Name of the hotel: Mercure Porto Centro
- What is your Le Club status? Platinum
- Were you (or for multi-stayers were you generally) happy with the hotel/stay? average
- Which room did you book and which upgrade did you receive ? booked triple privilege room and received that. This is the higher room they have so no upgrade possible. I booked this room even if I was just by myself because it has 2 separate rooms, so it's almost like a junior suite (note that I'm careful using the word "almost"
).
- How are the rooms? the bathroom was nice but the rooms are very dated (only the reception, bar and restaurant area look modern, the rest still lies in a late 80's/early90's style and clearly needs renovation). The mattress of the king size bed was a little bit too firm for me but I got used to it after the 2nd night (I stayed 4 nights). Espresso machine in room.
Just after check-in, I read the room description on my booking (and it is the same on the web site) and I really laughed. It said
"Modern triple room, with double bed, living-room and functional bathroom 
. For your comfort : espresso machine, luxury accessories, slippers and free drinks in mini bar." I liked the "modern" and "functional bathroom"
but I almost fell off the bed with the "luxury accessories"
. I'm still searching for them. I asked the front desk staff about them, showing them the room description on Accor website and the guy was quite embarassed and speechless. He had no clue what it could be and he said he would ask his management. Unfortunately, I never heard anything back and still wonder with a lot of impatience what they could be
. To Accor : you should clearly check and revise what is on many of your hotel and room descriptions, because this case is not unique at all.
- What was good and what was bad?
Good:
- perfect hotel situation if you want to visit the very nice city of Porto, and if you are here for business, taxis are always available within less than 5 min wait. There is a metro station not too far. Train station is not far as well.
- front desk staff : very nice people, most of them speaking fluently French. Always ready to help in a friendly and efficient manner.
- free drinks in mini bar for Privilege rooms
- good restaurant and we were very well advised by the staff for meal and local wines choice.
- this hotel seems to enforce strictly the check-in time even if room is ready (I read this on Trip Advisor and witnessed it myself with the people who were just before me for check-in) but I was granted early check-in (at noon) without problem.
- was given free premium wifi (they ask you how many device you want to connect and they give you one voucher with access codes for each device. Codes are valid for 5 days). The speed of the premium wifi was very good.
Bad:
- room view very ugly, on a kind of wall...
- I had to ask for the other "privileges" of my room type (slippers, bathrobe), but once asked they were delivered promptly
- I didn't have any use of the 2nd bed (armchair bed) and it looked really extremely uncomfortable.
- bar staff : waited 20 min before the guy came to take my order, despite waving hands to him many times and after he simply disappeared. So I had to go to the front desk to make the things moving...
- poor soundproofing
- Did you get club lounge access? How was the lounge? NA
- What about welcome drinks : drink voucher was given spontaneously. You can have beer, soft drinks and Port wine
- Value for $ or Vouchers? Would you return? Not sure, as this hotel is too dated at the moment.