hotelF1 Calais Coquelles 1성

Booked via a third party website, we thought as an emergency overnight stop this would be fine. What we hadn’t realised, as they’d failed to mention in the ad, you don’t get your own bathroom or toilet. With a disabled traveler and a child this wasn’t acceptable and we had to seek a room elsewhere. We went to the B&B group at Coquelles where we were given a warm welcome, a clean room, big TV, available food and our own bathroom with separate toilet. We contacted Accor Group to make a complaint and they said they’d pass it onto the hotel who’d be in contact. An outright lie, which by previous experience is how Accor Group work. They fob you off with lies. In the past they’ve charged us for my Assistance Dig which is against their own company policy. To be fair I wouldn’t expect a dog to stay at this hotel having seen it.

Bare bones minimal - a bed in a room, toilets and showers etc elsewhere. Cheap for a reason and that’s fine. Experienced marred by incredibly noisy and ignorant guests, and mini-bus arriving in the early hours etc. Don’t expect towels or soap etc, which may be available at extra cost I think - this is very minimum accommodation.

We booked this hotel due to it’s cheap price and convenient location, as it is very close to the channel tunnel. We arrived at 11 at night and had to spend 30 minutes trying to workout how to open the large prison like gate - as the reception was unstaffed. After half an hour we eventually got into the building and were greeted with a musty smell of gone off food and urine combined. We then got to our rooms and discovered that there were no toilets in the room, just a sink which was stained yellow from people urinating in it. The top of my cover was riddled with dead bugs ; moreover when the cover was pulled back under it was what can only be described as a mans shaven beard. Due to the absence of staff we could not request a new room so had to clean the sheet the best we could. As it was a reach to describe the bed as a bed i lay awake for 2 hour before finally falling asleep. However, I was then woken up 30 minutes later by the sound of very load sex, which could be heard clearly due to the paper thin walls. Furthermore, you are overwhelmed by a feeling of crippling anxiety very time you hear someone in the corridor as you feel like they could easily kick your door down if they wanted. The communal toilets are horrific and flush automatically which says a lot about the target audience of this ‘hotel’. Just to finish off this experience from hell, when we left at 8 in the morning we found are car blocked in by the local bin lorry whom were eating their breakfast and unfortunately for us did not speak any English. This lead to us sitting in our car waiting for them watching as people ranging from sex workers to drug dealers exited this hell hole. To conclude this cautionary tale, at 4:30am I woke up to witness my brother sat in the solitary chair in the corner of the room with his hand pressed into his face in despair of the situation. I think this anode perfectly summaries this prison simulator.

12-13/2/23 Room 102 Why is this place so under-rated at 8/8 in Coquelles? It's the cheapest (we paid €38 for the three of us two weeks in advance) and we know what to expect. We expect a tight space (for three of us even more so) and shared facilities at that price! It was a lot cheaper than the BW next door at the time. We arrived in the evening with the concierge on duty and got in no problem. We went out for a meal in the centre (Au Vieux Forneau) and returned, using the code, again no problem. No people were hanging around outside and the place felt safe (OK we are three middle aged guys and the tragic refugee crisis is not at its peak). We were pleasantly surprised that the entire building and rooms had beds refurbished and cosmetically redesigned since our last visit. In our opinion for the better. Yes the management made money (a recent reviewer - with only 1 review (?!) - criticised F1) on the basic old model and have now reinvested in the chain. Room 102 is by reception in effect and the motor bike parking is in front of the window. No bikes were parked there whilst we were there so I parked our car right up to the window to help load and unload. Brighter rooms with interesting travel poster collage style wallpaper. Bunk bed now has more comfortable wide (warm) wooden steps and a left hand grab slot to help getting up and down. The actual ladder could have been slightly angled to improve ascending and descending as there is no reason why not. Each bed has a new reading light/usb console which was useful. Sheets as usual were clean and crisp although the mattress protector was a bit sweaty and sticky overnight for one of us. Toilets are seatless with a special device to clean the rim (despite the pictogram I didn't use it). They have no sinks and have a special and only a disinfectant distributor outside which is fair enough. As soon as you walk in the toilet gives a little reassuring flush! There are no mirrors or hair driers in the shower any more so queues do not form outside! They are designed for a rapid turnover in a busy place. The room has a dedicated LED TV with phono sockets for an external video source and a 3.5mm headphone socket. There is also a two pin socket to connect and chargers to. No HDMI was found unfortunately. Our remote was fine for volume but the other buttons did not seem to work so we changed channel using the right side buttons and gave up finding any English channels (despite being advertised as available). Given the number of English tourists and bring the Lingua Franca for most travellers this should be easier to access. In IBIS there was a printed list of channels on the wall, albeit incorrect! The consistent and good free Wi-Fi is now much better and useful with no need to log in every time you enter the building anymore. Wifi worked in the car park too! A simple solid plastic/metal chair was under the sink which was pretty useless there so we put it between the beds as more useful there, albeit slightly sloped for our cups of tea (I'm writing most of this review in the bed with my tea). The sink with a mirror and electric socket was useful for our portable kettle to brew up a tea and the number of cafetière of coffee in the morning. Despite the sign saying 'Hotel Complete' at reception the car park was not full and the place was very quiet overnight, including no disturbances from other people. Maybe it was off peak and they distributed people in alternate rooms adjacent and above to reduce cross-room disturbances (a computer booking algorithm would work that one out, including arranging babies and children). We left mid morning and I let the friendly overworked concierge know about the malfunctioning remote control and praised him on the quality of the hotel.

DREADFUL, staff were surly with me, but fine with French guests! Very noisy at night unlike other cheap places I stayed at during my month in France. Doors banging loudly, raised voices, terrible nights sleep. Situated on an industrial estate so nothing around there. Coffee machine gave me soup on my 2nd visit there(all booked in advance unfortunately). No soap in the room and no towels even cheaper hotels have this!- Terrible AVOID