Has anyone been to one of those 'Top Secret' hotels on Lastminute.com?

[RamblingRosa]

Where you get a cheap price for a post hotel but you don't know which one it is until just before you actually go? I'm wondering about booking one as they've got some really good prices for 4 and 5* hotels in Paris. I'm a bit scared that they'll all be in really out of the way locations or there will be some other major pitfall.

I'd be interested to know if anyone's done it before and what your experience was...

No idea, but I remember that when I once thought about booking one in London I cut and pasted some of the info on Lastminute about the particular hotel and by googling the phrase I was able to work out which hotel it had to be. Could you try that if they give you info about the hotels?

[bump]
Not done it, but suspect they would be the more business-oriented type hotels that are often fairly empty at weekends.

Sometimes you can get huge bargains just by searching for hotels in a certain area during an off time - MrNC and I went to Cologne a few years back, a city that is jam-packed with trade fairs and thus hotels all year, except in August. So the hotels are empty and we got 3 nights in a 5* in the city centre for about 100 quid for the 2 of us!

Thanks for the tips. I'll see if I can work out where some of the hotels are by googling the info. I suspect they're businessy too. But that might not be a terrible thing....better to be in a 5 business hotel for £90 than a 2 hotel for the same price. That's what DP reckons anyway.

I've done it and worked out which hotel it was easily - it was a 5* hotel and there were only two in the city, miles away from each other. When we got there there was a bit of a mix-up with our booking (got sorted in the end though and we got upgraded, so don't let that put you off!) and the receptionist asked how much we'd paid. When I told her the ridiculously low figure DH said the man next to us waiting to check in went very pale indeed.

I've done it too - ended up Here for a ridiculous price (it was very central and perfect for the museums we were visiting . annh is perfectly right about googling the details too.

I did this once, in Edinburgh - it was the Hilton Grosvenor in the West End.

Oooh, I'm seriously tempted now. I don't think I'd be able to work it out from the details simply because there are so many 4 and 5 hotels in Paris and the details about location are too vague. The only problem is, if I search for our dates for two adults, loads come up. If I search again for 2 adults and one 2 yo, nothing comes up. If I just booked a double room and turned up with DD as well, would we be turned away?

We did this in Edinburgh and it was the Sheraton Grand - really lovely and out of our price range any other way.

Sometimes Googling the bit of information they give can make you reasonably sure what hotel it is (although you can't be 100% sure until you book). I'd always recommend it though.