Just spent 3 nights there.

Virtuoso booking classic room at EURO 330 including with free beach chairs & breakfast : which are a EURO 190 value.

Got a double or triple upgrade to an executive suite, hotel has 3 of them : 117, 118 & 119 city view only.
Basically 2 rooms and 2 bathroom so 4 sinks total ) , probably around 600 / 700 sqft, pretty large.

Nice welcome amenity : bottle of wine + 2 juices + fruit basket.
(With amex FHR you have a bottle of
" nicolas feuillant", this is a cheap champagne.

4 pm late check out used. Seems one of the few hotels where they guarantee me a 4 pm late check out for virtuoso booking.

I have not been there for a good 6 months and overall I feel that the service is better than before.

The beach restaurant & hotel restaurant are a little slow but we all have time in the south )

Beach restaurant has the buffet on sunday only, while they used to have it daily.

The beach club offer a very good service.
My little girl was really treated like royalty.

The big question : does the carlton a luxury hotel ?. I'll reply yes maybe because they treat us very well and IMHO service is the number one factor to qualify for a luxury hotel.

The Carlton will be even better when/if they renovate the rooms and this is needed.

Some of their staff is great, really amazing, and ...this level of service is rare in France (ok bite me for saying that)
I'm thinking of a manager called Raphael for example. if he changed hotel I'll follow him.(Except if he moved to ibis budget as they have no champagne breakfast there)

At the opposite, I have never met the GM, Mr Chopinet, despite we exchanged by emails few times. Wonder if he has ever greeted some of you ? I never saw him in the hotel neither.