Les Secrets de Moulinsart

We had an 8 day/7 night stay in apartment #002. We had a two-room apartment, that was divided into: 1 bedroom with en-suite and a living space with pull-out sofa, small dining table and small but functional kitchen. There was ample built-in storage in the bedroom and in the living space, a full mirror and a large entry-way. The kitchen was equipped with dishes and basic cook-wear including can opener, a small Nespresso coffee maker, a kettle and toaster. We were the only apartment located on the ground floor and I was a little worried it might be noisy, but it was quiet and very convenient. There is a little terrace/outdoor space in the apartment which was a nice spot to read. My biggest take-home message is if you need two separate queen-size beds, and are reluctant to book because one of the beds is a pull-out sofa, DON'T hesitate! The sofa-bed was VERY comfortable; as comfortable as any bed. You can hear the rumbling of the metro trains, every 5-6 mins until the very early hours of the morning, but it is a low rumble and not at all annoying or disruptive. Also, I would be willing to bet that you would hear this anywhere in the 9th and throughout other areas of the city. Felt like white noise and it just becomes part of the background. Great area for dining steps from the apartment. There are 4 restaurants; we tried 3 and they were excellent. Great community vibe.

This hotel is a viable, affordable option for visiting Paris and being located near the Louvre and other points of interest, but some amenities and features are only OK as opposed to excellent, and some of this may be related to renovations still in progress. We were met with a few things that didn't quite go right - (1) the cordless phone in the room was dead and the staff did not have batteries to repair them, though they did provide a different model replacement phone that did the job while we were there, and we noticed that as we were leaving, they were replacing all the phones in the rooms; (2) we went to the restaurant on our first night at the hotel and were ignored by restaurant staff even after we approached one waiter and ended up leaving - the same waiter worked the next day in the breakfast area and did not crack a smile; (3) at breakfast, one server knew how to make cafe au lait and the others did not, so the food experience varied each day depending on who was working; (4) the room keys kept getting demagnetized; (5) two tripping hazards that went unresolved - a piece of carpeting at the top of the stairs was allowed to hang over the top step instead of being trimmed to fit, and a drop from the bottom of the staircase into the lobby that we tripped over several times - no signage or markings to identify; (6) construction noise in the morning awakened us; and (7) one day, despite our hanging the "please clean room" sign on our door, our room was not serviced.