Le Jardin d'Emile — Hotel in Marseille

I am a seasoned traveler and have made bookings for years and years of travel based on Tripadvisor reviews. This is the first time where I feel completely perplexed (deceived!) by all the 5 star reviews. Actually I am shocked. ||First, I want to make clear that I do not enjoy writing negative reviews. But, in the interest of providing frequent travelers like myself with an honest assessment of this hotel, I feel compelled to do so.||Negatives:||• The hotel is not “quaint.” It is rundown, old and musty smelling. The room deodorizer used to cover up the mustiness gave me a headache. We had a room with a balcony, but that didn’t make up for the fact that the furnishings were very old and tired which made the place felt unclean as a result.|• The door to the balcony was hard to manage. With the high winds that night, we felt very lucky that it did not blow open during the night.|• The bathroom had a standalone tub, with NO separate shower stall. We skipped the bath.|• The lighting was very dim. I wondered if that was intentional.|• The main “lounge area” (which a prior reviewer praised), looked messy, old, and uninviting. I should have taken a picture.|• Breakfast needed to be ordered the night before – ok, I’ve experienced it at prior hotels. But they wanted you to tell them exactly what you wanted so that they could pick it up elsewhere in the morning to give to you. For 19 euros, only pastries and coffee available. Eggs, etc. were extra. For that price you could have 2 full, fresh breakfasts by walking the short distance to town.|• The pictures on the website are beyond deceiving. Not even close to what we saw.|• Here’s a kicker - when my husband and I walked into town for dinner, we were told if we returned after 9 am, that we would have to walk uphill to the hotel next door and ask them to unlock the gates to let us back onto our hotel property. Huh? |• And all of the above for 215 euros per night! We paid far less at other hotels on this trip with triple the amount of amenities, not to mention much nicer accommodations. Truly a rip-off.||Positives||• Parking is free|• The young lady who checked us in was very sweet and helpful. She provided us with several restaurant recommendations.|• While the room felt very old and musty, the bed sheets were at least clean. Not worth 215 euros though.||I would bet in its heyday that this was a charming boutique hotel. But it is clearly well past its prime and I wouldn’t even pay 50 euros to stay there now. Sorry. There are many other nicer hotels in the area to...

Mixed feelings about this one. Good points- location! Amazing. Close to town, opposite the very nice beach, great swimming and snorkelling, fantastic view, parking provided. Room was large and fairly nice. Jean is awesome. Bad points- hard to use our balcony because there was always someone chain smoking on the one below, hard to call it a non-smoking room when you have to keep it closed up or it fills with smoke. Most expensive breakfast anywhere we stayed. Broken air conditioner meant we had a flood every night and dripping noises, the staff were really nice about fixing it but I feel like we could have had a free breakfast or something to make up for walking around on a wet floor all the time. Because this place was really expensive. Just one piece of soap, no shampoo, one beach towel to share for three days. Very thick comforter which was unusable in the hot French weather. I feel like all this could be fixed easily to make the place twice as nice. So I would go again, because the location is so stunning, but it really could have...

Beautiful hotel. Quietly tucked behind another hotel, which at first I thought would be a negative but I enjoyed the privacy and the quiet. The view wins your heart immediately. The balcony of room 1 is so spacious it's essentially an extra room. We spent most of our time in the balcony, I set up my home office outside with the view of the Mediterranean while my partner rested inside. The hosts were very courteous. The breakfast, albeit a bit pricey, was also very nice. Loved the rustic vibe. The colors, the decorations were beautiful and really added so much to our trip. I have some small nitpicks: not having much privacy for the toilet, the dust in the balcony, etc but besides these miniscule gripes, our stay was perfect. Great location. Beautiful beach right outside with some cool cafes. Right on the way of your hike to Les Calanques so you save an extra maybe 5-10 mins versus if you stayed near the pier. Happy to recommend it to anyone, but the room we booked was mainly...