Best Western Sevan Parc Hotel

The gardens are fabulous

I never enjoy leaving a bad review of a hotel and was planning on not leaving one until I saw the highly misleading promotional video whilst queuing (for too long) to check out of the hotel. That was the straw that broke the camel's back. This hotel positions itself as a four star hotel. To me that comes with an expectation as to quality of the hard product (room and facilities) and soft product (services). Certainly in the UK you wouldn’t expect to see a dilapidated “bed and breakfast” with such a designation. Then again, this is France and often things here are a total mystery to the rest of the planet. Let’s start with what’s good. It’s not a very long list: - The garden is pretty, large (well, it is a "parc") and reasonably well-maintained. It's mostly (but not exclusively) real grass. - The car park is free and large, with overflow parking available across the road. There are ample electric vehicle chargers. - The view from the carpark side is of the beautiful Provence countryside. - The breakfast was of reasonably good quality, was reasonably priced (€10 a person), had a fair amount of choice and was staffed by friendly and competent employees (the only such department in the hotel). - The pool is large and the shallow end is shallow enough (1m) that children can stand in it. This was helpful to us and quite rare these days. - The price (€120 per night) was not bad for Provence. - Our early check-in (for €50 per room) was respected. - They have nice apricot ice lollies. - They gave us a nice 'treasure hunt' paper for our child to look for trees in the garden, which he enjoyed. Let’s now go to the list of everything that’s far from good, in fact mostly awful: CHECK-IN: - The reception staff were rather snooty and unhelpful. There is no porter service. The receptionists saw us struggle with luggage but offered no help when we were downstairs, but only once I'd done all the hard work and were on our floor when miraculously one of them appeared to help wheel a single case five metres down a corridor, full of self-congratulation. When leaving the hotel, again there was no assistance despite seeing us struggle with luggage. - The wheels on the (only) luggage trolley had a life of their own. The trolley does not fit into the (only) elevator when loaded with cases, so is only useful for the ground floor (going up the ramp). - There was a sign on the elevator that it could not handle more than 250kg total weight. Fair enough but the receptionist (who until that stage had been almost invisible) suddenly piped up that only one person plus one bag could go in the elevator at a time, in case it breaks down (which apparently it frequently does). Wonderful. We had to do a daisy chain of people (didn’t want to risk leaving bags unattended). ROOMS: - On arrival, and at any time we turned off the air conditioning, our rooms smelt very musky. We had to open fully the windows and turn on the air conditioning to get rid of the awful sme

This hotel is a little like a present beautifully wrapped by a relative. All shiny paper and bows, but when you in fact open it you have a pair of the plain blue socks. What do I mean by that? Well, if you were to lose the beautiful and well thought out decor, the chic plant pots and the well pruned palm trees you are infact left with no more than a 3 star ( despite it being 4) practical road side hotel. That said, The reception lady was very warm and welcoming, so she deserves a mention. The rooms were ok, nothing special, clean, practical. The bar service however was terrible, you go and order a coffee/ wine etc; it comes to you eventually ( 36 mins I timed for a bottle of water) but then the cups are left all day for the wasps to gather. There is a gym, but I use the term loosely as there are no weights, just a few cardio machines. The restaurant is as popular with the locals as with the hotel goers. It is a gastronomic restaurant, so be prepared for the price tag to match, but very good. However we ate there only once for the experience. Up the road is a wonderful pizzeria with a wood fire and provence wine in half litre jugs for 6 euros so I would recommend you wander there instead. The pool was clean and warm, but ball games were not prohibited, which was causing some issues for some of the people around who were trying to get some peace. I think with this hotel, it depends how much you pay and how closely you look. I would come back because it had what I needed for a couple of nights. However, I wouldn't make it my holiday destination at all. If you look at it from a practical sense then it's fine. But if you want a bit of luxury and service for an extended time maybe look elsewhere.