Excelsior Batignolles

AVOID. Extremely dirty and room cleaning is non-existent. Excrement on bathroom door, rubbish, dirt, toenails on floor. Stained filthy carpet. Stinks of cigarettes, people smoke in non-smoking rooms. No sound-proofing, it is like the guests in the room next door are in the same room as you, sleep is impossible. Everything is worn and damaged.

I booked this hotel for a business trip because the pictures made the hotel seem like it was a cute, well-appointed little hideaway and for a 3-star hotel, it seemed like it would be a good value. I arrived at the hotel to a lobby that didn’t look terribly inviting (very institutional). I was given my key, got on the minuscule elevator, walked in the room, looked around and sat at the desk to book another hotel. This is NOT a 3-star hotel. It is 2 at best. The room was stiflingly hot (thermostat control was locked out), it had gnats, the hardwood floor didn’t look especially clean, the pillows were flat as pancakes and there were only two, the bed was hard as a rock, the bathroom impossibly small, it smelled funny etc. I handed the clerk my key and said it wasn’t to my standards (he just looked at me dumbfounded, no refund of any sort offered) and I went out into the rain to wait for an Uber. Though the pictures on the website might suggest it is a quaint Parisian hotel in a great neighborhood (and it is a great neighborhood, that is at least true), if you are used to any degree of comfort when you travel this will fall short. This property has no business advertising as a 3-star. I give it 2, at best. It is telling that I would have rather paid for another hotel out of my own pocket than spend even one night there. My lesson in all of this: read the one and two star reviews first. I gave two stars because the main crime here is that this hotel just isn’t what it purports to be. It is more reminiscent of a place that rents by the hour than a comfortable 3-star hotel.