Hotel Ibis di Besancon

I stayed here for 4 nights during the heatwave! Fortunately the air conditioning was very good. Usual Ibis room, comfy bed decent bathroom with good shower. Hotel is only a few yards from the bus and tram stop and the tram goes to the railway station which is better than the 20 minute uphill walk! Hotel is only a short walk from the main square, shopping streets, restaurant area and the river. Buffet breakfast was a good start to the day and all the staff were helpful and friendly. My first stay in Besançon and I'd gladly stay here again.

My wife and I stayed at this hotel from the 13th - 18th August 2022, In the evenings we would have two drinks before going to bed, the bar stays open until midnight, One of the nights there was no bartender as she left early, which left the night porter whom I'd never seen before, I approached him and ordered drinks to which he said the bar was closed, i politely reminded him of that the closing time was (midnight) so he got the drinks, albeit reluctantly, i paid him and said we would probably like another one, he said no we weren't getting any more, so as not to annoy him we only had 1 drink. On her way to our room as i finished my drink, my wife asked him for a glass of iced water as she had done every night, Suddenly I heard shouting so I look to see it's the porter shouting at my wife ”no you are getting no water” he screamed at her, trying to reason with him she said ”it's just a glass of water” but the porter aggressively persisted she would have no water, I told him he was a very rude person and that I was reporting him to the manager. The next morning we went to the manager with our complaint but to my surprise she wasn't one bit sympathetic towards us, she just said that she would have a word with him, she didn't even offer us an apology, When we came back the following night the same porter was on duty again but so was the bartender, we were having our drink when we overheard the porter saying to the bartender that he wasn't going to serve us anything, We are both in our mid sixties and in all our years of travel we've never felt so embarrassed or intimidated by a member of staff and over something as trivial as a glass of water! The incident completely soured our stay and really let the hotel down in how A) they let this happen and B) how they handled it. Truly appalling behaviour towards guests. Needless to say we will never be staying at this hotel or any hotel associated with it again...