We booked three nights in the Hotel de L'Arve in October 2023, based on Rick's recommendation in his France guidebook. We had booked a one-bedroom apartment, which sounded lovely, spacious, and functional on the hotel's website. When we entered the unit, we immediately noticed how hot it was; the thermostat was set to 30 degrees C (86 F)! We changed that, but then were dismayed to find out the bedroom and shower were down some narrow and somewhat treacherous stairs; in addition, there was no window for ventilation in the bedroom, and the toilet was upstairs. I'm 70 years old with bad knees, so the thought of middle-of-the-night trips up those stairs in the dark was not what I desired. We asked to switch to a room with everything on one level. After much checking, the hotel staff told us there was only one room, a "standard double" available, so we took it. It was a very small room with a very small bathroom, and had the tiniest shower I have ever tried to use! We had to run the shower for five minutes to get hot water, and there were only two electrical outlets in the room. After repeated requests, the staff insisted they had nothing bigger to offer us.
The next morning, I checked the hotel website and found out they did, in fact, have superior rooms available for our dates. You would think the hotel would want to go out of their way to cater to travelers who mention the Rick Steves endorsement, but the Hotel de L'Arve seems to do just the opposite. GIVE THIS HOTEL A MISS!