Hôtel La Résidence in Lyon - Threatened to call police then threw us out!

First and only post. Call me suspicious.

Yes, this was my first post. Been reading though for years. Hopefully others will find my experience useful.

Seems highly unusual for a hotel manager to threaten to call police without some cause. Did the manager feel that you were abusive to him? Sometimes a bad attitude elicits a bad attitude from others in response. I have no doubt that you were a bit put out at the situation but without knowing both sides of the altercation it's hard for strangers to take a side and I doubt that anyone would forego a stay at a well reviewed hotel because of one incident.

I would happily avoid this place just on this report. Could be more to the story but why would you take the chance.

I would not avoid this hotel, or any hotel, on one person's report. I checked on booking dot com and a couple of other places and this hotel gets very good reviews from thousands of people who have stayed there. I think I would tend to believe all the good reviews and certainly give this hotel a chance as long as it met my needs and requirements re: location, price, amenities, etc.. When one report (review) stands out as really really bad I have to think there's probably something going on, some reason that hasn't been mentioned.

My impression is that it is not the French custom to compensate for their errors. I had booked a restaurant for our 50th anniversary well in advance. A day before they called and said they had booked out the restaurant for a private party and they could have us two days later. So not the day of the anniversary. The meal was excellent and we did have a nice table -- but in the US the restaurant would at least have provided a bottle of Champagne or some other comped part of the meal. Nothing. We were really disappointed by the fact that we and our friends could not celebrate on this meaningful day -- but with so little notice, we were not in a position to book something equally good.

The hotel should if they could not handle this quickly, have provided another room or a room in another hotel.

hmmm...

Wonder how the OP treated the manger.

I read a story like this on trip advisor a while back... as more details came out it became apparent that the guests were the real problem.

I would not skip a hotel based on this post but others may feel differently

I think that the fact that out of 729 reviews on Trip Advisor only 7 are 'Terrible' and 26 are 'Poor' speaks volumes.

We are only hearing one side of this story, and I am very sceptical.

Presumably the OP would have complained if the aircon had not been fixed. To be offered 50 Euro compensation for 1 hour of inconvenience sounds generous to me. The fact that the OP says "Our displeasure and complaint" says it all to me about what really happened.

But it was not. one hour inconvenience; it was indefinite. They had a hotel room they could not access for hours. Yes maybe the guest was the problem, but being angry seems like a reasonable response to having this drag on indefinitely.

The most recent Trip Advisor review mentions another air conditioning and service issues and it seems a number of the most recent reviews aren't very encouraging. I'm not sure I would discount 4.7% of reviews being "terrible"/"poor" when only 22% rate it excellent.

Just to be clear, I assume you meant frustrated Janet. Being angry is never a reasonable response if you want to continue interaction and find a solution.

Feeling frustrated is normal, but keep it to yourself and work towards a solution. If not, you may be writing a post with "threw us out" in the title.

Confrontation doesn't fly in France in the service industry. The employee will just walk away. You won't get served. The yelling and confrontation in the US doesn't impress here.

I don't need to get to the truth of the event

it is a shame that one unconfirmed issue would override so many good ones. There has to be more to this one. Manager throwing cash at them?