Hôtel Inn Design Montluçon

Air-conditioned! Free parking. Good breakfast. Clean. Not far off our route to Lyon.

Access to the ground floor rooms was not marked.

Parking on site. Easy book in and rooms were very good. Everything fully explained at booking in.

Everything was fine.

Inexpensive. Good aircon

Floors and stairs very dusty from works being carried out

Good size room, nicely decorated, well kept and a good price when we visited. Plus the hotel is in a useful location. It’s a shame the negatives outweighed all this.

To begin with we couldn’t get in. Check-in is stated as being from 14:00 but I received no details about how to get in and the reception is unmanned and the door locked until 17:00. A message only arrived many hours after we had left the next day and promised an SMS with a keycode to get in which never arrived at all. If I hadn’t figured that the Booking number might work we would have wasted another 3 hours until staff arrived. When we did get in the room we were allocated was at the top of the main staircase which everybody passes. Obviously the noisiest in the hotel even at the best of times. Although it was late October the temperature had been up to 28°C and the room was very hot. The aircon didn’t work, probably because it was late in the year, but we couldn’t open the window as the car park opposite was being used as a meeting place for a group of car owners who were proud of their sound systems(!) At least the window sound insulation is very good but the same can’t be said of the inside door which didn’t seal properly so we could clearly hear everybody coming or going and particularly the front door slamming as it did constantly early the next morning as everybody left. So it was hard to get much sleep at all. I appreciate that it’s a cheap hotel but not being able to sleep is a fundamental requirement. The fact that there’s a notice in the room urging you to give them a 10 review in exchange for a ‘bonus’ suggests that they expect problems and sounds like bribery. Since we left I’ve also had too many emails looking for a good review along similar lines. If you stay here, ask for a room furthest from the stairs and probably at the back.