Novotel Paris Saclay

Big thanks to the staff at Novotel who made our stay so special, they were especially attentive and kind to my mum who was treated royally! Spacious and quiet room, good breakfast but no cold milk for tea. Very nice outside area with lots of seating and pool. Location is a bit remote and not much going on in Saclay itself.

We stayed in this hotel as a stopover on a long-distance journey but made a point to arrive early to enjoy the facilities. In this respect, we weren’t disappointed. For a family wanting to have some evening activities, there was plenty: decent outdoor pool, mini-golf, table tennis, table football. Definitely a hotel where you can begin to build up a holiday feeling. However the overwhelming issue was the extortionate pricing at the bar, and to some extent restaurant. We’re more than happy to pay a premium where it’s justified but in this case they are blatantly cashing in on captive guests; we witnessed several other groups reeling in shock at the costs. We decided we would have to accept this is how things were and we would end up being a little conned. Fine. But on leaving, the receptionist processed our check-out and told us there was nothing to pay. Subsequently the hotel then contacted us to say that we still owed them more money. This was now hugely inconvenient/annoying/unnecessary - I had no issue in paying whatever I owed, even if it had felt overpriced - but this now creates stress and hassle as we left the hotel for our holiday. I feel they are deliberately evasive - I can only assume this is a deliberate tactic because they see so many complaints. I will be complaining to Novotel and requesting the CCTV showing that I checked out in person and gave the hotel the opportunity to charge me then and there. We are quite relaxed about price but this was enough to spoil our stay. The other issue is that this hotel is located right on the very edge of Paris - very little to do anywhere around it, so unless you want to travel over an hour into the city you are stuck there. So lots of potential, but the pricing grates too much.