THIS HOTEL IS A FIRE DISASTER WAITING TO HAPPEN. We stayed at le Chissay 4th - 11th October 2010. Booked through Brittany Ferries as one of their top recommended hotels. On arrival the receptionist commented there were few other guests staying as it was near the end of their season. On the 6th October we had dinner in Amboise and returned to the hotel around 9pm. I took my elderly parents to their room accessed by the lift adjacent to the hotel reception and the tower. As I walked back across the courtyard to my room (17) the hotel went into complete darkness. At 9.45pm the fire alarm sounded and after 10 minutes my wife suggested I go to the reception area to see what the problem was? Standing in the courtyard I found a very worried guest - on honeymoon from Russia (staying in room 21). He was rather panicked and explained he could not find anyone in the building and could not get out of the hotel - the double doors from the courtyard to the driveway being locked and bolted. There was smoke coming out of the reception area. The main reception glass door was also locked but we managed to gain access via the adjacent tower stairwell. We found a large log had rolled out of the open fire and was burning on the stone floor. Fortunately it had not rolled out as far as the easy chairs and table! We made safe the fire and ventilated the reception and then waited for the hotel staff to arrive. After about 20 minutes - 40 minutes since the fire alarm had gone off (and the siren was still sounding), two sleepy eyed young men dressed in boxer shorts and tee shirts arrived. One explained in broken English he was new to the job as night porter and the other was the breakfast waiter. When we asked to see the manager we were told he was not in the hotel but would come later. The Russian guest and I returned to our rooms. Half an hour later my wife and I could not sleep and so we returned to the reception, to see if the manager had come to check the situation was under control. The receptionist had arrived (in her night attire) and when I asked to see the manager I was told he lived away from the hotel and would not be in until the following morning. Based on our experience, this hotel is a fire accident waiting to happen. It is only when you experience this that you realise; 1) the main hotel entrance was locked after 9.30pm, 2) there were no staff on duty after 9.30pm 2) the emergency signage in many areas of the hotel is out of date and the corridors are poorly lit, 3) in the bedroom there is no floor plan to direct you out of the building in an emergency, 3) the hotel literature suggests you vacate your room in the event of fire and seek help from the reception (not particularly helpful in this instance). 4) Several of the room are accessed via the tower adjacent to the reception area with no other means of access aside from a lift which would not be used in the event of fire. If there was large fire on the ground floor the tower would act like a chimney and there would be no other means of escape for those guests trapped on the upper floors. 5) The location of the hotel being set into a wooded hillside with cut terraces below would make it extremely difficult for any of the emergency services to gain access to the main building and even if they did they would find it extremely difficult to access rooms on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd floors. We did try to dicuss this with the hotel manager but he was dimissive and ignored our concerns. As for Brittany Ferries we reported it to them by e-mail and a young lady from their French office called to say they would call back the next day but they never did. As for us we continued our holiday and had a super time in the Loire though next year we will return to staying at Leading Small Hotels of the World, Chateaux de France and Relais de Silence as these hotels and their management take the health and safety of their guests far more seriously than that of Chateaux de Chissay.