This chic little boutique hotel which has the infamous claim to Oscar Wilde living out his last days in one of its rooms has long been a favourite of my family, but oh how times have changed...

On arrival last weekend with my three guests we discovered, much to our horror, that only one room had been booked [whereas two had been reserved] and that the hotel was fully booked.

I dug out the confirmation from my [excellent] travel agent, who had recorded an earlier amendment to change the booking from one to two rooms, even quoting that this had been confirmed with a gentleman [name recorded but not quoted here] who runs the front desk.

Things went from bad to worse when said same gentleman denied all knowledge of the reservation amendment. During a series of ever-more frantic phone calls from him to the hotel manager [conspicuous by his absence and no doubt chasing skirt on La Croisette] the hapless chap hadn't factored in that I understand enough of the French language to have been able to work out what was going on - he realised he'd balls'd up but didn't want to admit the error to me.

Call me old fashioned, but for me the hallmark of a good hotel is that sorting out a problem - should one occur - should appear effortless and reach a conclusion which is going to go down a treat with the guest.

To cut a long story short, we all decided to leave the hotel and check-in somewhere else. But only felt it fair to warn the FT community that L'hotel has gone downhill in a very big way.

Of course, it might've just been my misfortune and others of you may have spent many a happy night there...