Paris in the Spring (Hotel Tour Eiffel (Paris))

Member Name: flodombey

Product:	Hotel Tour Eiffel (Paris)
Date:	27/07/09 (36 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great location, competitive rates, easy to find, friendly staff

Disadvantages: Rooms can seem cramped

My husband and I stayed at the Hotel de la Tour Eiffel for 3 nights in early 2007, we needed a fairly central base as he was running the marathon over the weekend and this seemed to fit the bill. We paid a rate of around £75 per night for the room via expedia which seems to offer some of the most competitive rates on this hotel, on tripadvisor rooms are listed as being on average around £100 per night but obviously if you shop around and dependent on the time of year you can probably find it for less.

We found the hotel easy enough, taking the train and metro all the way from CDG airport, firstly line #1 to Concorde and then line #8 to Ecole Militaire which is a 5 minute walk from the hotel. We printed off the map from the hotel's own website which was very easy to follow.

The location of the hotel is great. A quiet, residential feeling area which has many great bars, cafes and restaurant scattered around but which does not feel overwhelmingly touristy. It literally is a 10-15 minute walk to the Eiffel Tower and the Champs Elysees and Place de la Concorde are also within easy reach.

Now, on to the hotel itself. We were greeted by very friendly front desk staff who thankfully spoke much better English than we speak French. The lobby area is deceptively small and the restaurant is directly behind it, the building seems quite long and thin and the stairs and lift go up from right opposite the small check in desk. Throughout our stay the staff were very friendly and there was always someone on the desk to buzz us in on late nights, it felt very safe.

The room was amazingly small but functional. I have seriously never slept in a room so small and we had to laugh out loud at the way a 'bathroom' had been shoved so adeptly into what literally was a cupboard not much bigger than you would find under stairs. When you were sat on the toilet your knees were touching the wall and in order to get around the open door you had to climb into the shower. Tiny it most certainly was, this was no problem for me at 5'2" but my 6 foot husband struggled a little to say the least.

The main room had a double bed with about a foot and a half space around it, a TV was mounted up on the wall opposite the bed, there was a small table under the window and a built in wardrobe with a few shelves. Despite it all being very cramped it was clean, contemporary and everything felt quite new. Our window looked onto a central courtyard and other windows but we did not mind. The room served our needs and we did not mind the compromise given the excellent location.

Breakfast was included in our room rate and was a simple, continental affair of pastries and coffee in a small room attached to the lobby. Interestingly the website now states that breakfast is offered 'in a typical Parisian bakery near the hotel' so I can only imagine they have decided to utilise the space for something else and have linked up with one of the many nearby bakeries which is probably a better deal all round. In any event we tended to just skip the hotel offerings and go and grab a cheap croissant and cafe au lait round the corner.

Everything about this hotel was clean and convenient, I would certainly use it again if I was in Paris. My in-laws used it a few months after us and somehow landed a bigger and less cupboard like room so it may well be the luck of the draw and I would suggest that not all of the rooms are as small as the one we had. For us, however, we found the room small but perfectly adequate.

I would highly recommend this hotel as a base for a weekend break and would not hesitate to stay there again. For the price we paid over a weekend and in such a fab location with easy access to everything, I think we got fantastic value for money.

Summary: A great hotel in a lovely location, well worth checking out