Royat Casino Guide and Review
Located in Vichy, France, Royat Casino presents a varied experience, with opinions ranging from highly satisfied regarding specific events and staff to significantly disappointed concerning dining services and facilities upkeep. While its primary function is a casino, the provided reviews highlight its notable role as a venue for other events, which impacts visitor perception.
👍 Positive Aspects and Highlights
- Excellent Staff Support: Several visitors commend the staff for their helpfulness and friendliness. One reviewer specifically noted the staff's assistance even with limited French language skills, indicating a welcoming and supportive service environment.
- Event Hosting Excellence: The casino is highly praised for its capability to host high-quality annual book writer events, often in collaboration with Librairie des Volcans (a prominent bookstore in Clermont-Ferrand). This particular aspect is described as "highly recommended" and a "very good event," suggesting the venue excels in non-gambling event organization.
- Internal Organization: At least one user found the venue to be well-organized, contributing positively to their overall experience.
⚠️ Areas for Improvement
- Parking and Exterior Condition: The external appearance and parking facilities receive critical feedback. Reviewers describe the parking as "haphazard," "dirty," and potentially "confused" for non-French first-time visitors. The building itself is noted as being in a "pretty aged condition," with suggestions for improvements such as "new paint and sandpaper."
- Dining and Large Event Service Issues: A detailed review from a conference dinner highlighted significant issues, particularly for large groups (approximately 230 people). These included:
- Disorganized Food Service: Waiters reportedly lacked knowledge about appetizers, and most food reached a "critical temperature," becoming "soggy and not tasty" very quickly after being served.
- Poor Service Coordination: The staff was described as having "no proper service plan," leading to disorganization. This resulted in staff running around, asking the same table multiple times for drinks while other tables were completely forgotten. Basic requests like water took nearly half an hour to be fulfilled.
- Special Dietary Needs Ignored: Vegetarian and vegan meal requests were initially ignored, with guests receiving meat dishes. Exchanges, when they occurred, took a considerable amount of time (30-40 minutes), by which point other diners had finished. Replacements were minimal, often consisting of just a spoonful of green beans and basic garnishes.
- Inconsistent Food Quality: Meat dishes were highly inconsistent ("something in between raw and extra well done") and frequently described as "chewy." Overall food quality, including a cold cheese plate, was deemed "poor."
- Average General Service: Beyond specific event issues, general service was described as "pretty average" by one visitor, indicating room for overall improvement.
🤔 Focus on the Casino Itself
It is important to note that while Royat Casino serves as a versatile event venue, one significant review explicitly stated, "No comment on the Casino itself." This suggests that much of the detailed feedback, particularly the negative points related to dining and large event management, may not directly reflect the gambling experience or the core casino operations. Visitors primarily seeking gambling facilities might find their experience differs from those attending large catered events, as the core casino aspect receives less direct commentary in these reviews.
First and foremost, this offers haphazard parking. Non-French first timers are bound to be confused here. Finally, the service here is pretty average.
At the first view it looks nice, but the image changes as soon as you reach the building, the parking lot is dirty, everything is in a pretty aged condition, a bucket of new paint and sandpaper could help a lot.From the inside it looks way better, but there other things are ruining a good first impression.We have been there for a conference dinner with roughly 230 people, everyone had given information about allergies, vegetarian, vegan, etc. during the registration more than three months before the event, and everyone was getting a card for his place that it will be obvious for every service member, that was the good part.But from there it started with the fact that none of the waiters knew what he is giving as an appetizer, they had simply no clue at all, on top of this most of the food already reached a critical temperature where everything was only soggy and no tasty at all. And that was already 5 min after we where allowed to enter the ball room.After we took our seats the next thing came up, the staff had no proper service plan, everyone was running around asking at the same table multiple times for drinks while other tables were completely forgotten about. So it took nearly half an hour until even the first bottle of water was put in place at our table. And it wasn't going to be better from that on. 230 people is already a larger group, but with roughly 8 persons at service it is no big deal to set in the starters within under 10 minutes. But here as well, they where completely unorganized. And so we got our first plate when half of the room had already finished. The real problems where starting with the main dish, every special food order was ignored, the vegetarians and the vegans got first of all the meat dish as well, then it was exchanged, that took more than 30-40min, everyone else was finished at that point, and the surprise was pretty big, because the meat was simply exchanged by a spoon full of green beans everything else was the same, and two baby carrots and an salat leaf are not that much as a side dish. But also for the meat eaters, it was not a pleasant experience, the meat was something in between raw and extra well done, depending witch plate you got, and it was always chewy. The next two dishes were of the same poor quality, and one of it was a cold cheese plate...So all in all it was neither a pleasant or a tasty experience. The staff was friendly no doubt about that, but had definitely now clue what they had to do, or how to serve such a large group. To be clear about this, if done this job for 8 years, and that was an outstanding failure on all fronts, from the kitchen chef down to the waiters. Never again, especially not if you have seen the bill for that.There are way better restaurants around the city.
This casino manages to hold every season a very good event of book writers, who are dedicating their works, in connexion with Librairie des Volcans, the most recommended book and disc store in Clermont-Ferrand. Highly recommended for this annual event. No comment on the Casino itself.
Excellent centre. The staff are so helpful even with my poor French language skills