Les Suites Massena

Let’s start off with the positives. The location of these apartments are excellent, close to the Old Town with it’s many restaurants and bars, and also about a 2min walk to the promenade. We arrived at these apartments at around 9pm and quickly found out there was no lifts, so climbed 2 flights of stairs to the reception. A guy was there and showed us to our room on the 3rd floor (another 4 flights of stairs) and gave us our room code. The room was modern and clean and what we wanted to do was put our valuables in the room safe and go out to get something to eat. It was a combination safe and usually, you enter 4 numbers and press the # key. But this didn’t work for us, we tried a number of times but nothing. We looked around for instructions nearby but couldn’t find anything. So I went back down the stairs to reception to ask the guy there how to operate the safe. He said he would come up the next morning at 10.00am to show us. I told him we were planning going out now and we didn’t want to carry around all our valuables (camera, tablets, passports etc) and I also mentioned, we’d booked a train in advance to Monaco for the morning, so wouldn’t be there at 10.00am. His response was to shrug his shoulders, in a manner that seemed to indicate “tough”. I thought….great first impression to give off to your customers. Also in the room was a coffee maker and a complimentary small bottle of water. No instructions for the coffee maker either but I quickly worked this one out (put coffee pod in, press full cup). What I didn’t expect, is for the coffee pods and water not to be replenished when used. We used the 4 pods left in the room within 24hr of our 4 night stay. We can get our own water but who goes out to buy coffee pods? Those stairs really start to get to you by the 3rd day, we came back after 8hrs of walking around only to get up to our room to find the code we were using to get into our room wasn’t working. So I goes down to the reception (same guy) and tell him we can’t get into our room. He says “oh yes I changed the code, here’s the new one”. I’m ready to drop and need to come down 4 flights of stairs and then go back up them because he decided he wanted to change the code. The place is in an ideal location but the staff have no consideration or respect for it’s guests. Most importantly, if you have any mobility issues, this place is definitely not for you.

À notre arrivée, à notre grande surprise, nous nous attendions à trouver un hôtel… Cependant, nous découvrons une simple plaquette à l’entrée de l’immeuble indiquant les suites Masséna. La réception se trouve dans un appartement ! Une situation inhabituelle, mais nous décidons de continuer . La personne qui nous accueille est aimable, bien que son français soit un peu hésitant. Heureusement, cela ne pose pas de problème : nous arrivons à nous comprendre. Nouvelle surprise : il ne s’agit pas d’un hôtel classique, mais d’appartements transformés en chambres. Cela aurait mérité d’être précisé lors de la réservation… Les points positifs La chambre est spacieuse, propre et joliment décorée. Les équipements sont appréciables : climatisation (utile en hiver où il fait froid), machine à café, produits d’accueil dans la salle de bain ouverte sur la chambre, et de jolis linges de bain. Un coffre-fort est disponible, ainsi qu’un fer et une planche à repasser. Enfin, la localisation est idéale, en plein cœur de la ville. Les points négatifs Pensant séjourner dans un hôtel, nous avons garé notre voiture dans un parking public. En été, cela doit être encore plus compliqué pour trouver une place durant periode estivale y penser. La veille de notre départ, on nous a demandé de régler notre séjour… alors que le paiement avait déjà été effectué à l’avance. Un point à vérifier avec soin. En résumé, une expérience originale, mais quelques aspects organisationnels pourraient être améliorés pour éviter toute confusion.