J5 Hotels Helvetie — Restaurant in Montreux

According to the hotel group’s own website, their motto “is to provide you and your family with an extraordinary experience, such that you truly feel like you are at home with us”.||||This would perhaps be true if your home was down-at-heel, unloved, lacking in any modern comforts, and very, very tired. There’s a place for faded grandeur, but this hotel was just aged and shabby. ||||Everywhere is expensive in Montreux, and especially so during the annual jazz festival. A shortage of mid-range chain hotels doesn’t help this, as the choice seems to be to pay a premium for luxury, or take your chances at a lower price. Although at around 300CHF per nights, the J5 Hotels Helvetie in Montreux could never be considered cheap.||||We paid well in advance to get the best rate we could, and after reading online reviews - which were mostly favourable. We must also must pay credit to the hotel’s photographer who seems to have managed to turn this rather run down and tired old hotel into something quite attractive.||||The hotel is, as others have noted, well located and around a 10 minute walk from the station or from the lake. But, the positives for us end here.||||Check in was a slow, painful process without any warm welcome. Actually, without any welcome at all to speak of. After handing over our ID, we were largely ignored as the receptionist continued to type away at her keyboard before finally we were presented with our key (which promptly fell apart. Perhaps a harbinger of things to come). ||||The hotel’s public areas do have a kind of dated charm, and we passed through them to reach the lift to our fourth floor room. The rather dismal corridors were somewhat reminiscent of The Shining. ||||The room was amongst the most basic I have stayed in in decades. I have come to expect no air conditioning (especially in older buildings in Switzerland) but the room was extremely hot, with one tired fan provided to help cool the room down. This presented its own challenges as with only three plug sockets in the entire bedroom (and one of these hidden behind the television), it became a choice of fan or tv; fan or bedside light. Again, with only a single plug socket each side of the bed, we had to make a choice between charging our phones or using the bedside lamp. Oh, and no headboards!||||Complimentary WiFi is provided but it’s slow (by modern standards) and unreliable. ||||The tiny bathroom was well overdue a refurbishment, with a cracked shower tray, a dirty looking shower curtain and poor quality toiletries. Of course, it wasn’t necessary to use the shower at all, as the constant dripping of condensation from the pipes in the ceiling meant you could benefit from a “shower” of sorts simply by standing at the bathroom sink.||||Worthy of a mention too is that the bedroom did have a safe for valuables, but as this wasn’t fixed to the wall or the small, drab cupboard in which it was housed (and where 4 coat hangers were also provided) there was little point using it - the safe could just be lifted up and carried away with valuables still inside.||||Breakfast was Swiss style - cold meats, cheese and pastries and basic. Coffee was at least passable. ||||With a massive injection of capital, the hotel could perhaps be a rather pleasant, characterful place to stay. Without it, it’s a grim experience worth nowhere near what the hotel charges. We were due to stay for three nights but had to leave after only one. ||||I should add that I did attempt to contact hotel management by email to discuss my concerns, but I am still waiting for a response. There seems to be one member of staff responsible for everything in the hotel overnight, so don’t expect service of any sort. ||||Stay here at your...

We’ve traveled across continents and stayed in everything from budget hotels to luxury resorts — but J5 Hotels Helvetie Montreux is hands down the worst experience we’ve ever had. If you’re considering booking here, don’t. Just don’t.| 1. Air conditioning deception – Some rooms have AC, most don’t. But guess what? No booking site tells you which is which. So you could end up paying over $400 per night for a hot, stuffy room with nothing but a weak fan — in humid Swiss summer. We live in Arizona and can handle heat, but this was unbearable.| 2. Zero empathy or help – When we raised the issue, staff told us we could pay $120 extra per night for different rooms — that’s on top of the already outrageous $410/night we had paid. No room switch, no extra fan, no solutions. Just a shrug and upsell.| 3. Outdated and inconvenient – Still using one old-school metal key per room. Not even a keycard. So if your family is out and someone wants to come back early, good luck.| 4. Overpriced for what you get – The location is central, sure. But none of it is worth the price or pain. Montreux has excellent public transport — stay a little further out at a hotel that actually meets basic standards.||This place is a tourist trap. It looks charming from the outside and might show decent pictures online — but it is a completely misleading, overpriced, and outdated hotel with no regard for guest comfort.||Avoid this hotel at all costs. You’ll thank...

Well presented hotel with large rooms and very nicely renovated en-suite. You do need to catch a lift to the 1st floor reception desk but this is not a big issue. Staff are friendly and professional, and you will only be issued with a single room (physical door key). When leaving the hotel for an day outing it’s a good idea to leave your key with the front desk.

Breakfast is basic, hot eggs are boiled and pastries, some cold meat and cheese, with cereal and juices, and offered between the hours of 7-10am.

The rooms have plenty of USB charger points, 1000 channels on the large screen TV including some English although I found it hard to get pictures on the English Channels. Large French doors are double glazed and open to an outside patio view (which you’ll be lucky if your room has one of the patios included).

On the first day we found in our room two bottles of spring water provided. Rooms have a safe, storage cupboard,air conditioning, and tissues.

Location is just across the road from the Montreux Casino and the buses 201 & 204 stops out front.

There is a nice restaurant attached to the hotel on the...