Hotel Le Mouton Blanc

“A unique welcome!”

We booked this hotel because of the price and we wanted to stay on Mont St. Michel. We got to the hotel and were told that we had to walk back down to an office near La Mere Poulard hotel to get the key. A bit weird, but okay. Got back to the Mouton Blanc, found our room, opened the door, and... more

We booked this hotel because of the price and we wanted to stay on Mont St. Michel. We got to the hotel and were told that we had to walk back down to an office near La Mere Poulard hotel to get the key. A bit weird, but okay. Got back to the Mouton Blanc, found our room, opened the door, and discovered a live pigeon on the floor to welcome us. See photos; he was adorable. One of us went down to ask for a different room, and the other one photographed and shot videos of the adventure as they opened a window and encouraged the interloper to escape. Eventually, he flew out, but the poor thing must have been shut in the room for quite some time as he had soiled the bed linens and the carpet. Pas de probleme, said the Mouton Blanc, so we trekked back to the hotel office to get a new room. Sadly, the Mouton Blanc was totally booked up, so we were given a room at the Mere Poulard, a sister property to the MB. So we climbed up what felt like half of Mont St. Michel to get to our replacement room that we were told had recently been renovated. It was a nice room: modern, nondescript, and bland with no character whatsoever. The room itself faced the bay and mainland, which was great. The room was clean, quiet, and comfortable, and we slept very well there. There was a mirror in the room and another in the bath, but neither one had an electrical outlet near it. So if a person wanted to blow dry or style their hair, or use an electric shaver, they would not be able to see their work while they groomed themself. We found that very strange. The bathroom was clean, but whoever did the "renovations" should be flogged. The workmanship was positively horrible, so bad that it must have been done by an inept newbie. The baseboards were not all painted the same color, the cabinet drawer under the sink looked new but didn't close properly, and for some unimaginable reason, there was a space sealed off in the bathroom, beside the toilet, that was open on top. So you could look down into this roughly 3' by 3' compartment and see all the construction filth that was abandoned there. WTF??? Seriously, if you watched a handful of DIY videos on YouTube, YOU could do a better job renovating that bathroom. The following morning we trekked back to the charming Mouton Blanc for breakfast. The buffet was very nice, with a good assortment of breads, pastries, yogurts, cereals, ham/bacon, and hot scrambled eggs. Coffee was from a machine, but fine. The employee in charge of the breakfast was a lady who worked exceptionally hard to keep everything clean, well-stocked, and was cheerful and welcoming to all guests who arrived for breakfast. We laughed that as hard and skillfully as she worked, it was a tragedy that she was not the person who renovated the bathroom at the Mere Poulard, as she would have done a far better job than the incompetent person they hired. One of us had visited Mont St. Michel before, but they slept at a hotel on the mainland. For this vacation, we wanted to sleep on the Mont and are very glad we did. When the busloads of tourists leave, the Mont becomes magical. Streets empty, most shops close soon afterwards, but several restaurants are open for dinner. We walked all over the place, watched the tide come rolling in (very quickly) and loved exploring the ramparts along the perimeter of the Mont. Frankly, we were very disappointed that we could not sleep at the MB. The décor of the room there was so much warmer and more inviting than the cold, modern room at Mere Poulard. To be fair, both hotels were extremely accommodating and did not hesitate to offer a new, pigeon-free room. They could have made the experience extremely difficult, but they were very gracious, and the office person got a giggle watching our videos of the pigeon. If we are ever lucky enough to return to Mont St. Michel, we would very much like to stay at the Mouton Blanc, pigeon-free, to have the experience of staying in that historic property.

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