I finished a two-night award stay.

1. The driving directions on the internet were bad and made little sense when I approached the city in my car, so I called the hotel from my cell and got a lot of "oui oui" and "yes yes" without the girl clearly hearing out what my issues were (apparently because her English was pretty bad -- she just said "it is too complicated" after I'd made a couple attempts at clarifying directions). So she was no help. I landed up calling back later and talking to another guy, who finally clarified the directions so I could get there.

Somehow they'd managed to book me two rooms instead of one, so that had to be clarified.

2. At check-in the same "oui oui" girl was there, to whom I spontanouesly handed my reward certificates; she checked me in and then quickly handed the certs back to me, saying she didn't need them anymore (at check-out 2 days later, after I'd almost thrown them out thinking the hotel was done with them, the check-out clerk wanted them after all so I had to go digging through luggage already packed up to find them.

3. executive lounge was closed so I can't comment on that; I was given a pass to get open bar (excluding cocktails, excluding snacks) access at the bar in the lobby.

4. room on exec level was small but ok size for europe, with the in-room coffeemaker not working appropriately (constantly on) and coffee drinking items incomplete and not replenished the next day.

5. a piece of the faucet in the bathroom kept coming off in my hand; I left it conspicuously out for the maid to see, she just put it back into the broken spot without calling maintenace to fix it.

6. I had dinner at the hotel restaurant -- one of the worst meals I've ever had in France. Dried out chicken, a tomatoe/shellfish "soup" that was more like a thick cold mush without much flavor, dried out bread.

7. welcome amenity in the room was a half bottle of wine, nice, but no wine bottle cork opener in site, plus fruit, some of which was brown/rotton looking. I ate the pineapple slice they'd brought and the maid left the rind of it on the dirty plate with the used knife and fork the next day without cleaning it up.

I sent two pairs of pants to the laundry, they overcharged me on the bill and that had to be taken care of at check-out.

8. it's outside of town, which I knew in advance so no surprise there, but an easy cab ride away (or you can try and take the tram). nothing around it for convenient tasty dining.

9. breakfast (included as a Diamond) was in the downstairs restaurant because the lounge was closed -- ok enough, typical european buffet fair, except for the luke-warm pre-made coffee they poured me out of a carafe that had obviously been sitting around a long time, and tasteless scrambled eggs that badly needed salt.

10. front desk and housekeeping staff were friendly but with generally poor english skills
for an American chain hotel

11. wirless internet non-existent access on my computer, had to use the desk connection, that did work ok for the usual high fee.

Overall: the best thing about my stay there was it was free on points, clean, and reasonably close to town. It was not a stress-free experience, or a place I'd really look forward to going back to. If I were ever to stay there again, I would avoid eating there for dinner and bring my own in-room coffee and wine supplies, and set low expectations, in which case I might be pleasantly surprised next time around.