Novotel Paris Saclay — Hotel in Palaiseau

My wife and I travel to the southern Paris area periodically for business. We've stayed in several different hotels and always are on the search for better ones. This was our first stay at Novotel Saclay.

Overall, the experience was acceptable. Not great, but not terrible. The room was spacious but it was arranged in a very strange manner: one side of the bed was extremely close to a wall and the mattress could not be moved because of a bedside fixture attached to the wall. We paid extra for a larger room, yes, but we ended up with a large room that had a bed affixed far too close to a wall. I felt cheated.

We also noted the scarcity of electrical outlets (prises). It presented a real problem. People travel these days with a lot of electrical devices -- multiple telephones, computers, hearing aids, CPAP machines -- and they all require outlets. I think we counted only two accessible outlets in the room. That's simply unacceptable.

Lastly, the mattress of our bed was uncomfortable. It seemed firm at the shoulder height and from the knees and down to the feet, but in the middle it was very soft, as if an extremely heavy person had slept in it for quite awhile and it was in need of replacement. Both my wife and I had sore backs the next morning from the lack of support. In fact, two days later my wife still is complaining about her sore back she acquired at your hotel.

But to me, the most frustrating thing about your facility was how billing for food service was handled. We paid for our room and breakfast ahead of time. The night of our stay, we decided to have dinner at your restaurant. It was fine. Not terrific. Not terrible. The servers were very polite. We were asked what our room number was, and we provided it. After we finished, we began walking back to the elevator and were accosted by a member of your staff. Although we weren't told in advance, we apparently had to go back and settle the bill at the bar. The person at the bar offered to put the cost of our dinner on our room invoice, but after several phone calls to someone, he determined that could not be done. Why that couldn't be done I still don't know. After decades of travel internationally, this is literally the first time that occurred. It was embarrassing as people lined up behind us while the person at the bar made call after call. Ultimately, I paid the bill at the bar and returned to our room.

The next morning we went downstairs for breakfast. When I checked in the day before, the person at the front desk gestured toward the restaurant and indicated that was where breakfast was served. Since we had paid in advance for the breakfast, we went downstairs to the breakfast area and walked toward a table. A staff person intercepted us and asked for our room number, which we provided.

After breakfast was over, we went upstairs, finished packing, and prepared to depart. I went down to the front desk to confirm everything was paid, and found out there was a problem. It appears the breakfast we had paid for ahead of time was some kind of limited service to be taken at the bar. No one explained that to us in advance, and neither of us recall anyone in the bar taking breakfast. Instead, everyone having breakfast was at the location the front desk person indicated where breakfast would be served when we checked in.

Again, several phone calls were made mentioning our room number. It appeared that I owed more money for the "special" breakfast we had had, but no one mentioned what that extra amount was. Eventually, the person at the front desk said everything was fine and I didn't owe anything more. I thanked her and departed.

But I got the distinct impression that I was being treated as if I was trying to get away with something: taking something I hadn't paid for. It was uncomfortable and left a bad taste in my mouth.

And why is that? Why is it both times I used your facility for food service the payment became something of a fiasco?

I have no idea.

But it's an unusual event. It makes me wonder about the communication and organization behind your facility.

We were happy, initially, with our stay at Novotel Saclay and thought perhaps we would return when business brought us back to the area. Now we're not so sure.

I'm not in your business so I'm not about to tell you how to run things, but the processes we experienced seem broken and dysfunctional. They take far too much time and effort and cause needless embarrassment and bad feelings. I can't help but think they could be...

We stayed here for 3 nights between the 23rd-26th August.||For a family the facilities were excellent. Swimming pool, Table Tennis, Crazy Golf, X-Box (which we didn’t let them use!!), board games and Table Football to name a few.||We have stayed in many Novotel hotels in the past, but we have never experienced the level of service we received from all the staff at the Saclay Novotel Paris.||We were greeted by an extremely professional and friendly receptionist, Celine, on arrival. She was very comprehensive on her explanation of the facilities, and made us feel extremely welcome. Her English was also superb.||We also found that every member of the staff at this hotel had an extremely friendly manner, with plenty of smiles to add to the enjoyment of our stay.||The breakfast staff were also efficient and friendly, as were the staff on duty in the evening, some of whom were the same people. The food served to us was also of an extremely good standard, both at breakfast and at evening meal. If you want an evening meal, I’d book as a couple of nights while we were there did get quite busy.||Our rooms were clean and prepared to a very good standard, and were kept like that daily by the housekeeping staff.||When we needed guidance for our trip into the centre of Paris, the staff went out of their way to make sure we knew what transport routes we needed.||Overall, we as a family can’t praise the staff enough for the way they made our stay so enjoyable, but particular praise must be given to Celine who was exceptional!||Displaying a smile and acknowledging a customer doesn’t seem such a difficult thing to do, but so many hotel staff miss out on doing this very simple task, that makes someone’s stay so much better. ||I always say to my children, “if you smile at the world, the world will smile back” and the staff certainly followed my mantra while we were there, making our visit much more pleasurable.||Was it the most modern and up to date building, no. |Was it a delightful period property, no.|Was it an ideal place on the outskirts of Paris for a family to have an enjoyable stay, with a secure, safe Car Park.....yes!||Overall, we couldn’t fault...

We stayed in this hotel as a stopover on a long-distance journey but made a point to arrive early to enjoy the facilities. In this respect, we weren’t disappointed. For a family wanting to have some evening activities, there was plenty: decent outdoor pool, mini-golf, table tennis, table football. Definitely a hotel where you can begin to build up a holiday feeling. However the overwhelming issue was the extortionate pricing at the bar, and to some extent restaurant. We’re more than happy to pay a premium where it’s justified but in this case they are blatantly cashing in on captive guests; we witnessed several other groups reeling in shock at the costs. We decided we would have to accept this is how things were and we would end up being a little conned. Fine. But on leaving, the receptionist processed our check-out and told us there was nothing to pay. Subsequently the hotel then contacted us to say that we still owed them more money. This was now hugely inconvenient/annoying/unnecessary - I had no issue in paying whatever I owed, even if it had felt overpriced - but this now creates stress and hassle as we left the hotel for our holiday. I feel they are deliberately evasive - I can only assume this is a deliberate tactic because they see so many complaints. I will be complaining to Novotel and requesting the CCTV showing that I checked out in person and gave the hotel the opportunity to charge me then and there. We are quite relaxed about price but this was enough to spoil our stay. The other issue is that this hotel is located right on the very edge of Paris - very little to do anywhere around it, so unless you want to travel over an hour into the city you are stuck there. So lots of potential, but the pricing...