This was our worst experience during our 2 week stay in France in March 2017. Despite check in being at 4pm, when we arrived at 4:30pm the hotel was dark, locked, and no one answered when we rang bell or called their telephone. There was no note or any way to know what was going on. We thought maybe the hotel had closed and we'd need to make other arrangements. Finally, after an hour of waiting with no idea if anyone would ever show up, someone finally arrived. He seemed surprised to see guests at all and said he said he was only filling in for the evening and was not a regular employee. We never met anyone who actually worked at this hotel. We even had to leave our key with the cleaning lady and hope for the best. The entire experience was bad, but the worst was our check in experience which essentially robbed us of a half day of touring and ruined the day overall in terms of the level of stress if added. We had no idea if we had accommodation at all that night or if the hotel had unexpectedly closed, not to mention that we had to wait during the final precious hour of sunlight with our mountains of luggage unable to do anything until the luggage was stowed away. Oh, and when we decided the next morning that we would like breakfast... suprise, surprise... no one was there. While the hotel is beautiful, the lack of service was so terrible it ruined our time in Saint-Emilion.