Best Western Plus Metz Technopole

This is one of my favourite hotels as I drive from France to Sweden with my dogs. Lovely staff that always go out for their way to make the stay enjoyable and even let me have room service really late in the evening, when I was tired after a long day of driving, and it normally was finished for the day. They speak good English. But the BEST with this hotel is the beds!! If I could sneak one home with me I would. ;) Super comfortable and lovely fluffy duvets and pillows in spacious rooms with complementary water and coffees and tea. The rooms are spacious. My dogs and I will be back! :)

Satnav-friendly hotel which serves travellers on the Metz to Strasbourg route, business people visiting the large number of firms in the area and those staying for exhibitions and fairs. It satisfies all the criteria and even has an available tram to get to the city centre (watch weekend timetable for last tram back!). Plenty of free parking is a real bonus. Spacious reception, very good and well insulated rooms. Friendly staff and a good restaurant. Breakfast is a silly price but we were told on departure that there is an unadvertised cheaper (€8.00) version available.

They are currently renovating the first floor of the hotel. We, and several other couples, were given a room on the first floor even though the hotel didn’t seem to be full. The room was generally clean except for the carpet, which was FILTHY, with what looked like stains from workmen’s boots.

Prior to our stay, the only concerns we had were the distance of the hotel from the city centre and how easy it would be to see the main sights using public transport. In the event everything worked out fine although the hotel’s front desk could have been far more helpful when we asked for help. Given that this was a chain hotel we wrongly assumed that all the staff would speak good English. I don’t like to criticise because, at the end of the day, it’s our fault for not speaking better French. However, it is something for guests to bear in mind. The staff on the front desk struggled to understand some of what I was saying at check-in and the staff on duty in the restaurant spoke no English at all. However, in contrast, the breakfast waiter spoke good English. All in all, a very mixed picture. Once we’d parked up at the hotel and checked in, we wanted to use public transport to get to the city centre rather than trying to drive there. I really needed some help and advice but the lady I spoke to on the reception desk was less than helpful and appeared disinterested. She vaguely pointed in the direction of a nearby bus-stop but she didn't provide a map and I soon gave up trying to get any practical information out of her. This was very disappointing especially as I was the only guest queueing at the desk. In the end I turned to the “Moovit” app I had previously installed on my smart phone a year or so before. I’d been very impressed by it in Berlin and it proved to be equally good in Metz (although ahead of time I wasn't sure it would work in Metz). If you want to get the bus into the city centre it makes everything so easy. Once I’d entered the city centre as a destination, it provided simple step by step guidance as to how to get there. A map showed the walking route to the bus stop (about 2 minutes from the hotel) and which number bus to wait for. A timer counted down the expected arrival time of the bus. We purchased a group ticket from the machine at the bus stop. It cost 8 euros for one day's unlimited use of the bus for a group of up to 5 people. We boarded the bus and validated the ticket using the little machine on-board. Don’t forget to do this as the you’ll get fined if you don’t validate it! The lady on the hotel reception desk didn’t mention any of this. “Moovit” then showed us a map of the bus route and a list of all the stops en-route. As we progressed along, “Moovit” ticked off the stops so we could see exactly where we were at any point and it was easy to get off at the right stop. If you want to use public transport then there’s really nothing to be worried about. The Metz bus system is certainly very slick and efficient with frequent buses. Once on the bus, it took around 16 minutes to get to the city centre. The return journey was equally as easy. Metz has a lovely feel to it, combining a mix of old and new, and we spent a very pleasant afternoon wandering around the sites. One of our party had an onion allergy and couldn’t eat any food containing onions. We’d come prepared with a slip of paper explaining all of this in French and, given some of the language issues we encountered, we were so glad we’d done this ahead of time. At the reception desk, we booked a table in the restaurant and handed them the piece of paper. When it came to the meal, the only English word that the waiter knew was “allergy” but it was obvious that all the information had been correctly passed onto him. We managed to infer that anything from the menu could be chosen and it would be cooked especially for us without onions. The meals were very pleasant and the restaurant provided a nice, relaxed environment. Parking at the hotel is free and there’s a very large open air car park immediately in front of the entrance. There were a huge number of empty spaces throughout our stay and you should therefore have no problem finding one. Nobody parked next to us. The hotel is a little way from the city centre but is close to an out of town shopping complex with car showrooms, shops etc. The area around the hotel has a pleasant, airy and spacious feel to it with wide boulevards. The hotel also has a nice airy, modern feel to it. The rooms were large, clean, quiet and well decorated and I think you’d be hard pressed to find such value in a hotel nearer the city centre. Note that the pool isn't open all year round. At breakfast there was a very good selection of food and drink and it was one of the best breakfasts we’d had during our driving trip to France and Switzerland. Despite the language issues and the lack of help from the reception desk, I’d certainly stay at the hotel again. I’m glad we chose it. However, the hotel's management should recognise that there's certainly room for improvement. It's little the things, like the lack of help given by the reception desk, that can leave guests with a poor impression of the hotel.

I am the tour leader of the Tugo group, 33 tourists, from Vietnam. We stayed at the hotel last 20th of September. The rooms are good. But the breakfast is a very very bad experience for us. The hotel staff prepares one breakfast room exclusively for our group. The problem is: they don't provide enough food for the group of 33 people. All the foods were just enough for 20 first persons who joined the breakfastat 7 AM. 15 minutes later, the 13 last person didn't have foods for their breakfast. So I came to the reception and asked for more foods for the group, but the receptionist named Christaine refused to provide more. She said that the hotel staff had prepared enough food for our group. But in fact, that's enough for only 2/3. In fact, 13 people didn't have their breakfast. They feel frustrated, unhappy. But the hotel staff are cold blooded people. They see their clients come into the empty breakfast room and come out with empty stomach. That attitude is very ugly. How they can treat clients like that? I see in the Welcome Card of the hotel, they say: "We are delighted to welcome you ... bla bla.... and Our team is fully available to answer each of your request". But in fact, 13 clients already paid for the accommodations but they didn't get their breakfast, and the only treatment, and answer is NO and cold, inhuman attitude. I believe in the quality of Best Western in allover the world, but I think this isn't the case in BW of Metz Technopole Hotel.