Mercure Iguazu Hotel Iru — Hotel in Puerto Iguazú

This is a tourist hotel that is slightly above the normal standards. It is set within a reservation within the sub-tropical rainforest, on the Argentinian side, and handy for both sides of the falls.

The Mercure is part the Accor group which is French. The welcome is very good with attentive and very well spoken English speaking staff. No fancy welcome towels or drinks, but efficient and friendly. The entrance foyer is very large and decorated in a modern 'glass and wood' style with individual desks for the reception staff. Internet PCs, a few sofas and lots chairs uncomfortably designed to make you move on swiftly, complete the furniture. Corridors lead off to the rooms, the pool and spa. The bar and dining room are up some stairs on a balcony/ mezzanine.

Through glass doors and down an outdoor corridor to our room. The aircon was already on so the room was cool. The room had a glass fronted balcony looking onto the pool with very many trees and bushes around and the other side of the balcony. Also a fly screen and at no time (early May) were we bothered by flies or mosquitoes.

Our room was large. A very large bed (Why? Why do hotels think that large beds= quality? I like to find my wife in the night- not take a taxi!), easy chair, desk and chair. No drawers to put clothes or 'things' in! Point lost. Just 4 shelves under the enormous safe. Great lack of storage.

Lots of power points around the room but no USB charging points. The power sockets are the 3-pin thin slot type with 2 angled pins. The lighting level in the room was a little low and orange. Wardrobe had only 6 clothes hangers which is far too few for 2 people.

The bathroom features a bidet with water pressure too low to use effectively. The toilet jammed with an open valve every other flush and water kept running. The hairdryer blew up the first time of use -staff just gave us a plug-in replacement. The shower looked great but the pressure was, again, too low and the hot water seemed scarce at peak times.

I do not like 'virtue signalling'. This is when any business makes great claims that are either nonsense or make sense only to their marketing department' This hotel claims that they can make your use of towels 'tree friendly'!! This is the usual nonsense about putting them on the floor to get changed or hang them up to be reused. This hotel is in sub-tropical rainforest. I washed a t-shirt when we arrived and 3 DAYS later it was still not dry. The hotel provides no washing line or even a towel rail (only 2 hooks on the bathroom wall) ... So if you decide to keep your towel another day there is nowhere to put it to help it dry! Only a hook on the wall- that will help, won't it?

Breakfast (included) offers a fairly wide range but majors on cakes and biscuits. Coffee is very good. Cooked/ warm food is terrible with runny and not hot scrambled eggs, cut up frankfurters and some mixed cooked veg- that's it. Sliced bread and a toaster are available. Lots of jams. One cold meat, one cold cheese. Melon etc.

Dinner is much better! If you come from Europe beware- if one person orders a starter (first course) and the other does not, your first course will arrive with your partner's main course. All three evening meals here were very well presented and cooked- especially my sirloin steak, which arrived in the centre of a huge plate with just a ramekin of salsa. I should have specified french fries or salad and the staff did not question this. I stole some french fries from my wife. The steak was perfect!

The hotel will organise a taxi for you to go to the falls and back and add the bill to your room.

The pool is large and COLD! The jacuzzi is large and warm but not a jacuzzi- it has a few jets of water, some not working and the others pathetic... Water pressure again.

Housekeeping is good but the sheet on the bed is not large enough to 'tuck in' sufficiently so comes out when you turn over and ends up tangled if you are a...

A detailed review of the good and the bad, including areas for improvement and areas that really shone! Overall, I’m going to give this five stars, because the basics were all there, and they went above and beyond in a couple of cases. First, the grounds are gorgeous, very well kept. The pool is very clean. The bar is well stocked. The rooms are comfortable and very clean and the balconies overlooking the pool are exceptional. Next, a shout-out to everyone at reception who worked with me on my Spanish but also spoke excellent English, from the minute that I contacted the hotel (using ‎WhatsApp to arrange for a driver) to our checkout. Everybody was very patient with my Spanish and also spoke very good English at reception.

Next, the breakfast was outstanding! It was quite a bounty. I love a big beautiful breakfast, and this had everything. They were quick to refill the hot milk, and they had an espresso machine where we could make our own hot coffee. Plenty of pastries, in fact, probably a bit heavy on the pastries. I can’t imagine a bigger variety of pastries. Lots of fruit and hot chocolate. Perhaps a couple more hot protein items would be in order. They had eggs and sausage, and potentially another hot protein would be good, but overall a very hearty breakfast!

Here are some areas that can be improved upon. The bartending was hit and miss. One of the bartenders was outstanding and made me incredible caipirinhas, including a wonderful garnish that turned the lime inside out to make it look like a sunflower (see photo). We will be borrowing that trick when we bartend at home! But one of the other bartenders made really subpar drinks. Not enough sugar, way too much ice, way too much fruit. It was even hard to drink because there were so many limes in it. Perhaps if there is a head bartender they can review some skill sets with the other bartenders.

One of the hotel drivers made us uncomfortable. I almost considered leaving four stars for this, but it’s really not under control of the hotel that much. We had already arranged for all of our excursions, and the driver picked us up at the airport and then asked what we were doing, and we told him, and then he asked about other days, and we told him, and then he said that that did not sound like a good plan and that the person that we hired was rushing it to pack in everything. This was all while we were driving and he was translating on his phone. When we told him that it was already booked, he then just became really silent and didn’t talk to us for the rest of the trip. I understand he was trying to get some money and have us use him as a guide and a driver, but we were already booked. It just felt kind of invasive, because once we told him we had plans, he kept asking if we were booked through the hotel or what was happening, and it wasn’t generic questions like “are you going to the waterfalls?“ It was more invasive (asking who we were using and why and what was happening). When I told him the name of the tour company, he seemed really put out. It just made the drive in uncomfortable. And then later we used him for something else (we asked the hotel to call a driver, and it happened to be him) and he was really quite cold to us. It’s like the minute we told him that we booked with a tour company and we weren’t going to use him as a driver for a tour he just became really quiet and cold. It was very odd. And uncomfortable. It was also a little uncomfortable that he was driving while using his phone and translating on the app.

All that said, it did not dampen our experience for this wonderful hotel. We also had a beautiful dinner here, and I will review...

Overall, I’m going to give this five stars, because the basics were all there, and they went above and beyond in a couple of cases.|First, the grounds are gorgeous, very well kept. The pool is very clean. The bar is well stocked. The rooms are comfortable and very clean and the balconies overlooking the pool are exceptional.|Next, a shout-out to everyone at reception who worked with me on my Spanish but also spoke excellent English, from the minute that I contacted the hotel (using ‎WhatsApp to arrange for a driver) to our checkout. Everybody was very patient with my Spanish and also spoke very good English at reception.||Next, the breakfast was outstanding! It was quite a bounty. I love a big beautiful breakfast, and this had everything. They were quick to refill the hot milk, and they had an espresso machine where we could make our own hot coffee. Plenty of pastries, in fact, probably a bit heavy on the pastries. I can’t imagine a bigger variety of pastries. Lots of fruit and hot chocolate. Perhaps a couple more hot protein items would be in order. They had eggs and sausage, and potentially another hot protein would be good, but overall a very hearty breakfast!||Here are some areas that can be improved upon.|1. The bartending was hit and miss. One of the bartenders was outstanding and made me incredible caipirinhas, including a wonderful garnish that turned the lime inside out to make it look like a sunflower (see photo). We will be borrowing that trick when we bartend at home! But one of the other bartenders made really subpar drinks. Not enough sugar, way too much ice, way too much fruit. It was even hard to drink because there were so many limes in it. Perhaps if there is a head bartender they can review some skill sets with the other bartenders.||2. One of the hotel drivers made us uncomfortable. I almost considered leaving four stars for this, but it’s really not under control of the hotel that much. We had already arranged for all of our excursions, and the driver picked us up at the airport and then asked what we were doing, and we told him, and then he asked about other days, and we told him, and then he said that that did not sound like a good plan and that the person that we hired was rushing it to pack in everything. This was all while we were driving and he was translating on his phone. When we told him that it was already booked, he then just became really silent and didn’t talk to us for the rest of the trip. I understand he was trying to get some money and have us use him as a guide and a driver, but we were already booked. It just felt kind of invasive, because once we told him we had plans, he kept asking if we were booked through the hotel or what was happening, and it wasn’t generic questions like “are you going to the waterfalls?“ It was more invasive (asking who we were using and why and what was happening). When I told him the name of the tour company, he seemed really put out. It just made the drive in uncomfortable. And then later we used him for something else (we asked the hotel to call a driver, and it happened to be him) and he was really quite cold to us. It’s like the minute we told him that we booked with a tour company and we weren’t going to use him as a driver for a tour he just became really quiet and cold. It was very odd. And uncomfortable. It was also a little uncomfortable that he was driving while using his phone and translating on the app.||All that said, it did not dampen our experience for this wonderful hotel. We also had a beautiful dinner here, and I will review...