Novotel Valenciennes

Hotel placé a côté de l'autoroute . Chambre grande Propreté et calme . Au top

A special thank you to Amaury S. for his amazing hosting management and kindness, thank you to Aurore for her creative skills in our room and for her service and kindness. Gwenn, Abdel and the whole team are simply very attentive and kind. Our room was very nice and fresh, the breakfast: various and delicious, the lobby and the dining area: very stylish and pleasant. We will come back for sure :) Vanya DD & Francois D

Over the friendliest possible feedback that the food was (the steak) was not of the highest quality, or, properly prepared (tough as a boot); the night Concierge threw her toys out of the pram and stormed into the most bizarre reaction in front of everyone . Just surreal.

Nice hotel, small swimming pool, games for kids, friendly staff and good beds. One of the better hotels we've stayed at on the road.

The best reception we have had in the last ten hotels we have recently stayed at. Family friendly. Nothing negative to report.

It is quite even if it is located close to the highway. The pool is brilliant and our room was freshly renovated. Others are in the way to be.

Not impressed with the hotel. Prepaid the stay and food, but had to pay for my two daughters. Was told this at check in, where he said it was a buffet. It was not, instead we could choose for 25 euro from the menu, which takes away the idea of prepaying. They brought a board with the menu, where the special main course f the day was pulled pork burger. However before we ordered this was deleted, even though we had reserved table at 19 o clock, when they opened. We instead ordered four steaks medium, but they were all closer to raw, and the French fries had not had enough. Disappointing dinner, with a boring uncooked meal and breakfast buffet also disappointing. The French kitchen is supposed to be the best, but this was poor. The pool was nice, but we and others should just jump in, with no outside showers. So I fear it is not that clean. But very refreshing in the heat. The room was nice but only two rolls of toilet paper, neither of them full so we ran out of tp in the morning. The pillows were bad. So I slept without. Beds were fine. We had hoped for more with the high ratings, especially the food was disappointing.

Great location - close to motorway and 10 min drive to a shopping centre with petrol station 24/24 good choice of food for breakfast, an amazing staff and very helpful - lady at the reception desk who wanted practise her English - super star. Unfortunately, the air condition didn't work in the room

The hotel is nice but, plainly speaking, it was a hot day and we purposely chose this hotel due to the swimming pool. So when we arrived on 2nd August this year, which was a blistering hot day with over 35 degrees outside, with 2 young children in tow, keen to stay a night in a hotel with a pool on our journey to Austria, we were nonchalantly informed at reception that the pool was being fixed and was therefore unavailable on that day. Imagine the disappoin**ent after a long journey on one of the hottest days of the year. We had even booked an option to cancel until 6pm on arrival, so a short email to inform us would have been much appreciated - either to lower the expectations of our tired, bored and overheated children, or just to book somewhere else on our way. The hotel does not mention air conditioning, so we didn't expect much, but the rooms were absolutely boiling and the fan that was in the room did nothing to cool it down. There is an 'air cooling unit' in the room but after trying to get it going and turning to reception for help we were - again quite nonchalantly - informed that this cooling unit wasn't working and they were waiting for a part to fix it. I'm intrigued after reading other reviews, as this seems to have been an issue for at least 2 years? I guess it really is time to get this sorted? The windows only let more hot air in, the aforementioned fan that was provided just moved the hot air from one end of the room to the other, and the temperature in the room finally went below 30 degrees some time after midnight, which gave us quite a short and unpleasant night of sleep. As mentioned in other reviews, I also noticed that there were very thick duvets on the bed which we instantly removed and put on the shelf. The bed sheets were more than enough and more attentive staff would have just not put them on the bed int he first place. All in all I don't blame the hot weather, rather the indifference of the staff towards their customers in a heat wave. I would have appreciated some kind of apology, maybe even an email prior to our stay to warn us that the pool is shut, and a room that is prepared for heat: for example, no duvets, curtains that had been left shut to keep the heat out, maybe a room on the shady side of the building, an offer for a free cold drink at the bar...there are myriads of ways to show your good will! As I said at the beginning, the hotel is nice, I like the reception area, the children's corner, all of it is nice, but the staff was just so demotivated and indifferent towards exhausted and overheated travellers in the face of the issues they were having (and not mentioning until they were queried), that this really spoiled our experience. The change has to come from the management: Proper communication towards customers and staff training, in order to deal with unforeseen (or quite predictable heat related) circumstances, and some inves**ent towards the infrastructure in the hotel, because a worki