Hotel Balzac

Location. Location. Location. The size of the junior suite was nice with a good sized closet room and spacious bathroom.

Too hard mattress (felt like we had been in a boxing match every morning). Thermostat for hot water not working in shower (potentially could have burnt ourselves). Had to ask for hair conditioner the first day (they had it in exactly the same smalll shampoo/bath gel/body lotion bottles), but housekeeping didn’t see to it that we had a fill up on hair conditioner every day (hmmm...why?). No bidet, but fancy in toilet bottom /front wash, but the system didn’t work properly. No complimentary water (except on 1 st day), else 7 Euros per water bottle in minibar! Reception personnel and concierge not really working as a team to service clients (more like a - this is not my job, ask him/her over there). Would I stay here again? Even though the location was perfect, Unfortunately the bed was too uncomfortable, so no. I could easily get round the shower (by taking a bath), housekeeping by bugging them, but the bed - there was no way round that one.

The location of the hotel is great - really just meters from Champs-Elysees and Arc de Triomphe as well as Lido de Paris and all the shops and restaurants on the famous avenue! The service is very good as well - the concierge loaded a luggage trolley with our suitcases as soon as we got out of the taxi and they checked us in immediately and let us leave our suitcases at the front desk until we could access our rooms because we were early. Everybody was very accomodating all the time. The decor was nice and there was a bathroom in which you could take a shower or a bath so if it is difficult for you to enter bathtubs there is another option for a shower. There are also grocery shops and pharmacies nearby. The internet was working well as well and the hotel was very clean. Overall, we really enjoyed our stay at the hotel very much!

The hotel is very nice but is quite old, one of our rooms had a very strong air freshener smell and we had to open the windows a couple of times, but we really enjoyed our stay overall. There was no hot water kettle or coffee/tea in the room.

It was traditional classic French, which is what we wanted. Staff were very friendly. Room was clean and great shower. Superb location for champs elysee and buzz of the city.

The bar area was very disappointing, verging on boring. We went for drinks on the evening of my wife's birthday, it was happy hour but the barman tried to charge full price...18 euro for a glass of champagne!! When I challenged him his excuse was that I had not told him I wanted to pay happy hour....!? Had to take own luggage up to room after a long day travelling. It's the little things that seemed to be missing that makes me think this should be 4 star...it just didnt have that edge needed for 5 star.