l'Archipel

We had a wonderful eight days here for our anniversary. The staff were fantastic and made us feel welcome, and the pool area was a great place to relax. The rooms were comfortable and cozy, and it was very quiet apart from the occasional rooster or call to prayer. Loved it.

The pool area and grounds are lovely, and it’s a short walk to the centre of “town”. We hired bikes from the hotel and rode around the island. Our room was clean and tidy, and had been well prepared for our arrival. Breakfast was served in the room, simple but delicious. The hotel was so cute, and I’d definitely stay again and highly recommend it.

We ended up paying the same price for a much nicer, quiet four-star hotel, after a frustrating booking mix-up here. At 11pm in the off-season, I accidentally booked two nights starting that same night instead of the following night. I contacted the supposed 24-hour desk right away, but heard back more than 12 hours later. They said they couldn’t move the dates to other vacant days or refund us. They blamed booking.com, whose customer service confirmed they had enabled L'Archipel to issue a refund through the system, but the hotel still refused to help. We clearly hadn’t stopped anyone else from booking the room, so it felt like they were happy to keep our money because I’d made a mistake. We did try to sleep there that night, but a rooster right behind our room crowed nonstop and we got no rest.

We couldn’t get a good night’s sleep during our stay. Roosters behind the rooms started crowing around 4am and carried on until midday, and there was little soundproofing. We could even hear the next room’s alarm. Staff left earplugs out, but the rooms really need work to keep the noise out. The second pool is also tiny, about 1m square, so I wouldn’t describe the hotel as having two pools. The bathrooms could use some care too. They smelled, and one of our rooms had no hot water. The staff were very kind and extremely helpful, but for the price we paid, the stay was disappointing.