Mama Shelter Paris La Défense — Hotel in Arrondissement of Nanterre

The hotel markets itself as being somewhat alternative, relaxed and unconventional, with all sorts of references to “Mama” doing this or that, which becomes rather silly after the second or third incident. The fact that “Mama loves you”, scribbled across the mirror in my room, was rather annoying than reassuring, given the fact that “Mama” had so many spectacular defects: (1) Mama is absolutely filthy! The breakfast room on the 14th floor is so unbearably dirty and unclean that you would pay money to give the place a thorough makeover. The sujet looks like one of those student parties at 03:00 a.m. when the event starts to spiral into drunken chaos - which is remarkable because the breakfast room looks like that mess just 30 minutes after opening with 10 quiet guests (Please see photos). Instead of trained service people you find a bunch of juvenile men and women with silly name badges, looking like students at their firstyear orientation event. When you ask these people politely to do some actual work, like getting a plate or cleaning the mess on the table where you are supposed to eat food, they look at you with a mixture of indignation and honest incomprehension. I am really curious to know what these kids actually thought catering for hundreds of paying customers wound involve? As far as I could tell, keeping supply coming for the buffet, returning dirty plates, refilling coffee, cleaning food plates, cleaning containers was considered indecent or inadequate to ask. I have been to hotels around the globe, but I cannot recall ever having witnessed that degree of incompetence and lack of instruction in one place! You could clearly see that these juveniles honestly had no idea, no concept, no training, no guidance or instruction on how the system around them was supposed to work, other than having a chat with their best buddy and following a sudden impulse to perform absolutely unnecessary tasks from time to time. I could go on and on, the bread is situated on one side of the rectangular buffet island - anything you might want to actually put on that bread, however, on the opposite side. Cold drinks are on the front side, warm drinks opposite on the back side - which results in loads of guests circling the buffet round and round getting increasingly unnerved. Bread crumbs, Croissant flakes virtually everywhere. Dish signs never renewed, dirty, soiled, stained. Cheese sweaty, salad leaf decorations three days old, scruffy, collapsed, wedged under the edge of the tray cover door (please see photos). High-quality Tea specialties are presented in dirty, indented tin containers, the lid open all week to ensure that all the precious flavour gets lost. (2) Mama doesn’t like soap(!). As part of some failed environmental campaign the entire hotel does not offer fluid soap or shower gel, but small bricks of soap which are so alkaline that they kill your skin’s acid barrier right away and cause rash and itching all day long. (Please see photos, I am not inventing this freak-show!) Mama thinks it’s feasible to wash your hair with a coarse brick of soap from the 1950s. How can it be environmentally friendly to distribute tiny, coarse soap blocks, each one wrapped in an inner liner and a cardboard box?? (3) Mama has no sense of smell. In my room the cleaner did a fantastic job cleaning bathroom and bed every day. However there was a noticeable stench of feces emanating from behind the cladding where the drainage pipes are located. I always wondered why nobody contacted the caretaker about this during 5 days of stay? In summary, one wild travesty of a hotel, a masterpiece walk-in gallery of failed management and lack of competence. People appreciate casual, improvised dormitory atmosphere - at the University while they are first year students, but NOT in the hospitality and service business. Dear Mama: One word of advice: If you are not passionate about food, don’t become a chef. If you don’t like serving strangers on a regular basis, then don’t...

This is the second and for sure last time I stay in a mama shelter. They pretend to be part of all accor hotel group but when it comes to fulfill the right that an all accor member has, they deny saying the rules at their hotel are different. One thing I can’t complain is how friendly the receptionist are, also at the bar very friendly and helpful staff. Also the rooms are nice and you have a beautiful view.

The disgusting thing about this hotel is the management. First of all the reception supervisor, a person who does not even say hello when they come to solve a problem. The person showed a very unprofessional way of interacting with the guests. What a bad example for the reception staff.

Second issue the breakfast, it’s supposed to be from 7-11 am but apparently they have at 12:30 another event in the breakfast room. So at 11 am they are kind of trying to kick you out of the restaurant so that they can prepare the room. In that case I think , guests would understand better if the manager there would say it in a nice way, but no the woman came towards us telling us to hurry up. Secondly if they know they have such a short time to prepare the tables then they should offer breakfast only until 10:30 for example.

Third issue: as an accor diamond member you have the right of late checkout if available rooms are there. First they tried to charge 30 euros for late checkout … saying that the all accor rules are different for them. Then once they were “friendly” and said it won’t cost anything, the next day they called at noon to ask at what time we will Leave room. Really disrespectful , you don’t feel welcome at all in this hotel just because they offer privileges they don’t want to accomplish. So they scam on you.

Btw… the welcome drinks are just water… so ridiculous in that case don’t offer anything with the typical excuse that the all accor rules don’t apply for them.

Again nice modern hotel, nice staff but horrible management...

I stayed at Mama Shelter for a short trip of 3 days.||||The first night I arrive at 10pm, after a long trip but there is no hot water so I am not able to take a shower. When I ask the receptionists, they said they are just receptionists and have nothing to do, they were not able to give me any answer regarding the situation, nor an hour of when the hot water will be back. Important to notice that it was 3 degrees in Paris and after a long trip all you need is a hot shower. that's the minimum.||||Since I was tired, I didn't have the energy to have dinner in the restaurant, but I was surprised when the team told me that they don't do room service, I have never stayed in a hotel that dont serve in the room. So they were not able to send me food to my room and I was forced to go up to the busy/electic bar restaurant with music and a lot of people to have dinner there. ||I was not able to eat since I had a terrible headache from the trip and of course the loud music. ||First night was horrible and a compilation of bad experiences that none of the team seemed to care about.||||Next day at 7-8am in the morning, the noise of a construction site in front woke me up. great news! and exactly what I needed.||||Last night - some people in a room were partying all night until 3am with loud music. ||||No letter of excuse, gesture, or any kind word was presented during the stay or during the check out. The receptionist didn't even ask if I had a good stay? or anything - they didn't seem to much care about anything except just getting paid and for me to leave. ||||It is not my first time at Mama Shelter, as I already stayed at London before, and I chose this one in Paris even if it's in la defense and a bit far from my activities, only because I wanted to ensure a good stay, but at the end it was a bad experience overall that costed me money, energy and zero apology or compensation.||||I will not come back to...