The initial booking didn’t go too well due to myself sending 4 emails to the owner all without response ... this I understand being an issue between the owner and the booking company ...I did however receive a response 1 working day prior to leaving and but only once I had threatened legal action.
Once on the 3 day break I received numerous calls and text from the owner/owners asking when we were leaving which partially spoilt the break as clearly from the communications the owners were expecting us to leave a day earlier than we had paid for.
Also a little bit disconcerting was that people unknown went on the deck of the boat and on one occasion stole some personal possessions and on another rearranged the furniture.
The boat is located right next to Pont Concord where underneath a vagrant sleeps and defecates/urinates right next to your vehicle ... one morning I offered him some food and received a very aggressive response.... do not feed the vagrants would be my advice!
The location is 100% for everything ....get a 20€ taxi boat ticket that lasts for 2 days to see all the local Seine based attractions. The houseboat is what could be described as ‘rustic’ and we enjoyed it very much ... it takes some getting used to but a very enjoyable experience which we will not be repeating due to the aforementioned issues around communication/vagrants and also the theft of the personal belongings (maybe our fault for leaving them on show though).
Prices for food in Paris are extortionate .... the 15% mandatory service charge doesn’t help especially when the largest item on the bill is the service charge .... £75 equals a service charge of £11.25 which was on occasion the largest item on the bill - £11.25 for less than 4 minutes work (I timed it!) and so it’s not a tip/service charge but a money making scam especially when the service was poor and surly. A crepe, an omelette, one beer and one coke 46€ .... be careful!
Response from the host:
Dear Ian, I'm sorry to hear that you did not have the experience you expected to have. Let me respond to your points above.
CONCERNING THE PRE ARRIVAL CONTACTS : We are sorry about the fact that we could not answer to the contacts of the guest, but we had a problem receiving notifications from the platform that he tried to contact with us. In fact we don’t receive notifications from it, and sometimes they arrive in the « trash » section of the email. We just changed that by using our personal address for BookaHouseboat contacts, and this kind of problem should not happen again. We also had to leave Paris for work reasons on Sunday 8 because to Morocco, and were therefore a bit slower to get everything sorted. We nonetheless had someone there taking care of all the arrival process.
CONCERNING THE CALLS REGARDING LEAVING TIME: we called the guest because I misunderstood the departure dates. In fact, our boat is on renting on different platforms, and therefore we sometimes get confused about which bookings are when! As soon as I understood that I was mistaken I apologized to our guest. In total I might have sent three messages (two on the phone and the rest through the BookaHouseboat platform), and tried to call twice. Again, sorry about that, will be more careful in the future that this does not happen again.
CONCERNING THE THEFT : The boat is on the quay side, and the quay access is public. when weather is good, many people walk around enjoying the beautiful environment and the river ambiance. Nonetheless, it is accessible for people from the walk side. I just want to emphasize that the deck and the boat are two separate spaces, as someone coming on deck will not be able to access the inside of the boat if entry door is locked. We will still inform people in the future to be careful not to leave any unattended objects or personal belonging on deck. We are available in Paris to do any legal/police complaints that the guest might deem necessary in order to start an enquiry and hopefully find his possessions.
CONCERNING THE VAGRANT : in fact one vagrant has been staying under the bridge for a few weeks now. But as in most countries and cities in the world that happens, and we try not to throw them away and signal them to health authorities in order for them to know he is there. For the defecation and urines, unfortunately sometimes people use the hidden space to do their stuff, and we know about that, and clean it as soon as we can. sorry for this issue again. About his aggressiveness, we can’t know about it, but leave to people the choice making contact or not with vagrant they might encounter during their trips.
CONCERNING THE RUSTIC ASPECT OF THE BOAT: happy to know that he enjoyed it, in fact it takes some time to get used to the fact that the boat moves. We do our best to keep the boat in its original aspect, meaning all the wood and not to put too modern furniture in order to offer the best authentic experience to our guests. We are also constantly trying to improve the comfort, as we are doing all the painting new at the end of April for instance.
CONCERNING PRICE OF THE FOOD: as in any touristic city around the world, and we know that Paris is the number one destination in the world, touristic neighborhood are full of expensive restaurants that tourists might go to. As an advice to any of our future guests, avoid such restaurants as both the quality and the price is definitely not the best. that is why we wrote a complete guide of the best restaurants in the neighborhood. Concerning the mandatory service charge, it depends on the restaurants, and we can’t protect guests from bad experiences, but we are aware that Parisian waiters are not always the most welcoming. Again, that is worst in the touristic neighborhoods.
Again, we are very sorry for all that we might have done wrong, and for the bad experiences that you had during his trip. But we have been renting our boat since 2014, and most of our guests were very satisfied about their choice. Again, you will see that for an hotel in the 1km area costs at least 150-200€ / night for one double room, so we think we offer quite a good alternative at a very reasonable rate.
We will note all these remarks, and try our best for that not to happen again in the future. We are available to discuss all that when needed.
