GRAND HOTEL LEVEQUE in FRANCE

Thanks. The hotel responded to my question, and the hotel does not allow any eating or drinking in their rooms.

Steve,, I LOVE eating in my room. I get some good snacks and sit and watch tv later in evenings or read , or plan my routes for next day. Plus , having yogurts and fruits in the morning in my room means only buying a coffee for breakfast .

During the remodelling at Hotel Leveque a couple of years ago, the hotel served guests breakfast in their rooms. It is possible to be subtle about carrying snacks to the room; use your daybag to get it to your room and carry out the "trash" to the street receptacles. I usually keep a bottle of wine in my room to have a daily sip. I think it was the Hotel la Serre that forbade a nursing mom from feeding her baby in her room.

brad,

I've stayed at the Grand Hotel Leveque on past visits, but wasn't aware of this unusual "restriction". That could have a bearing on whether I book with them in future.

One has to wonder how strictly they define "eating or drinking"? Technically, that could mean that guests are not even allowed to have a sip of water from a water bottle.

Perhaps you could ask them to explain the logic behind this odd rule.

Cheers!

We stayed at a hotel in Bruges that forbad food and drink in the rooms. Also prohibited was hand laundry in the bathroom sink.

If you ask, the washing and eating question is most likely to be no. Food in the rooms brings bugs. Washing can cause a mess and uses water. However, exactly who is going to see you eat or wash? Our solution: don't ask.

We stayed in the Leveque last fall and no, you cannot have food in the hotel. We were heartbroken because there are so many wonderful foods for sale on the street and we were dying to try them but there were no benches on the street to sit on and the hotel would not let us eat in their dining room or in our room. We really felt like we missed great eating experiences!

We're going back this year and are staying around the corner at the Beaugency where we are hoping for more accommodation.

Otherwise, the Leveque was great. We had a nice quiet room and the staff were fantastic. They did allow us water in our room so we were at least able to take meds before bed and in the morning.

Dawn, the Beaugency even has mini-fridges in their rooms. The Lévêque hasn't allowed food for years, maybe even since 2001. Champ de Mars allows food but doesn't have mini-fridges.

I've stayed at Leveque a couple of times and knowingly broke that rule. I just made sure I didn't leave a mess and carried out the wrappings to a publice trash receptacle. Also, finding a place for a picnic isn't that difficult--you have the whole area around the Eiffel Tower for example or you can head to the square by Notre Dame among many other places. However, if you are a stickler for the rules, stay somewhere that provides a mini-fridge in the room.

Darcy, that's great news!! I'm making plans to buy food all along Rue Cler already! Thanks for the info.

Hello, Brad;

My wife and I had an enjoyable stay at the Leveque a couple years back. While I can't speak to the food-in-the-room policy, I must confess we did enjoy a few snacks - baquette and nutella - between meals, and we weren't the worse for it. The bottom line: be discreet, leave no crumbs on the bedsheets, Carlsberg empties in the waste bin and, above all else, avoid brie breath, especially when asking for directions to the Louvre, and you should keep on good terms with the hotel management. All in all, the Leveque is strongly recommended, for its fine Rue Cler location, its reasonable price in an otherwise pricey city, and for its barely enforced no-food-in-the-room rule.

My wife and I stayed in the hotel this past summer & we were accosted by the front lobby staff when my wife tried to take a coffee up to our adult daughter in the morning. So the answer is yes and they do monitor. Tom

I stay there often and even though they have a rule I manage to have wine and cheese etc. I carry a day bag so they never see me bring it in and I clean up after myself. Just don't advertise.... I bet most hotels would prefer that you don't have food in your room.... don't spill the wine on the linen and keep it clean.... think of their rules as guidlines.

Surly staff! they sell their own wine at the front desk...they want you to buy from them! We stayed there two nights in October 2011....cannot imagine why anyone can like this place. It is dark, run down and not hospitable. We had the newly "remodeled" room on the front side. OK bed and walls clean but this is not a fancy place at all. And being accousted about bringing snacks to your hotel room...why deal with that? I do not go on vacation to sneak food into my room....and play mind games. Find another place to stay even if it costs a few dollars more...this is sub-par! And we prefer Aris. #4 - the Marias. Really a wonderful neighborhood with more options and so close to many sites with the exception of Eiffel Tower. We have stayed many times in that location as well...lots of apartments to rent easily on the web. We stayed in a lovely place at the end of our trip for a few dollars more but so much more upscale....and nice, gracious people who seemed happy to have us as guests.

Bets, I politely disagree. When someone takes the trouble to dig up an old but relevant subject line of continuing interest to post a directly-related, more-current review of a perennial Rick Steves hotel, they deserve kudos. Yes, you can tell Rick that a guidebook referral was not up to standards. But newsboards are for current, personal, non-Rick data, so I don't think the post was out of line. Tim

@Tim Thanks for being polite. I looked on TA. Similar complaints about this hotel, mentioning surly and shabby by people who said they stayed there based on a RS recommendation, go all the way back to 2004. It is indeed time RS got the message! It's ranked #1,015 of 1,854--nothing to brag about. Books can become outdated so quickly with new places opening and old ones loosing their glory.

Agreed that this hotel is not the best, but disagree that's it is shabby, dark, and that the staff were surly. We had a rather pleasant experience when we stayed. We would only stay once as want to experience different parts of Paris upon subsequent trips, but given that is it barely over 100 euros a nights, I'm not sure what your expectations are. Perhaps rather than increase prices to clean out wine stains and fumigate for bugs, they prefer to keep food and drink out of the rooms. Also, they are in competition with other merchants, so I'm sure would prefer you to eat in their eatery. If one does not like this, then do not stay here. But no need to dump on other folks who "like" this place and can live with this policy (and actually kind of like it!)
And as for RS's recommendation of this place, if you read his criteria for why he recommends places, it fits in nicely, so that is why he most likely continues to include this place in his book. I'm curious to hear where Brad ended up staying?