Detailed review by EOS_snapper
To set the seen for this skiing holiday, on our arrival we witnessed a group of Slum dwellers
on a piste bashing holiday from Dharavi, complaining bitterly about the quality of the rooms and facilities. This is the kind of hotel that makes the stag pits of Blackpool look like Conde Nast travellers choice destinations and a week in the down-town Baghdad YMCA seem quite appealing
On our first day we found eleven species of rare and endangered fungi growing in our
bathroom and once spotted a pair of blue mottled latvian tree skinks mating in our bidet late one night. UNESCO have declared that bathroom, a world heritage site for wetland loving creatures and forna and David Bellamy is in fact due to give a speach there later this year.
This hotel is so dim and devoid on any serious attempts at guest illumination on the landings
that I was forced to polish my own eyball's using a zippo and a hot spoon in a Vin Diesel,
"Pitch black" parody, just so that I could find my way down to reception to complain about it.
I needent have bothered, when I got there reception was empty, just dried blood and some tree skink footprints. In an ironic twist, Les Rhodadendrons has just won most eco-freindly hotel of the year award in the lowest "per-guest" energy usage category 2010.
Breakfast is available for the brave hearted, only if you are prepared to join the
all night Wimbledon style queue to get at the miserly non-replenishable
buffet consisting of 5W-40 grade coffee, a dozen rubber croissants, nine slices of elasticated cheese and a half pack of ham flavoured slices to be shared between all guests. Arrive in the spacious dining area at 2 minutes past eightand you'll find coffee, rubber croissant crumbs and a vaguely unpleasant smell are all that are left to greet you . My advise for those with dental implants, gastro-intestinal complications or taste buds, is that they should go "room-only" at Les Rho !
Let me talk about our room.
At least our linen was crisp and white, scratch that! it was crispy and
off-white..yuk ! made from pre-war flax washed twice yearly in pond water and strewn with more holes and a similar odour to a peice of damn fine Edam I once purchased from Selfridges deli counter.
Room heating is erratically sporradic, it's either "Arctic tundra, freezingly-non-existant&q uot;,
or "wake up with a dehydrated shrunken pygmy head and George Forman grilled Sinus's boiling. In an attempt to dry our soden kit, We resorted to building a small fire in the corner of the room which did keep the skinks at bay for an hour or two but then we called Colin Fry's mystic support line in a vane attempt at discovering when the radiator might have it's next twice daily ninety eight second erruption of molten lava-like heat output.
We had a TV screen the size of Nokia N95, incredibly uncomfortable pillows which were so thin that they could be used for gauging spark plug gaps and a room that was last refurbished when Louis XIV sat on the throne. Steptoe and son are believed to have modelled their own hovel on the Les Rho style and it's unique and fragrant psudo-peasent decor has since become de riguer in many eastern european crack-dens and old peoples homes.
Les Rhodadendrons is so far out of town that rooms are equipped with a choice of Map & compass or Garmin GPS60. Sherpa Tenzing is available at extra cost, you can find him sleeping in the ski storage lock-up because he says it's warmer than the rooms in the hotel and the skinks can't find him in there. There is a bus service into town if you can catch one. They come every 20 minutes or so, but seem to by-pass Les Rho via inter-dimensional worm-hole in the evenings just when you need one most.
A tip for a good nights sleep in this hotel is to drink more than your own body weight in high alchohol content beverages whilst out on the town. This might cost you more than the average chalet maid earns in a week at Chamonix bargain booze prices , but it will at least ensure that you are oblivous to the goings-on in the other rooms with their gosamer thin walls creaky floorboards and 18th century plumbing.
Anagram of Les Rhododendrons = Endless horor ? nodd
Les Rhododendrons1
