Hôtel Riquet

There was construction work at the hotel, and the noise made the stay very uncomfortable. Nobody warned us about how loud it would be. I also arrived to find no air conditioning in the room, which was especially uncomfortable with the outside temperature as high as 32 C. I found the service extremely unprofessional. I can't recommend this hotel.

The staff were friendly and spoke several languages, and the hotel is less than a ten-minute walk from the train station, which mattered to us. But the room itself was awful, and I don't trust the mostly positive online ratings after this stay. It made me want to leave Toulouse as quickly as possible, which was a shame because the city seemed nice. We only ended up at Hotel Riquet because the Ours Blanc Wilson lost its entire fifth floor in a rainstorm after we'd booked there. We found out at the OBW after arriving from the airport. Hotel Riquet felt like a two-star room at best, worse than some two-star rooms I've had in the US, despite supposedly being three-star. The decor was rough, parts of the bathroom had mold, and the room was stuffy. Management controlled the air conditioning and wouldn't let us use it because, they said, it wasn't "warm enough" outside. This was in late May. We couldn't leave the windows open after dusk because mosquitoes came in. The Wi-Fi wouldn't work on either my or my wife's iPhone, though I could connect on my laptop. The room phone didn't work either, so there was no way to call the front desk. If we hadn't unpacked already, I would have asked for another room, though I'm not sure that would have helped. Proper ventilation would make a difference.

The breakfast was very good, with fresh food and plenty to choose from, and the welcome at the entrance was warm. Our room was really nice, with a big bathroom and a very good bed. The hotel is in central Toulouse.

When they eventually moved me after several miserable days, the new room was clean, comfortable, and best of all, free of ants. In the first room, they were everywhere: in the bed, across the bathroom and walls, dozens or maybe hundreds of them. They appeared to be coming from the bathroom, where there were the most, even though it had no window. Some gathered on the wall above the bed and would occasionally fall onto my face while I was trying to sleep. I added a picture of that. The owner's response seemed to blame some imagined negligence on my part, but management knew about the infestation and seemed unable or unwilling to do anything.