HÔTEL CARON ^{* * *}

Hôtel Caron is a small hotel in the Marais neighborhood of Paris. We stayed for four nights. It's billed as a three-star hotel, but in our experience it would rate closer to two.

First, the good: 1. Location. The hotel is located on a side street off a main boulevard, so you're close to many cafés, parks, restaurants and metro strops. 2. The staff is nice and helpful. 3. Free minibar with soft drinks and snacks. 4. We stayed in Paris during the height of bedbug mania, and this hotel was apparently pest-free. We didn't see any or get any bites. 5. Hot shower.

Now, the bad: 1. The rooms are very small (normal for Europe) but also very dark and unattractive. 2. The main issue with the hotel is one of cleanliness. One of our towels had a red stain (possibly blood), which to the hotel's credit they immediately swapped for a new one with apologies. But our sheets were also stained (who knows by what). The whole room also needed a deep cleaning, or at the very least a proper dusting. 3. Sink in bathroom was extremely small and its drain was clogged so that the sink would flood if the faucet were left running. 4. The toilet had issues flushing: if you pressed the button to flush, the toilet would remain flushing forever until you pressed the button again. 5. The wifi was weak and unreliable. Don't plan to get work done in your room! 6. Animals (possibly mice) in the walls gnawing and scuttling at night near dawn. 7. Small annoyance: no outlets near the bed, so you're forced to charge your phone across the room, which can be tricky if you also use your phone as an alarm. 8. Another small annoyance: one of the lights above our bed flickered.

In summary, a passable hotel with a great location and helpful staff. They just need to update their rooms and improve their cleaning service.

Tiny room, what you need not what you want.