible smell and wet patches on the carpet. We told reception and were moved to a room on another floor. We asked to move the other room too so we could stay together, and even offered to pay, but they wouldn’t do it. Later we found hairs from heads and bodies in the bathtub. When we reported it, reception only said the cleaner had been busy. They offered no way to improve things, so we didn’t get to have a bath during our stay. At dinner, the restaurant was at most half full, but we were told we needed a reservation to get a table. We made one, then waited 30 minutes to be seated. In the morning, someone asked how our stay had been. We described what happened and got no response. That summed up the whole experience.

Breakfast was great, and the hotel was very nice and clean. The shower wall could use some scrubbing, though.

I was traveling alone with an injured foot and couldn’t walk, so I used a luggage trolley to get around. At breakfast I struggled to get a drink and carry it to my table, but none of the women working there offered to help. Some other guests helped me get a coffee. The service was very disappointing.