First of all, the staff at this hotel was uniformly great. Attentive, helpful, and friendly. (For example, we called the front desk to ask about internet, and five minutes later someone arrived in our room to connect a wireless router.) They really seem to be doing the best they can with what they have...which isn't much.

There is not much else positive about this hotel. First, forget what the website says, it isn't really a castle. It's more of a large house with faux-looking turrets and a sad suit of armour on the front porch. It's much in need of painting and a general sprucing-up.

Second, the location is positively awful. It's about a block off a very industrial, unattractive road. The view from our windows was of a development of run-down duplexes.

Third, the hotel itself is very run-down. After checking in in the dark, small, dingy lobby, we climbed the stairs to the second floor and opened the door into...complete darkness. The lights in the hall seem to turn off on a timer, but don't have a motion sensor to turn them on. So after we groped around in the dark for a bit and found a light switch, we made our way to the suite.

One of the strangest things about the room was that the management appears to have decided to paint over some sort of decoration on the upper half of the walls, but stopped in the middle of the project. There were great swaths of smudgy white paint circling the room, covering up a mural or border of some sort. The carpet and furniture were very worn. The bathroom was clean but very small, and looked as if someone's grandmother decorated it in 1953 and it hadn't been updated since. It was extremely hot. I had to open the windows to counteract the air pouring out of the furnaces, which could not be controlled in the room. (Remember, this was February...so we had to open the windows, then close, then open them, all night...just to achieve a bearable sleeping temperature.)

We stayed in the off-season (it was so off-season, that most of the other chateaux we tried to book were closed for the month), and yet the room I just described to you was more than $300 per night. Plus they charged an additional $50 for a rollaway bed for my daughter. Completely outrageous for a hotel in this shape.

The restaurant was in a bit better shape, which is good because there is nowhere else to eat nearby. The food at dinner was actually quite creative and most of it was fairly good, and the service was great.

Breakfast was a different story, however. We were shown to a table that had a basket of packaged madeleines and pastries (individually wrapped in plastic, vending machine style...) and a few containers of yogurt. The waiter pointed to a tray across the room that had a few croissants and pains au chocolat. That was it. For $12 each. Coffee and juice extra.

Bottom line, don't be fooled by the pretty pictures on the website. There are much, much, much better places to stay in the area, usually for less.