MELIA PARIS LA DÉFENSE

In the area of la defense meanwhile one of the best business hotels so my favourite hotel if I have to work there. Indeed there is some space for Improvement, but what is really appreciated that the hotel and the management is always working on it and really keen to have feedback. Thats a good way. Do not change it. :-) Alex Koerner

I hate giving bad reviews but our three days here at Melia were depressing. We clearly made the wrong choice of hotel and location. Our plan was to stay at a hotel outside of Paris to be picked up by friends and head to Honfleur by road. First, Melia is in a massive construction zone making it almost impossible to find it and access it despite warnings from Melia. Two cabs refused to take us there from Paris CBD. Service was poor. Six calls to reception went unanswered on the first day. One restaurant was closed and food was at best average. If you want to stay in this area Novotel is best! It has easy access and cabs use it. Top marks to Monica who tried valiantly to restore our confidence in Melia.

Very big room, clean and very well designed. Amenities are perfect. Amazing roof top bar with a blasting view on Paris !!! The metro and taxi line are right at the door. Perfect for meetings in La Defense. !

I see that others recently complained about noise in their room. I guess that we got their room! Unsympathetic staff were very unhelpful and reluctant to change the room. Seems that they did not take our complaint seriously, though the problem is reported on trip adviser. Will never use or recommend this hotel again. A dreadful experience!

Booked a level suite, I am also a Melia Gold reward customer. Check in was fast, as a level suite customer I can use the concierge desk at the Level lounge when its open. And I am throughly impressed by their service. The lounge has great food selection and best of all it had a good selection of board games for kids, A very nice touch. The view in the suite is just as advertised, brilliant. Room is clean, amenities were great, housekeeper in general are happy and polite. We had 2 free bottles of water (an important note for a story below). That's the good bit, unfortunately I also had some bad experience: My first suite on the 10th floor was too hot. It was clearly hotter than outdoors (24 celsius) but the thermostat said it was 18 celsius. After 2 rounds of reception visits and 2 rounds of engineer visit which checked that the vent had air going through it and claimed that 'it was working', I had a horrible night of sleep. Demanded a room change next day (which the Level lounge staff handled perfectly well), got the same room directly below on 9th floor and immediately felt the difference as soon as we stepped in. Now not to be too harsh, air con breaks all the time but no idea how between the housecleaning and engineers nobody spotted the room was hotter than normal. Second night, after the room change we spotted that we had no complimentary water in the room. So my wife went downstairs to ask the reception (Level lounge concierge was closed by then). The conversation basically went wife: "I'm in 922 and the complimentary water is missing", reception gentleman: "there's some water in the mini bar", wife : "sorry no, I don't want the mini bar water, I want the free one" reception gentleman (exact words): "I don't know what you want, what do you want'" this was just. plan. rude. Eventually the reception man just said "ok, ok, I'll bring to you, wait in the room". 45 minute later room service turned up with 3 Evian bottles with a bill of 24 euros. 24 EUROS!! More importantly it just feels like the man in reception just didn't listen. I politely refused to accept the room service delivery. Then I went down to reception to ask for late checkout which was a Melia Gold reward perk. The same gentleman was at the desk and I asked him about it. Initially he said there's a charge so I corrected him and said it should be free as a Melia Gold member. His response was: "Melia what', what is that' can you write it down'". I mean - how can you not know about your own hotel's reward scheme' After talking to his colleague in French he asked me to go back to my room and that he'll call me once he could confirm. 20 minutes later he called to say "you can have the room till 2pm but you have to call the reception to see if you can have it till 4pm. Not happy with that I went downstairs again.... This time it got escalated to manager, so after 20 minute wait at 11pm. The manager turned up and everything got sorted in 2 minutes. He approved the 4pm checkout and opened the lounge door so that I can grab a bottle of water which was my entitlement as a Level guest. All in all, 2-3 hours and 4 trip up and down the reception because the night reception staff wasn't properly trained' Then.... After checkout I noticed the hotel charged me twice on the card. No problem, it happens. So I replied to an email Monica from the Level lounge sent to check up on me titled 'we are missing you' to check the transaction - no reply. 2 days later I emailed the thelevel.ladefense at melia.com and got no response. 5 days later I emailed melia.ladefense at melia.com and got no response. Eventually I had the extra charge reversed by contacting Amex, but seriously does nobody in the hotel check their emails' Or did they just decide to trash the email without responding' Other things: - The Level lounge served breakfast and canapés. Whilst it is a good selection the food when I was there at 11am there was lots of flies on the fruits which is quite disgusting. They should look at covering the food or use some sort of food ventilation tables so flies can't settle on it. - Travellers using Uber or non-hotel taxis should beware. The entrance to the hotel is a small turn as soon as you exit the bridge towards La Defense. If you miss the turn you cannot get to the hotel unless you go back to the other side of the bridge and come back. My taxi driver took an extra 30 minute because of this (luckily for me it's a fixed Uber fare). Not a problem if you use hotel taxi or the metro. - Uber will not pick you up from Melia because it recognises the area as a business district zone and will make you wait outside Ibis which is a 2 min walk and an escalator to the left of reception. Not great if you have lots of luggage and kids. - Restaurant and lounge closes around 10pm. Seems quite early so tough luck if you want some night snacks/desert. - Skybar on the top floor is weird. Music played as loud as a club (unsuitable for family, friends or business friends who wants a chat). Cocktails is about 10 euros which is ok, but a glass of house wine is 12 euros' This place needs a rethink...