Hotel Alexandrie

I came to Paris recently on a visit with a group of friends and our travel planner had booked this hotel. I am fairly certain they did NOT look at these reviews before booking the hotel. Yes, it’s situated conveniently not far from the Gare de Lyon to access train and metro system however that is the end of the list for positive things.
I will just list what I experienced. I hope those of you that read this find it helpful and find other more suitable accommodations. On my next visit to Paris, I will not be staying here. If I could rate this a negative star, I would, but one star is the lowest I could give.
1) Only ONE room key is issued to the room. On my visit, this was an issue because two people were in a room and they were coming and going at different times.
2) You have to turn the key into the desk before leaving the hotel each day. I am not sure why this rule exists, perhaps for safety if someone loses a key but frankly, then have better security at your front door.
3) Hairdryer is worthless and unsafe. The air that blows out is luke warm at best yet I almost burnt my hand holding the tube — not safe.
4) Wear flip flops in the shower for traction in the tub. If not, you risk slipping and falling. There is no such thing as a rubber mat in this hotel.
5) AC didn’t work. We were here in the early June time frame and Paris can get warm. We turned on the AC, which is preset not to cool below 18 degrees Celsius and it wasn’t cooling the room at all.
6) Staff doesn’t understand English all that well (this story also relates to the poor service by the room service staff). We specifically asked one day for the service staff to leave ON the A/​C (we closed all the windows and pulled the curtains closed so the room would be cool) and yet we came back to the room with it too hot because the AC was broken and/​or not cooling well, but also the bathroom window had been opened (which would have been done by the service staff). Now come on, seriously!!! Why would be ask for the A/​C to be on all day to keep the room cool then have the window open during the hottest part of the day? When we called down to the front desk to tell about our room not being cool, the lady at the front desk didn’t understand what we were trying to tell her and told us to wear a coat. Really? Wear a coat? We are trying to keep it cool because it’s too hot. We don’t need a coat.
7) Overpriced for what you get. The room is super small. I have vacationed in Europe before and had much larger rooms; these rooms are terribly small compared to my last Europe vacation. It is very difficult to have two people in the room with two suitcases. My roommate and I on this trip were constantly in the way of each other because the room was so small.
I realize we are in a different country and English isn’t everyone’s first language however when you have a business that has people from all over the world coming to buy your services of a hotel, English is the language of business and should be understood enough to effectively communicate things related to staying at the hotel. We live in a global world — it’s just not the French staying at this hotel.

The hotel is situated near Gare d’ Lyon which is a perfect area if you are going to be taken the metro system and or the train system around Europe. The rooms have space, our room even had a closet in which you could put your luggage and hang clothing. It was clean although the 4^th floor states is non-​smoking yet there was the lingering smell of cigarrettes. Price wise, I think it was a little pricey for the type of hotel that it was.
A heavy set gentleman helped us upon arrival, or failed to do say since we had to wait until he was done on the phone before helping us. He didn’t even acknowledge us until he hung up and even then was indifferent about the whole situation. We also asked not to have our room serviced and they still did it. The free bottle of water a day was nice though. Their wifi worked really well and was never down. They generate username and passcodes that expire after your stay for you upon arrival so only people currently staying at the hotel have access to their wifi.

We stayed here during our Honeymoon to Paris. We really didn’t need a luxurious room, but we wanted something decent. At first glance this place looked great, but once we started using the room there were some real letdowns. The bed was like a hot dog bun, we were both sinking into the middle… But to make things really bad, there were no sheets or blankets on the bed, only the nasty comforter that you’re suppose to toss off of the bed immediately on arrival. We realized this around 11pm so my husband went downstairs to ask the front desk for sheets and a blanket. He was told that he would have to wait until the morning because the person at the front desk did not know where to look for sheets and blankets. So our first night was spent bundled up in extra clothing to stay warm. Not an ideal nights sleep. We actually considered switching hotels last minute, but we decided it was too late and we should just try to get some rest.
The next thing I noticed was how horrible the hotel blow dryer was. It blew out room temperature, muggy air, that did absolutely nothing. I had packed a blow dryer but due to the higher voltage I was unable to use it without it almost exploding, so I either had to air dry or attempt to use this crappy blow dryer.
A few other things to note, we never saw the same person twice at the front desk. I guess they have a lot of staff. Some of the front desk staff spoke English pretty well, others not so much. They were not rude, but not very helpful. However, when we went to check out there was a young man working the desk and he was very nice and offered to call us a cab to the airport since it was raining outside. He even went as far to ask us where we were from. After telling him that we live in Los Angeles he literally gasped and had to take a deep breath. He explained that he dreamed about going there one day. It was a nice way to end our time at Hotel Alexandrie, which we will not return.