Hotel Franco Yaounde

Well located for business

Absolutely horrific experience while staying here for an international conference. Upon arrival, I waited over 2 hours for allocation of a room. I was told that the rooms were fully booked and that they would place me in another hotel. Eventually they gave me a room and the quality of the room was shocking. The lighting in the bathroom was extremely poor. But even with the poor lighting, the terrible hygiene and lack of maintenance could be seen. The bathtub was not clean. The room was extremely dilapidated. The very next morning, I requested a new room from reception who advised that a new room was being prepared for me and would be available by midday. At midday, I went to reception and they said the room is ready and allocated but being cleaned and I must return when the conference is over. After the conference, a new staff member was at reception and had no idea about the transfers. He indicated that no new room was available. Eventually, he then assigned me another room. The new room was an improvement however the hygiene of the bathroom was an issue. The shower design makes no sense and the water goes everywhere. There is a permanent smell of urine. There are also cockroaches. When opening the bedding to go to bed, it was seen that the bedding had not been changed and this bedding had hair from other guests. I went to reception again and requested that something be done. They offered that they could change the bedding or they could move me back to the old room. The person at the front desk then requested a member of security to come and change my bedding. The only good thing I can say about this hotel is that the lovely gentleman Claude from security came to change my bedding and was so polite and did his best to assist me despite bedding/house keeping not being his job. He is the only staff member I can applaud at this hotel. The hotel is in a shocking state and should be a 1 star, if that. DO NOT BOOK HERE. I am still trying to find alternative accomodation.

There is a lot of improvement from my previous stay at Hotel Franco. The gymn and Swimming pool deserve more attention. Breakfast is served as a buffet and has a variety of exotic and local meals served from 06:00am to 10:00am. Great location.

Major problem: dirty (brown!) water flowing in the sink and the shower. When reported to Hotel Management, they only said that “the hotel is not responsible”, that “I should just wait for the water to clear”. This happened 4 days out of my 9-day stay. Shocked and disappointed that the Hotel Management is not acknowledging the health risks for its customers. I sent an email to the owner, Mme Françoise Puene (Mamy) Nyanga. She did not respond. I would not go back to Hotel Franco Yaoundé or recommend the to anyone else. Nice staff. All around bad experience.