Great place to stay in Toulouse. Close to airport shuttle stop and Place de Wilson. Plenty of restaurants and shops nearby. The rooms are large and clean and the breakfast is good value at 7 euros 50. The owner is very friendly and makes guests welcome. Also since he checks on everyone entering and leaving the hotel it made me feel very safe staying here. I have stayed here 3 times since September and will stay again next time I'm in Toulouse.

We travelled with 2 young children and visited Toulouse for Citi de L'espace, (Space Park). Despite arriving early in the morning, well before check-in time, we were greeted very warmly and given our family room (up 2 flights of stairs but very spacious - for France). It was clean and everything was in working order. Breakfast was fresh and served at our requested time.

Fred, the hotel-owner was very helpful and I would recommend this hotel to those on a budget looking for a convenient family room. Travellers should be aware it is a standard 3 star, no frills independently run hotel.

Hotel Heliot is down a side street in the middle of Toulouse. Shortwalk to station, restaurants and centre of old Toulouse. The owner is very welcoming and helpful. The hotel is old and a little 'tired' in some areas but everthing works, the beds are good and the rooms spacious.

When we first arrived at Hotel Heliot, we were given a friendly welcome by the owner and showed how to use the outer entry system. It uses your fingerprint, so if you have a problem with an independent business owner having your biometric information, be aware that this is the system used.

The room was pleasantly large, but a few problems started showing up as we settled in. The ivory colored upholstered chair was covered top to bottom in dirt stains, so it became a dropoff point for our carry-on luggage rather than an actual seat. There was a canvas sweater rack in the closet which was also covered in stains, hairs, and dust, so I was leery of using it for anything at all. The clothes hangers provided were a bizarre assortment of about 20 wire and thin plastic hangers which looked like they’d been picked up at garage sales. At least we had brought our own hangers.

The main problem started when I hung up our laundry to drip in the shower. The shower had water spots, soap scum, and mold on the walls and hairs in the shower pan. It obviously had not been cleaned, but since it was already 11 PM, I decided to inform the owner about the poor housekeeping in the morning rather than drag him up to clean it himself. I finished squeezing water out of the clothes and hung them up on the open window to dry.

The open window is the only ventilation in the bathroom, but it’s adequate. Unfortunately, there’s no curtain on the frosted windows, so the clothing helped keep the apartments behind the hotel from getting a good look at blurry images of us.

We showered the next morning, and I told the owner about the dirty shower on our way out. He said he had recently had a fight with the housekeeper. I said, “Yeah, I just figured you might want to know.” My intention was to make him aware of the problem so that we wouldn’t come back to a dirty shower again. He then said, “I’ll take a look, but I find it hard to believe.” It surprised me to be called a liar, but I thought the evidence was sufficient to make my case.

We came back after breakfast and he said he had taken a look at it. His verdict was that, “It’s not dirty, it’s old.” This shocked me, and we had a long debate about what can or can’t be cleaned off of grout. I used have a job I called “glorified janitor” which involved cleaning college dorm rooms between summer conferences (cheerleaders, drill teams, etc.), so I know something about how to clean a hotel room. I went up to the room, took some toilet paper, and wiped off some of the scum and mold. I took the dirty paper down to the desk and showed it to him. “Look, I can wipe it off with just toilet paper and water. That’s not old, it’s dirty.” His response was, “Well, what do you expect? You do laundry, you take two showers. It’s too late now.” Too late?? Too late for what? To get it cleaned? This new implication infuriated me so much that I went back upstairs and discussed with my husband the pros and cons of checking out and finding a new hotel on our only full day in Toulouse. So angry I was starting to cry, I had my husband go the desk to get an assurance that the shower would be cleaned that day.

When we got back that evening, I couldn’t even look at the owner because I would have gotten furious again. The room had been cleaned, and the wipeable film had been cleaned from the shower. Old pink soap stains and grey mold stains remained, and the shower curtain hadn’t been cleaned at all, but at least I didn’t fear bumping into the shower walls anymore. Apparently, nobody at the Heliot has ever heard of bleach and a scrub brush, because that’s how you get the mold spores to go away, not by wiping with flowery surface cleaner when someone finally complains.

Our experience at hotels in Avignon and Marseilles were very good. The only good things about the Heliot were the spaciousness, the TV, and finally leaving. Some people want to stay in a boutique hotel to experience the local culture. If you think the French stereotype is dirty, snobby, and lazy, and that’s what you want, then come to Hotel Heliot.