Mercure La Rochelle Vieux-Port

“Good standard hotel in a good location”

We spent our first two night in La Rochelle here, as we wanted a bit of luxury with a pool. Its a typical Mercure high standard hotel. Rooms are on the small side, but with everything you need. My only bug bear was that there wasn't a fridge to keep water or drinks in. We had a terrace room, which … more

We spent our first two night in La Rochelle here, as we wanted a bit of luxury with a pool. Its a typical Mercure high standard hotel. Rooms are on the small side, but with everything you need. My only bug bear was that there wasn't a fridge to keep water or drinks in. We had a terrace room, which gave us this weird long outside space with chairs and a table overlooking the area by the pool. It seems poorly designed because the inside was small and yet we had this almost unusable space outside. The pool is small, but welcome relief from the heat. There are not enough sun beds though around it and yet right beside it is an outside area with seating that is rarely used, so would have made sense to make the pool area bigger and the outside seating area smaller. Again poor design. Be careful getting into the pool as well, as its got steps inside the pool to get in, rather than a ladder down into the pool. I noticed a few people struggling with that, although the hotel has put a cover on the top step to aid sight and purchase on the floor (you can't see the steps clearly as you get in). Location wise, its a 5 minute walk from the train station and right by the old port. There is however a lot more to La Rochelle than the port - but everywhere in La Rochelle is really a maximum of 30 minutes. Main area is a 5-10 minute walk. We were really happy with the location. We enjoyed our stay and would have stayed longer if the price wasn't so high over the weekend period.

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“Nice hotel with some room for improvement”

This hotel is modern, clean and very well located for most things to do in central La Rochelle. The breakfast is excellent with a good choice of fresh food. The car park seems to be over subscribed and inexplicably there is quite a high fee for it. It’s unclear why guests cannot simply park there f… more

This hotel is modern, clean and very well located for most things to do in central La Rochelle. The breakfast is excellent with a good choice of fresh food. The car park seems to be over subscribed and inexplicably there is quite a high fee for it. It’s unclear why guests cannot simply park there for free. We paid over €1000 for our room for three nights (excluding parking) which, given the size of the room, did not feel like good value for money. We are deducting a star because the breakfast room was full of dogs, which we found extremely unhygienic.

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“Mostly good”

Stayed here 1 night on the journey North back home. Hard one not to give it 4 but some issues spoiled a great stay. We were checked in by 2 guys, one of whom was super cool (or so he thought) and didn't appear to be able to smile, and the other who when asked to mark on a map where we were couldn't… more

Stayed here 1 night on the journey North back home. Hard one not to give it 4 but some issues spoiled a great stay. We were checked in by 2 guys, one of whom was super cool (or so he thought) and didn't appear to be able to smile, and the other who when asked to mark on a map where we were couldn't do it as his nail polish was drying and so got his trainee to do it. Our room was lovely and comfortable and had a great balcony overlooking the vieux port. Housekeeping was somewhat lacking, and there were no cups in the room, and no milk for the coffee. We phoned down to reception to sort this but with no result, after 20 minutes I went down. With no apologies, the supercool receptionist reluctantly went to bring me milk and a couple of paper cups. Forget the eco nonsense, but in a hotel of this category I don't expect paper throw away cups! As the web photos showed glass cups, I pointed this out, only to be told that if I wanted anything different I had to go upstairs to the bar and get them myself! After a significant wait I got my 2 cups. The following morning on passing and on check out, the situation was totally different, with 2 very friendly and helpful female reception staff who went the extra mile. While La Rochelle is an upmarket trendy resort, I would suggest that staff selection and training be looked at carefully, as the status of Mercure within the Accor range would suggest better.

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