Hôtel le Yachtman, the Originals Collection

We went for a mid-week stay to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. My wife had asked if we could have a room at the front overlooking the harbour. We were very excitied, and had checked out the hotel's website in preparation. We should maybe have checked out a builders website instead. When we got there, the lobby was a full on building site, only half was being used, the other half was partitioned off with plasterboard. The pool area we had thought we might relax in was full of builders drilling, banging and moving pieces of construction around. The bar area was being used as a store for the building materials. No sundowner gin and tonic for us! We went up to our room, on the 2nd floor, in a very rattly elevator, that was covered in plaster dust. The corridor on 2nd floor smelt of paint and plaster, and all the bedroom doors, bar one, were leaning against the walls. we went into our room which was the room with a door. Now, to be fair to the hotel, our room had a fantastic view over the harbour, and was a good sized room with a huge bed and lovely cotton bedding. The ensuite shower room was seperate from the toilet, which I always think is a nice touch as long as the rooms are a fair size and don't lead to claustraphobia. Now, to be honest, this is not a 4 star hotel. It never will be, IMHO, despite it's location. Our room appeared to have just been finished. there were wooden shelves that hadn't been paineted, and wooden surfaces that we both felt were waiting their final top coat. The air conditioning didn't work, so the hotel had thoughtfully left a big aircon unit in our room, together with an extension lead, so we could cool down. This required opening the window to put the exhaust outside, which let the noise in. La Rochelle is a noisy place at night with lots of pubs, and people singing in the small hours of the morning. Add to that mix, the loud rattling AC unit, and if you're not used to loud noises at night, you will have a disturbed night. There are a couple of nice touches in the room, a coffee machine and a kettle. But you have to move both of these to be near the few electrical sockets, to be able to use them. Talking of electrical sockets, there were 3 sockets in the shower room, and 4 in the bedroom. None of these sockets were near the bed, so if you want to charge your phone overnight and see the clock, forget it. Also, if you use any type of CPAP machine, you need to make sure you have a long extension cable. No hairdryer, no safe, no handtowels. All these little things seem like minor niggles, but when it's how the room is described, it all adds up to a less than good customer experience. Breakfast was on the first floor with a view over the harbour, very pretty. Breakfast was good, but the room was a little tired. it hadn't been renovated, or if it had, the hotel might want to consider asking for some of their money back. Until the building work is complete, avoid this hotel. When we were checking out there was a long qu

Our stay was rather disappointing as work was being carried out at the hotel, we were not informed about this before arriving or when booking (which we did in advance). It was rather noisy and coming and going was an issue as work men were in the lobby and outside. Had we of know we would have definitely changed our booking. If driving to the hotel please note the building is covered in a green net. Having said that the hotel is in a great location and the room, bed and bedding were good and comfortable. The only one member of staff we saw out while stay was kind and friendly.