The Babel Community “Vieux Port”
Marseille, France 🇫🇷 and 3 other locations
→ thebabelcommunity.com
✉️
a coliving community · since 2021
Hybrid coliving and coworking residences — places where you can live, work, eat, play sports and (above all) meet!
Comprises 168 apartments and studios. [–Ed.]
Reviews please interpret other's opinions per your own needs and values
The rooms are super small, and the wifi is not very steady. Bed is comfortable, and the rooftop is very pretty, but they close for restaurant only until 3pm. I tried just having a drink at the rooftop and they did not let me stay, saying that it was closed for people having a full meal until 3pm. If im staying in a hotel for the rooftop, i wanna be able to have a drink there, not just after 3pm! Also, the place was empty, so it wasnt like there wasnt a table available. They advertise a gym but its only a room with a couple yoga mats and punching bags. Overall, way too expensive for what they deliver, there are nicer places in the city for the same price!
THEY WILL REMOVE YOUR ACCESS AT 10:30PM LEAVING YOU STRANDED ON YOUR FIRST NIGHT. My boyfriend and I stayed here for a long weekend and it was one of the worst and strangest experiences we’ve ever had in an accommodation. DO NOT STAY HERE. Our first day in Marseille we’d check in and upon initial inspection the room was fine, but the shower drain had a horrible odor coming from it. We looked past it and left the room in the later afternoon to explore the city. We returned at 10:30pm and our key card did not work. Initially we believed the card had demagnetized in my purse so we called the contact number from our booking. It went straight to voicemail. We began to panic. We were about to spend the night on the floor of the lobby. A while later a woman came out of the door that led to the elevator bay and I jumped up to grab the door. After my boyfriend spoke with her in French, we learned she was a server at the rooftop restaurant and she was leaving her shift. She was able to get us into the elevator bay, onto our floor, and SHOCKINGLY, into our room. ALL STAFF (EVEN RESTAURANT) HAVE COMPLETE ACCESS TO YOUR ROOMS. She was extremely kind and helpful and took down our names and noted our key cards did in fact indicate this was our room. I am so grateful she had access and was willing to help us, but this raised a huge security issue. After a rocky nights sleep, we went down to the front desk to ask them to fix the card that we had thought we’d messed up. The women at the desk looked in the system and they had intentionally revoked our access the night before for no reason at all. When my boyfriend asked why and if they would be doing it again, they just assured us it wouldn’t and that was that. I still cannot believe how close we were to spending the night on the ground. While this was our biggest issue, there were others things that inconvenienced us as well. Our check out was at 11am but our train wasn’t until 4pm. We needed a place for our suitcases which they claimed to provide. They also claimed to be open from 7am to 9pm (or something similar to that, essentially all day). We left our room just before 11 and they were no where to be found. We figured it was a good idea not to leave our luggage anyway as we had noticed this bizarre and unexpected closure. There was a chance of them not being there for us to retrieve our luggage in time for the train if they had decided to randomly close the desk. DO NOT STAY HERE.
Just ok/not all that clean/needs a kettle/previous tenant dirty plates & laundry/electricity turned off too early. Balcony was nice/bed comfortable.
All I can say is ‘this was just ok’. First impression, the corridors were strangely lit (too bright strip lighting) and smelt horrible. The room had mod-cons like fully electric curtains & lighting & air-con that were all controlled by a control panel on the wall. The bed was comfortable. The balcony was nice.
The room was not cleaned all that well. Dirty floors and toilet. The dishwasher was full of the previous tenants dirty items. The washing machine/dryer was full of the previous persons laundry.
The only option for hot drink was a Nespresso coffee machine. But I only needed hot water, so I tried to use the machine to give me hot water for a tea. I flushed it out 6 times and still the murky, brown liquid that came out was not good for making tea. I don’t know why there couldn’t just have been a kettle provided. It’s definitely cheaper than a nespresso coffee machine and any of the Nespresso drink pods you have to buy.
There are only ‘tiny’ glasses and cups to use, (I don’t know why there can’t be average size items to drink from). There were no tea-towels, (so we couldn’t dry any items).
To top it all off, on the final day (bearing in mind that check-out is at 11:00). The apartment electricity supply was turned off at ~09:00! This meant that the curtains could open. Lights wouldn’t switch on. Internal bathroom/toilet in pitch black. I couldn’t wash my hair as the hairdryer wouldn’t work. The air-con went off so the room got stuffy. I couldn’t charge my phone. (This may explain why, like us, the dishwasher wasn’t put on by the pervious tenant!)
We went to the rooftop bar for an afternoon drink. The bar staff men were very friendly. The server lady was a bit rude. We decided not to go back there.
Overall impression, it was ‘ok’, (we’ve stayed in worse places), but we probably wouldn’t stay here again.
Good morning,
I need to change the location to republic. I was sure that I can use both of them. As manager at veux port said so. But it’s impossible and I love near republic. Could you please help me to do it as I just bought my monthly pass.
I’m okay to pay extra in case the price is different.
Thank you very much!
Check-in was super convenient, the location is great, and the rooms offer ok value for money. Hands down, the rooftop is the absolute highlight of this building, and we loved having breakfast there. The co-working spaces are nice, though a bit small, and the AC could be improved (it was super hot there). However, the overall atmosphere of the building was a disappointing. Dark floors, rundown and smelly staircases, and limited interaction with service staff made the experience much less welcoming. We would have appreciated a more inviting and community-oriented vibe.
I do not recommend this place to rent for long or short stay. From the first moment we had a bad experience. Our DOUBLE ROOM was not ready when we arrived at our CHECK-IN time, and we were 20 minutes late. Spacious and nicely designed. It had NO HAIR DRYER (as it said in the description of the amenities) and the AIR CONDITIONING DID NOT WORK WELL. In reality it was an air conditioner but it did not work well, there were times when the little air that was blowing was not enough to cover a 4x4 room. We had to sleep every night with the window open and wait for the air to cool down a bit in the early morning when the temperature dropped. Some technicians came to check the air-conditioning system (twice), one of them woke us up at 8 am, without prior notice. And worst of all, they took us as fools saying that the device was working and that the room was cool, after having spent the whole night with the window open letting in the cool outside. Very bad attention, very few workers to highlight that have been friendly. BATHROOM, no hanger to hang towels. They never came to change or offer to change sheets or towels (our stay was 5 nights) .KITCHEN, equipped just enough and nice (when we settled in the dishes were being washed in the dishwasher, we did not have to use at the time a glass or cup) .BREAKFAST, normal, to my taste lacked some options, such as including some vegetable milk, eggs or toast. TERRACE, beautiful view and where breakfast is served. DESIGN OF THE ELEVATOR HALLWAYS, horrible. A lot of unnecessary light and the smell of sewage. GYM, small but good, some music would be nice to accompany the exercise.
Had a wonderful experience! The location was incredible and the staff were tremendously friendly and helpful. The room itself was super spacious - it was minimalist, but that was perfect for my one-night stay
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