We stayed at this hotel from 5 to 10 Feb 2008 at room 212 and subsequently rm 211. we chose this place because we wanted extra space for the family since there are 2 children with us. After reading some of the earlier reviews, I felt this could be a good choice for our long stay. I'll try to be as objective as I can and pin point both the advantages and disadvantages.
Generally I think Lyon has its charm and is a cosy city and it has the advantages of being a vibrant place without the overwhelming size of Paris. Its very easy to get around Lyon as its Metro only consists of 4 lines. That's right, very straight forward, no confusion - easy.
On the downside, if you're staying away from the city centre, there's really not much - plain dull and boring. Gerland was one of those places.
Meanwhile, back to the hotel, based on my experience here's my recap:

Location
Pros:
- The Gerland Metro entrant is right at the hotel's doorstep. Very accessible to get to the town centre via train.
- There is a supermarket to the left where I could find a fantastic selection of baby food. It was convenient for other buys like mineral water and also food for cooking in the kitchenette etc.
- A fenced playground in front of the supermarket was a plus.
- Fancy restaurant next door (see Cons).
Cons:
- Fancy restaurant next door which we didn't bother with because the staff appeared stuck up. I was tired of putting up with another french mediocre service. Unfortunately, this was the only dining within 1 kilometres of the hotel.
- Very quiet area with absolutly nothing else. Yawn!
- we had to walk quite a bit to find another restaurant. It was the ICEO which served a funky fusion of french/mediterranean/tunisian cuisine. Highly recommended - friendly, prompt and attentive service with great music, vibrant crowd and exotic food.

Suite
Pros:
- The kitchenette had a sink, two stoves, a microwave, small fridge and a small kettle. Some basic utensils are there and you can request for more as we did. We did some light pasta cooking on some nights and made our own breakfast on most days.
Cons:
- The central heating in our room was faulty and couldn't be adjusted at all. It was cold in the room and bear in mind February is the coldest month.
- The fridge smelled like rotten cheese. Ugh!
- No safe in the room for passports/valuables.
- The light bulb in the toilet blew up on Saturday and we asked them to change that but they didn't care and it seemed that there are no working staff about except for the guy at the reception and the lady at the breakfast counter.
When my husband demanded for a discount for the lack of service - they asked us to shift to another room. we moved next door (room 211) and finally on the second last day of our stay, we got some heat on. The heating was properly functioning, the switches okay, no smell from the fridge this time. We realised they had given us a semi-faulty suite earlier on when we checked in. However, the following day when we checked out, the guy at the reception was smart enough to give us a discount - in that he didnt charge us for the use of the sofa bed throughout our stay, nor the hotel breakfast which we took once, so we were quite pleased with the 'compensation'. And he was kind enough to call a taxi on our behalf.
Hallelujah!