Hotel Crowne Plaza di Paris

We stayed six nights at this fairly spartan property that was fitted with basic room attributes including a small refrigerator, a hair dryer and a tiny safe. We requested a coffee maker and received a hot pot with instant coffee. Getting an iron in the room proved a bit of an ordeal. The room was clean and the beds were quite good. Hotel staff was uniformly convivial, accommodating and helpful with exception of an encounter with the night manager (more on that later). Only one low voltage outlet in the bathroom was provided that could power an electric razor. My daughter brought a dual-voltage curling iron and hair straightener that could not be used in the bathroom due to lack of an electrical outlet. Staff ultimately provided an extension cord to be strung from the nightstand, and over the bed that my daughter was able to use to reach a wall mirror in the bedroom. We had the misfortune to be at the property during the annual Pride celebration at Place de la Republique directly in front of the hotel. My wife has mobility issues and we had to push through hundreds of drunken celebrants to get to the only entrance to the hotel. Scary stuff getting pushed along by a mob where my wife could have fallen and been trampled. I understand the Pride celebration is a public event but its a scheduled event that the hotel could have alerted clients to and made provisions to have opened a guarded entrance on the backside of the building away from the inebriated mob. With an early morning departure to the airport, I went to the desk the night before to check out so we could leave quickly the following morning. The front desk clerk advised that the hotel had my card on file and my e-mail address so they would send me the bill thereafter with nothing additionally to be done the next morning - just drop the key and run. As we were leaving early the next morning the night manager told me that I couldn't leave because I hadn't settled my bill. He inferred I was skipping out without paying the bill. I recounted the discussion I had the previous night and he repeated firmly that the bill needed to be closed out before we could leave. It was an uncomfortable encounter that was unnecessary. Somebody needs training here and its not the client. In summary, I'd say this property lacked many expected elements for the price point and as such could only describe it as providing moderate value. The lack of provisions to accommodate client access during the Pride celebration and the check-out snafu made it seem that they were somehow new to the game.