Hôtel Balanea — Hotel in Calvi

Everything. The negative experience started as soon as we arrived at the hotel. Negative Experience 1, The hotel is in the middle of a pedestrian only zone so we had to park a half mile away to unload our luggage which were heavy and at capacity since this was the second leg of a four leg vacation. The hotel had no one available to help with the luggage. The only staff on duty when we arrived at 5:00pm was the front desk female receptionist and she said she was not allowed to leave the desk. We were never told and found out on our own, later during our stay, that there were parking spots close to and right behind the hotel where we could have pulled up and offload the luggage literally 10 feet from the hotel entrance vs the half a mile we had to walk with our luggage when we arrived. Negative Experience 2, There was a gross smell throughout the hotel that smelled old and musty which was off putting. Negative Experience 3, There was no Wi-Fi in our hotel for 2 days. They kept telling us in a very rude and unsympathetic way that because of the storm that blew through right before we arrived, we shouldn’t expect Wi-Fi, but the bar next door to the hotel we visited that first night had Wi-Fi. Negative Experience 4, The room size was half the size that was advertised. We booked the Panoramic Deluxe Room, Sea View that was listed at 409 feet. The actual size of the room turned out to be closer to 250 feet. The AC in our room was not working. We had to ask for a fan to be brought up to our room. This was the hottest summer in Europe on record and our room had no working AC. The light and charging port on my side of the bed was not working. The phone in the room was not working. Any request we had, we had to walk downstairs to reception. The AC, the Light and Charging port, and phone were never fixed and did not work throughout our stay. Negative Experience 5, The manager was not on duty when we arrived at the hotel and we when brought up all of our issues to her the next morning, her response was arrogant and condescending. She told us “ What did you expect? You booked a 3 star hotel.” Never mind that there are global standards all hotel globally must follow. Hotel Balanea is more of a 1 star hotel and not a 3 star hotel as advertised. She promised all the issues would be resolved by the time we returned to our room that day. That was the last and only time we saw or heard from the manager throughout our 5 night stay. As I have already stated, none of the issues with our room were ever resolved. The manager never followed up with us to check and see if things were better. It was obvious she did not care if we had a comfortable stay at her hotel. Negative Experience 6, Our bedsheets were never changed in the 5 nights we stayed at the hotel. Housekeeping only remade the bed and never changed the sheets. It is global standard in hotels that bedsheets gets changed every 3 days. Negative Experience 7, The shower walls and floor had brown mold looking stains on them. The bathroom was in dire need of a renovation or, at the very least, a fresh coat of paint. In summary I would not recommend this hotel. Stay at your own risk. There was no customer service to speak of and no warmth from most of the staff at the hotel. Most of the hotels in Calvi were at capacity which was the only reason we did not check out of the hotel after our first night. I would actually recommend that Hotel Balanea get out of the hotel business because they are...

The negative experience started as soon as we arrived at the hotel. Negative Experience 1, The hotel is in the middle of a pedestrian only zone so we had to park a half mile away to unload our luggage which were heavy and at capacity since this was the second leg of a four leg vacation. The hotel had no one available to help with the luggage. The only staff on duty when we arrived at 5:00pm was the front desk female receptionist and she said she was not allowed to leave the desk. We were never told and found out on our own, later during our stay, that there were parking spots close to and right behind the hotel where we could have pulled up and offload the luggage literally 10 feet from the hotel entrance vs the half a mile we had to walk with our luggage when we arrived. Negative Experience 2, There was a gross smell throughout the hotel that smelled old and musty which was off putting. Negative Experience 3, There was no Wi-Fi in our hotel for 2 days. They kept telling us in a very rude and unsympathetic way that because of the storm that blew through right before we arrived, we shouldn’t expect Wi-Fi, but the bar next door to the hotel we visited that first night had Wi-Fi. Negative Experience 4, The room size was half the size that was advertised. We booked the Panoramic Deluxe Room, Sea View that was listed at 409 feet. The actual size of the room turned out to be closer to 250 feet. The AC in our room was not working. We had to ask for a fan to be brought up to our room. This was the hottest summer in Europe on record and our room had no working AC. The light and charging port on my side of the bed was not working. The phone in the room was not working. Any request we had, we had to walk downstairs to reception. The AC, the Light and Charging port, and phone were never fixed and did not work throughout our stay. Negative Experience 5, The manager was not on duty when we arrived at the hotel and we when brought up all of our issues to her the next morning, her response was arrogant and condescending. She told us “ What did you expect? You booked a 3 star hotel.” Never mind that there are global standards all hotel globally must follow. Hotel Balanea is more of a 1 star hotel and not a 3 star hotel as advertised. She promised all the issues would be resolved by the time we returned to our room that day. That was the last and only time we saw or heard from the manager throughout our 5 night stay. As I have already stated, none of the issues with our room were ever resolved. The manager never followed up with us to check and see if things were better. It was obvious she did not care if we had a comfortable stay at her hotel. Negative Experience 6, Our bedsheets were never changed in the 5 nights we stayed at the hotel. Housekeeping only remade the bed and never changed the sheets. It is global standard in hotels that bedsheets gets changed every 3 days. Negative Experience 7, The shower walls and floor had brown mold looking stains on them. The bathroom was in dire need of a renovation or, at the very least, a fresh coat of paint. In summary I would not recommend this hotel. Stay at your own risk. There was no customer service to speak of and no warmth from most of the staff at the hotel. Most of the hotels in Calvi were at capacity which was the only reason we did not check out of the hotel after our first night. I would actually recommend that Hotel Balanea get out of the hotel business because they are...

We stayed here for one night whilst visiting Corsica ||||The hotel is just a 5 minute walk from the train station. If you are driving or coming by taxi, you won't be able to drive up to the front door as it's on a pedestrian steet||||The hotel is superbly situated. It's right in the heart of the Old Town by the shops, two minutes from the harbour and 5 minutes from the citadelle. The beach is less than a 10 minute walk away.||||The staff greeted us in a friendly manner and showed us up to our room. The room was quite large and brightly decorated and very clean with a view over the back street and up towards the citadelle. ||||We were advised of free WiFi but no matter how many vouchers we tried we couldn't connect. When we raised this at reception we were told that it was because we had Samsung phones and they weren't compatible with their WiFi. When 50% of phones sold around the world are Samsung, this just isn't acceptable so needs to be rectified. ||||But apart from this inconvenience, the hotel was of a good standard, clean and tidy with helpful staff. But it's main plus point is it's excellent location and...