Hostellerie la Farandole

Nice place, great views, mostly great staff.

We were lured by the descriptions on the hotel website into paying an eye-watering price for a ‘deluxe’ suite at La Farandole, expecting it to be the highlight of our long-awaited 20th anniversary roadtrip. Sadly, it was the worst four days of our vacation. The only luxurious thing about this suite was the view. Everything else was a 3-Star standard at best. The hotel is situated at the end of a quiet beach with stunning sea views and a nice-looking pool but the property has many serious defects and problems. Strangely, the door to our suite shared a foyer with the staff entrance to a noisy kitchen and storeroom. Our ‘private’ terrace was not attached to our suite as implied on the website. Instead, there is a separate rooftop terrace that can be booked by guests. The suite itself has only a tiny balcony with two chairs and a table. We had access to the private roof terrace and jacuzzi but the stairwell is locked - ‘for staff use only’ so we had to take a slow elevator to the roof each time. This meant an awkward wait in the public corridor outside the restaurant. The water in the jacuzzi was filthy with dead insects and yellow foam. It was only cleaned on our third day. The worst problem was the nasty sewage smell in our suite. We reported it several times to the manager because the smell kept us awake at night. It was only fixed on our third day (with many apologies) and the installation of an air-freshener. The other issues were minor but collectively annoying. The bed was cheap and basic with small lumpy pillows and a bedsheet that did not fit properly. The mattress was old and uncomfortable. The bathroom and shower were good quality but there were no ‘luxury’ amenities as promised in the marketing - there was a cheap hair-dryer attached to the wall that kept cutting out. The wifi did not work in our room and the unit was eventually replaced by the manager (with more apologies), but only after a rude technician kept insisting it was a problem with our own ‘foreign’ devices. There was a coffee maker and a small mini-bar in the wardrobe but nowhere to store any wine or snacks. We received a complementary bottle of mineral water every second day but they forgot to replenish our glasses and the phone to reception was rarely answered, which meant frequent trips to the front desk. The reception staff were friendly and kind and clearly hardworking. They were very apologetic about the many problems we encountered but unable to do anything about our room or price. Housekeeping was sporadic and we had to go hunting for pool towels to use on the terrace. These were not changed for the full duration of our stay. The sun-beds on the terrace were dirty and in disrepair, with bits of old scratchy velcro where the pillows had once been. On day one we found an old cigarette butt on the lounger that was still there when we left. We tried to book appointments at the hotel spa, which looked nice, but we were told they were fully booked - even though the h