Houlgate Holidays from £333

Front desk Valentine was incredible kind welcoming and friendly. So nice to have an elevator and water machine! My only advisement was that The wifi is really really really bad here which was hard to plan the rest of our trip details with. Buy more router extenders!

When we arrived at this hotel, it was very unclear where we were meant to go or park, there seems to be two entrances, one to main reception and one to the car park, but it is not well lit and we drove round for a bit trying to work out what to do so I went in to reception, where I then waited for ten minutes as there was no one around, at about 6pm, so not exactly late. A lady finally arrived, and checked us in. We asked about parking and were told we could use the public car park out the back, which is on the seafront, or use there private gated car park which she gave us a code for. So we drove back up the road to their car park, got in and parked up, to find that there isn’t a pedestrian exit! It was drizzly, very dark, and we had to push past a wet bush to exit. The room was ok, nothing special, and the ‘beach front’ is the other side of a large car park. The cleaners only flick the hoover round, no refill of tea/coffee etc and the breakfast option was extremely expensive so we didn’t bother. The Thalasso Spa was lovely, with plenty of options to keep you busy for an hour or so, but everyone walks through the hotel dripping wet so lifts and floors are slippery, and there were a lot of kids, and a lot of people not wearing caps if no staff were around, so it was a bit of a free for all! We stay in many hotels in France every year, this one is just expensive for what it is, will not return. Needs new carpets and modernising.

The staff are wonderful! They were very helpful when the electric car charger at the hotel turned out to be broken, going above and beyond to help. But on the other hand, it was enormously inconvenient that the charging at the hotel didn't work, so even though it's not the hotel staff's fault (the charging spot is managed by another company), it was still a major disappointment. The lack of air conditioning was problematic as well, given the heat wave, and--though this isn't the hotel's fault either--a very noisy all-night party next door (it was still going when we left at 8 AM) made our stay less enjoyable. Full marks for staff service, though!