Hotel Balzac fails to impress me

In my previous post I mentioned that I was up late because I was suffering from jet lag.
The hotel I’m in isn’t my “usual” for Paris. I usually get to stay at the Sofitel, but in September, Paris is a crazy place and I was only able to get in to the Hotel Balzac.

I was told that the rate is Euro 380 (US$ 461) per night and the hotel’s web site seems to show that it is rather prestigious so I was quite looking forward to my stay here.

My first impressions of my room were not good. Even though it is supposed to be a non-smoking room, it certainly smells like people have smoked in here. Not as bad as a real smoking room, where the nicotine has worked its way into every thread of the curtains, carpet and chairs, but it still smelled like cigarette smoke to me.

Anyway, they promised me that it wasn’t a smoking room. I was tired and didn’t have the energy to argue.

Next, the room is tiny! The bathroom is minute! The bathroom is so small that the toilet and bidet are stuck behind the bathroom door. It doesn't look anything like the one on their web site.

The room looks very old and everything appears to be worn. They don’t have broadband in the room either. They only have dialup! Most hotels these days (and at least for the last few years) have broadband of some kind, be it a cable or WiFi.

Luckily for me, I fired up my trusty NetStumbler and found a completely open WiFi router. I have no idea who it belongs to, but all I care about is that I now have an IP address and a pretty decent connection. It is wide open and its SSID is linksys. Sigh! When will people learn?

Maybe I’m missing the whole point of this hotel. Maybe people feel happy paying very high nightly rates for hotel rooms like this. Maybe the whole point is that it’s old and homely or something. I don’t know, but I do know that I wouldn’t every pay $461 per night for a room at this hotel.

Now, the hotel does have some redeeming factors. Their room service is good and their food is great. I suspect that their services side of things will turn out to be good (although this is only the first night).

So, my final thoughts on the Hotel Balzac.

If money is no concern and don’t really care about over priced hotels where there is no apparent value for the money, and you expect good service levels, then Hotel Balzac is for you.