Hôtel Crayon Rouge - Louvre Palais Royal — Hotel in Paris

I stayed for a week. The staff was very friendly, helpful, and they spoke very good English. The location is great, as it is about two blocks from the Louvre, Royal Palace, Les Halle. Of course, Pont Neuf, Notre Dame, Jardin de Tuillerie, and Place du Concorde are very close, too. I walked everywhere, although there are Metro stations every few blocks.

This is my first time there, although I am in my late fifties. The city is as amazing as I had imagined--there are unparalleled monuments, e.g., Arc de Triomphe, Pont de Alexandre 3 at every turn. The people seemed especially attractive, too. Everyone was very friendly, and seemed to appreciate it if I tried my limited French skills with them.

Some minor points about the hotel. The rooms are small. They are like an average sized bedroom at an average American house, and not like the average hotel room here. Of course, it is in the middle of the city with a moderate price.

The bathroom sinks are placed under the shelf for toiletries, so I couldn't get my head under the shelf (over the sink), and my feet got soaked everytime I tried to shave.

One warning not related to the hotel, I walked to the RER station at Les Halle when I was leaving and had several bags I was trying to manage. As I put my ticket through the entry gate and pushed my bags through before me, a man crowded me from behind and pushed his way through on my ticket. I thought he might be trying to get free entry at first, but then I realized that he was a pick-pocket. When I got to the train, after searching for it for ten minutes, I looked up, and he was ten feet from me. He obviously was following me. I got off at the next station, and he got off, too, but then I jumped back on, as I watched him walk away. Pay attention to your...

Avoid in general, avoid even more if you´re on a business trip.

Issue 1: I made a reservation by mistake for 2 people instead of 1 (the standard amount of people they input in their reservation system) and when I realised the mistake, they refused to reimburse the 19e breakfast costs for 2 nights. All this despite the fact I made the effort not to book on Booking.com so they would save the commission.

Issue 2 - the biggest one: I think there rooms are not in line with the 4 star standards. For 4 stars, they are supposed to offer a 70sqm common area which is obviously not the case here. The only common area is so small you don´t want to sit there. For 4 stars, they are supposed to offer 16sqm rooms as a minimum. I could be wrong but doubt it s the case for the "insolite" room I had. Btw, on the website, they mention it is 12sqm. It was so tiny I did not even have more then a 10cm wide bedstand to put things on. No tiny office to work in the room, yet they are looking for guests traveling for work.

Issue 3: let s talk about the "eat all you can" breakfast. Very limited bread availabilities, limited gluten free availabilities. I was offered a piece of gluten free bread that was so tiny it was awkward.

Issue 4: the staff in the morning and at night were in training and even though they were super nice and wanted to apply common sense and reimburse me, their manager wouldn´t. At some point, I thought I would not even be able to see the manager to have a decision as she arrived after 9:15am... Kind of a blocker if you have...

BEWARE: THIS IS AN AIR BNB, NOT A HOTEL. Such false advertising. We just checked out of a suite they described online as "metres from the hotel" and I think they should advertise it honestly- this is an AIR BNB off site being run by a hotel not a few metres but at least a hundred metres away. There is no towel, bed or daily service unless you want to pay 40€ per service (!!!!). There is no staff on the premises whatsoever. If we wanted an air bnb, we are capable of finding one on THE AIR BNB website. Not through a hotel which is precisely what we wanted for the daily service, being able to give us directions or a restaurant recommendation. In addition to all of this, the reception wrote down THE WRONG SUITE NUMBER and send us on an hour hunt by ourselves with all our luggage (again, because there is no staff in the apartment building and no one offers to assist you with your bags. Some hotel!) we were calling them multiple times and they wouldn't even walk over to let us into the suite. The suite is very hard to find without precise information as the building has three elevators all going to different areas that don't connect, another fact they left out when giving us directions. We would absolutely not recommend. At least with an Air BNB you can meet someone to be let in on site and they are kind enough to tell you a couple of restaurants or let you know where the metro is. Too bad because the suite is lovely but if we wanted an air BNB we would have booked one. We wanted a proper hotel for...