What a horrible hotel. I was booked on the "Business" floor, which I am assuming is better than all the rest. I can't imagine how bad the rest are. The room stank so bad it woke me up at night. I was afraid to walk on the carpet without shoes on, so after I showered I would lay out towels on the floor until I could get dressed. I booked for 5 nights and stayed just that one. I couldn't handle the smell and the carpet. It's not worth staying so close to downtown for this mess. Cabs are cheap, especially if you negotiate.

The Novotel in Accra was one of these places where, 10 years ago when I was a poor Peace Corps volunteer, I would walk by and dream. At the time there were just a couple of nice hotels in Accra (the Golden Tulip, Labadi Beah Hotel and Shangri-La were the others) and the Novotel was the one that was right downtown, where you would walk by en route from the market to the lorry park where you'd get the trotro back to the neighborhood dive hotel you were staying in, and wonder, hmmm. What kind of people stay there? Who are they and what are their stories, and how did they get to be so lucky? See, aside from all of that, the name strikes me as strangely Soviet-like, despite it being a French chain. So things have changed - and they haven't. I am now one of the people I used to envy, as I spent one week here for a conference. Accra has really changed in the past ten years, but Novotel - maybe not so much. It's a solid hotel and not bad, but it isn't as nice as the Tulip or Labadi. I like the location but a lot of people don't (for the same reason I do - nearness to downtown, market). It seems to be a business -oriented hotel, with a smattering of tourists. If you are a business traveler it is kind of nice as you don't feel like a loser alone in the bar with your laptop in the evenings, since there are 20 other people doing the same thing! Some flight crews, including Delta, stay here. The location is pretty good, you are walking distance to Makola and the arts market, the STC station for buses leaving for Volta region, and a bunch of good chop. Not far by taxi is Osu and the beaches, the museum and presidential palace. Reception: It was fine. I arrived in early evening and the people were happy to help but not pushy (like with bags and stuff, I didn't have to fight them off). Friendly reception, and expedient. One bonus was that there is an airport pick up (and drop off) service, so I didn't have to try to bargain with taxi drivers with all my bags. The checkout procedures were pretty expedient as well, even at 6:30 in the morning. I have to say that all of the hotel staff were very nice, willing to help and go the proverbial extra mile. Ayikoo! Anyhow, the lobby is a little small, especially since there are gift shops (overpriced), a cafe, business center, forex and meeting rooms in this rectangular lobby. Everyone speaks English and many speak French (note this is NOT typical for Ghana as a whole). There are 2 elevators and stairs, the elevators have a security thing where you have to slide the room card before you can take the elevator to the room hallways. Food (restaurant/bar): Then there is a bar and restaurant. The bar was okay, nice and brightly lit so you don't feel like you are in some kind of den. There is piano playing in the early evenings which is nice. Comfy chairs. Obruni (foreigner) prices. Quite good pizza, actually. Lots of business people of all nationalities, which is kind of nice, you can talk to new people and not feel like you are in a pickup place. For this business traveler being alone (and female), this was a nice and welcome ambiance. The restaurant was kind of disappointing, food not bad but not much variety. Breakfast was good there, though, it is in the room price and very varied and good food there. Gideon made me fresh pepper sauce every morning to have with my boiled eggs after I asked for it the first day (I like the way they serve them in the lorry park!) and even made me extra in the fridge to cover his days off! The fufu is from a box but not bad, and the nkatekwan - groundnut soup - is very very good. They served it just as I asked for it (with boiled egg and not chicken). But know that there is no fufu after 3 in the afternoon. (Ghanaians everywhere seem to think that fufu in the evening is too late to take such heavy food – but on the other hand, rice balls, kenkey or boiled yam is somehow okay.) I heard not great things about the extreme burger and also heard the filet was deccent. the bubra (draft) in the bar is Club, which isn't the best but at least they have bottled Star. Meeting rooms: The meeting rooms were pretty good, accommodated a weeklong meeting with lots of people and then sometimes fewer, and in three languages, all of us taking coffee and lunches there - and some days there were also other conferences as well. There seems to be good organization and infrastructure to handle this. We had our lunches mostly outside by the pool, it was nice as there were fans blowing all around and it was qute pleasant (other than the fact that I would have wanted to take a dip!) Rooms: The rooms are decent, but not luxurious. I had either a queen or king, not sure which but it was plenty. It is a platform bed which was totally fine. Air conditioning worked fine as well. There is an electronic safe in the room. There was satellite TV which meant CNN as well as a bunch of French, African, Indian, middle eastern and soccer channels. Hot water didn't run out (note for the short, it is a TALL tub!). They provide shower gel, soap and shampoo. There is a hair dryer in the bathroom. Both the sheets and towels are part of the water saver program, you hang the towels if you don't need them washed/replaced and you put this card on the bed if you don't need the sheets changed. For the modest and/or flatulent, never fear, the toilet is in a separate water closet from the sink etc. Plenty of closet space. Rather large rooms that overlook either the pool or the market (which is really parking lot and trees). Mini-fridges in the rooms and they are great, keep your water so cold! There is not bottled water provided – I didn't ask but drank the tap water as did my colleague, and we are okay... Pool: At first glance, the pool looks very utilitarian, very basic. But, it's actually quite a nice pool. The water is a little warm although they can't really do much about that and it's better than some other places. The best thing is that it is really big. And deep! The shallow end is very small, and really not that shallow – and then the deep end is really deep and there's a lot of room to swim. It's 25 yards long, so it's the length of a typical US high school pool. There's also a tiny shallow pool for babies. Towels are handed out poolside and you can order food and drink there too. There are bathrooms and changing areas right by the pool separate from the hotel so you don't have to trek all over the place for it. The only thing was that they sell day passes and host parties and the like, which I don't mind – and it's not like some places I have been where there's everything overrun – but for a few hours on Saturday afternoon, the pool was overrun with 12 year olds from a birthday party, and they were obnoxious – took up the whole shallow end, throwing all kinds of floaty toys, jumping, pushing, yelling, with no regard for the other people using the pool. This isn't really the hotel's fault but I think someone could have said something to them. Other: There is room service with a limited menu between 10 pm and 6 am. The internet is either in the business center by the hour (I think) or 24 hours (not consecutive) for 12,80 cedis. (At the time I was there it was about 1 cedi to $1 or .75 euro.) You sign in and out and can get t in the room or bar or lobby. But sometimes the internet was down, three nights I couldn't get on and learned it was down, then later they told me that you could only really get it in certain rooms – at that point I just took the computer to the lobby anyhow. You have a password so you sign in and out. The power went out intermittently (about 5-6 times over the week) but never for long - at most literally a couple of minutes. They have a generator, anyhow.

I had spent 1 night in this hotel (26 February 2008) and checked out the next morning. The foyer area would provide you with a facade of a modern-ish, very European layout and you would almost be fooled into thinking that this experience filtered through to the rooms. While waiting for my room to be cleaned, I had read the hotel brochure which had noted that the hotel was completely refurbished in 2002...thus, I had expected the modernish theme to continue into the rooms and was highly dissapointed. The rooms have a very 1970's motel feel to them, seriously lacking in character and with very poor quality carpets and general decor. Your room has a bed (quite hard) and next to it, a large 1950's looking fold out sofa which does'nt even attempt to blend in with the room. The bathrooms were of a poor quality, with an extremely annoying means of diverting water from the taps to the handshower and a tacky green and orange theme. While a mini-fridge is provided, this is empty? The clothes cupboard door is made of metal and resembles a painted gym locker door. At US$ 240 a night B&B this hotel represents seriously poor value for money, its fairly easy to understand why so many residents prefer to mill around the pool and foyer areas as the rooms are nothing short of shocking. On a side note, I was quite surprised to see the various notices against Child prostitution all over the hotel (have not seen this at any of the others that I stayed at in Ghana - I thought that this was positive), but was also quite surprised to find several packs of condoms provided in the bathrooms. In the morning, glancing at some of the characters around the foyer, it becomes apparent that the hotel is a favourite for the European sex tourist. Admittidly the restaurant is'nt half bad, with relatively good value prices (comparitively with other tourist areas in Accra) and decent quality food.

More or less what's expected with a Novotel; a little bland but clean and friendly. Excellent pool and poolside service, great gym, cool, shady places to sit outside and a superb patisserie in the foyer.The food and drink prices are reasonable by European standards but, of course, very high by local standards. If you have a delicate stomach, we would advise sticking to eating in this hotel or similar. In spite of all the usual precautions, we became extremely ill after eating out in a restaurant in Osu. Beware of being pestered by taxi drivers once you leave the hotel. The hotel is within easy walking distance of the Arts Centre, the bus station and the markets. You can take a taxi to Osu, where many of the bars and restaurants are, for between 10 and 20,000 cedes. Do be prepared to haggle. If you're a young student, they charge you less. If they think you're an affluent older person, they will charge more. If you do go to Osu, don't eat salads!