Mercure Tel Aviv - This is a renovated hotel ?
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Mercure Tel Aviv - This is a renovated hotel ? (8 Photos)
I spend NYE in Tel Aviv and I booked a Privilege Room at the Mercure Tel Aviv.
The taxi dropped me in front of the hotel and indicated it to me: it should be here. There are no logo, sign or anything indicating that the building in front of me is indeed the Mercure Hotel. I enter and see a messy lobby and building workers. I found the weird reception desk (unlike any other hotel I have seen, the reception is a desk, with the staff seated) and checkin begin. I notice that there are no Accor neither Mercure signage, branding or anything. Either this is a bad sign or I am at the wrong place.
Check In
I am at the right hotel. I am not greeted, nor welcomed, nor invited to seat down on one of the chair facing the desk. Instead my passport is asked and I am checked in to my Privilege room. No upgrade as the hotel is sold out (which was truly the case). I am given a drink voucher for a drink at the pantry (there are no bar).
The staff member is clearly annoyed I am here, so I just ask the very basic questions and go on my way. She confirmed the hotel is under renovation but this is nearly the end and soon finished. Great I am looking forward to see a renovated room.
Room
Wait, this is a renovated hotel ? Well I would not want to see before renovations then. The room is tiny (fair enough but it is really tinier than an Ibis in Hong Kong), the bathroom even more minuscule and outdated.
Heck there are holes in the wall
There is is some Granola (part of the room, not a welcome gift - I had none by the way) and the mini bar contain one bottle of water, one tonic, a coke and an orange juice, as per the amenities of a Privilege room, This will be refilled once during my 5 nights stay.
Slippers and bathrobe are missing, but this is corrected quickly after I ask for them.
Photocopy of Dutch newspaper are provided every morning. Why Dutch ? Well in my current residence is in Germany. Thus Accor IT believes I hold a German passport, despite my profile being correctly set to French passport holder. So every time the prepopulated passport field is set to German when finalising a booking. Sometimes I might forget to correct, this was likely the case. Then German or Dutch, potato potayto. This will be corrected the third morning.
Upon inspection, the bathroom walls are dirty and there are nails protruding out.
Service
The staff always seem unhappy to be here. No staff member ever told me good morning during the breakfast for example, or even actually talked to me, or to the other guests as far as I could see.
The commons like the gym was dirty, and not cleaned (there was no refill of the paper towels put on the water fountain). The gym itself was cramped and the equipment badly maintained.
Location
Location is good, 5 minutes from the beach, 2 km from Jaffa, easy access to Allenby street.
Overall
An extremely disappointing property, which is not at the level to be a Mercure or a four star property. Honestly I had see worst one star places.
I received he usual feedback survey plus a SMS containing a link to another feedback survey, from an Israelian company. I was quickly contacted by the Guests Relations manager who asked for examples of my low ratings. I provided them and to this date I received no further communications.
The points for the stay are not awarded. The checkin in Places for this stay is not approved.
This is not just this Mercure - don't look up when you're passing the Renaissance hotel or you may find yourself depressed, and at the waterfront Hilton they have some pretty interesting wildlife - a cockroach ran across the main lobby floor towards the bar area, with waiters casually avoiding stepping on it. Cleaning windows is also not a service in much demand in Tel Aviv as well.