Domaine de Fontenille

Wonderful
Traveller Type: Traveling as Couple
  : We love the outdoor seating areas of the restaurant. The view is magnificent. You can see their vineyard at the end of the walkway. A bicycle was provided to cruise around the small town.
  : Our room is located on the 2nd floor above their office. We had to carry two huge luggage. That's the only downside I could think of this place.

Good
Traveller Type: Traveling as Couple
  : the grounds
  : inexperienced/not reactive staff, breakfast not great

Poor
Traveller Type: Family with Young Children
  : We stayed at Prestige Duplex Room for 11 nights. The hotel has the potential to be excellent (room was lovely outside of a very firm bed) and the hotel grounds are beautiful. The key problem for this hotel is very clearly management and staff training. If you are staying for just a couple of days and dont mind mediocre service and unchanging restaurant food, this hotel will be a good option. Location is on the wrong side of Provence if you want to visit all the famous little villages youll be driving a fair bit of 30-45 minute drives and crossing the mountain a bit on some windy roads.
  : Some examples for context:Arrival: Check-in with six large suitcases and a child covered in vomit (car sick). Nobody offer to help with luggage or provide a towel or something for my child.General warmth: Never feel welcome - a simple Bonjour and some eye contact with guests is all that is needed. Felt almost like strangers in the hotel. Compare via Paris and Cannes hotel - both where extremely warm and welcoming, felt like home immediately. This isnt a French thing - it is just bad management. Even if staff dont speak English they can still be welcoming.Housekeeping: Always need to ask for shampoo/soap to be refilled. They never actually checked proactively. Annoying to run out of soap in the shower.Food: We only ate breakfast and at La Cuisine d Amelie. We skipped the gastronomic meal at the one star restaurant. Food never changes for either place and menu apparently remains static for at least 3 months. Breakfast we would ask for fresh fried eggs in the morning which was oddly difficult. They make fried eggs and a cheese omelette which sit under a heat lamp and just age not very attractive or tasty. Would recommend they add at least some minor variations for breakfast and offer ready made eggs to order (which technically was possible but always felt like we were asking some big favor). For La Cuisine dAmelie - food quality is decent for one meal - but then it is just boring. Menu only has 3 items per category- so you basically eat most of the menu in one sitting. Poolside food options very limited - nothing there that helps to mix things up.Competence/Service: This is the major issue. The client is always right would be a good starting point. I dont know why but I always felt like I had to prove myself to get something done and chase them HARD or nothing happened.So many examples over the stay - but think the clearest would be how they lost my certified DHL package for 6 days.

Wonderful
Traveller Type: Traveling as Couple
  : Absolutely stunning hotel. You will not be disappointed with the rooms, facilities and the grounds. We hired some bikes and rode along the vineyards, it was perfect!
  : It's not in the centre of town, which has its pros (peaceful) and cons (limited to hotel facilities), although the hotel caters for everything!

Very Good
Traveller Type: Traveling as Couple

Wonderful
Traveller Type: Traveling as Couple

Wonderful
Traveller Type: Traveling as Couple

Very Good
Traveller Type: Traveling as Couple
  : The property grounds were absolutely stunning, incredibly well maintained and manitured gardens. Fantastic heated pool and a jaw dropping views every way you turn. The restaurant on the terrace by the pond was incredible (and the staff here were fantasic). We were hesitant to try based on reviews but ended up dining there for 2/3 nights. I would highly recommend to stay and dine here just to experience place, regardless of the little issues we encountered.
  : The staff were all pleasant enough, but for the price of the accommodation very surface level hello and goodbye is all you can expect. They still seemed to all be finding their feet in their roles. Every request just seemed difficult... They do not assist with bringing luggage to your room. Our room had a beautifully comfortable super king sized bed - with only 1 pillow each! We requested an additional four pillows and after following up again received 2 pillows and were told there are no more pillows left (so odd for a hotel).. and they would get us 2 more tomorrow (never happened). The mini bar and shampoo was not replaced during our 3 night stay. I ran out of body wash on the last day which was annoying. They never really explained what services were available at the hotel. I had to ask if their was massage service, and then was told there should be a flyer in my room (rather than just giving my one while I was at reception). There was no flyer in the room and by the time I finally got one from them it was the evening before check out. We also requested an iron a few hours before needing to leave for dinner and had to follow up again. We ended up just going to dinner in crumpled clothes because we did not want to be late for our reservation. I had also booked Superior Suite based on the photos on the website to discover our room looked entirely different.. had I known that the room would be external from the house next to reception entry with the only natural light coming from the door (which for privacy you had to keep closed and the curtains drawn) I would have selected a different room. I like to sleep with windows and curtains open so this was a big issue for my personal comfort. I would recommend they update their website to show the variety of rooms you may get - not just the best one.

Wonderful
Traveller Type:
  : The most tranquil retreat ! Beautiful grounds, fantastic swimming pool and great food. Breakfast is lovely and are very welcoming of dogs :)
  : Clothing that we requested to have ironed/ steamed was returned to us with stains.

Wonderful
Traveller Type: Family with Young Children
  : This is a queen of hotels. I have come back more relaxed from a weekend away here (even with my children accompanying me!) than I have from a week on holdiay elsewhere. It is in a former old house/chateau type property with lofty ceilings and lovely cool corridors-heaps of character. The peace, quality and sheer Provencal beauty all combine to make a tonic. The aesthetic and comfortable, spacious rooms, the quality of the linen and character of the rooms meant 2 fantastic nights' sleep; the different terraces to choose to sit in (all carefully selected for your maximisation of the sun in the evening and the views), the large grounds (see fountains and frogs-children love them). All I heard was birds and wind-you can be private here as there is plenty of space. The swimming pool area is simple but so relaxing. The pool is clean, warm and a good size. The gardens are a feature in themselves. The food is excellent and the staff are unpretentious and helpful. I would not hesitate to recommend this hotel for anyone seeking to shut the world off and relax, but also to explore the area. It is just under 1 hr to Marseille Airport and Aix En Provence is 45 minutes away. They have some donkeys but there weren't in the mood to speak to us, fair enough, so we just looked at them. There are other properties in the portfolio to explore.
  : One more pair of hands at breakfast would have made it smoother but it was still a lovely brekkie and the staff are very pleasant. I would love to have stayed longer but had to come home for school and work. That's my fault!