Review of Apartments Bridgestreet Opera 4*

I hope that this review saves a bunch of travelers a bunch of stress and unnecessary back and forth with unwilling hosts. As a traveller from the U. S. We were excited to visit Paris and take in all the sites that the wonderful city has to offer. However, it soon became apparent that staying at Bridgestreet was going to make our stay in Paris a very un-happy one. To summarize, the best part about Bridgestreet was NOT staying at their allocated apartment. To begin, the reservation we booked was from Saturday — Saturday. We received confirmation and were provided an address of, what we assumed was, the apartment. Once we landed at the airport, I called the Bridgestreet number on the reservation (note that I bought a $30 calling card to use while abroad to avoid hefty fees from my US phone service). A recording answered and claimed that the office is closed, but I stayed on the line and was connected to an emergency operator. I told the operator that I was calling to confirm the address of the apartment and asking about how we go about the check-in process. She said that there was no way of knowing what the address was until we: went from the airport to the Bridgestreet office downtown Paris, opened the door to the building (she gave me a code to use), opened a lock box inside the building (with another code she gave me), and found all the information on an envelope with my name on it. After traveling for 8 hours the last thing we wanted to do was carry luggage around and go on an adventure to figure out where we were going to stay for the week. I asked her if there was anyway that someone could save us the trip and bring us the envelope at the airport, no she responded the office is closed. To add to all of the stress of this, we landed at 11 am and she mentioned the envelope wouldn't be available until 4 pm that afternoon. I debated canceling right then and there over the phone, but as we had already paid for the trip, I figured we'd give it a chance. We got the envelope and the apartment that we were allocated to was in the suburbs of Paris, roughly 15 miles from the city center, which is where the reservation claimed the apartment would be. I called back and connected to the operator and told her that was unacceptable and that I wanted to either cancel or be allocated a different apartment. She again stated that, because the office was closed, we would have to wait until Monday to go to the office and figure it out. I booked a hotel on Hotwire to stay in the center of Paris for the weekend and called Bridgestreet first thing Monday morning. We made another trip to the office and they were able to change our apartment to one that was downtown. We arrived in the apartment that we were given and immediately were turned off by several things: 1) it smelled horrible, 2) the only bed in the apartment was a couch pull-out, and 3) there was no air-conditioning or even a fan (it was 85 degrees outside and very humid). I called the office back and asked if they could move us again to an apartment with air-conditioning and they claimed none of their units have air-conditioning, they would "try" and get us a fan before we left the following Saturday they claimed. I ended up booking another hotel on Hotwire for the remainder of our stay, which I would've been best served to do in the first place. I STRONGLY encourage anyone that is considering Bridgestreet to be full aware that you are playing a game of chance with where you are allocated, you'll need to retrieve the keys on your own if you arrive on the weekend, and the units are not equipped with the standard comforts of modern hotels. I would discourage any tourists from staying with Bridgestreet to avoid the additional hassle that comes with the property.