Mercure Santa Marta Emile — Hotel in Santa Marta

“Top of the Line. The Rooms were Brand new, like never used. Price was great” We got lucky to find this place. An employee in Cartagena told about this new french Hotel in Santa Marta, where we were driving too in a rented car. The ride from Cartagena to Santa Marta in our rental was fantastic! On our way, we passed through Baranquilla for quick shopping of artisan items. Hotel Mercure was just built 6 months ago. I stayed in two different rooms, upgrading from the 6th floor, to the 14th floor for my last two days. Both rooms appeared as if nobody had ever used them before. Super clean, spacious, well organized, cozy, huge walk in shower with rain fall or jet shower, wrap around balcony terrace with a fantastic view, refrigerator in room, wifi, cable TV and a great big king size bed. Walk around bare foot and your feet stay clean. The restaurant in this Hotel is the best food in the entire town, so I ate gourmet dinner there every night. Breakfast is included, as well as free parking. There is access to a pool and to the beach. The front desk personnel and the hard working bell boy do their job with pride. They are always smiling and helpful. Eager to assist. The stay here was beyond anything I expected. Do not take any chances booking anywhere else. From this hotel, we had a terrific drive to Tayrona Nacional Park...two days in a row....where we visited Canaveral and the next day spectacular Playa Crystal in Neguanje. I could not believe the bill to stay at this hotel was only about $70 per night! the dinners were nothing and drank two bottles of good wine at every sitting with gourmet food for about $50. What a dream come true to live in style at such a fair and generous price in such a pleasant and beautiful atmosphere. By the way, this hotel is ecofriendly. Lights turn on as you walk through hallways, etc..

Stayed June 2016,...

It is now the third time I stayed here and will be the last since the hotel and its service gotten worse from time to time.|The hotel is really overpriced for what it offers. There are many things they need to improve.|Good things are |The location of the hotel is ok. It doesn’t have direct beach access but you just need to walk 3min and you are at the beach.|The rooms and hotel are clean.||Things to improve |They only offer one small bottle of water per room on the first day and claim it because of environmental reasons. That’s complete non sense and just a cost cutting reason to not replace it daily with one or more bottles per guest. Unacceptable especially in a region where tap water has not high quality and people then buy plastic bottles.|On the beach there are just cheap plastic chairs and no proper beds. Furthermore they only offer 2 chairs per room although we paid for three guests in the room. Moreover, they only have limited number of chairs and umbrellas which is not acceptable. And several days there were not even enough chairs or umbrellas available.|They don’t replace beach or pool towles and changing them is quite an act since you either need to call the reception and they just don’t act on it so in the end you need to go to the reception which is quite a pain since elevators are always busy and you need to wait a lot.|Breakfast is ok but doesn’t offer much of a variety. The coffee is quite bad and they don’t offer normal coffee beverages such as cappuccino, espresso etc. |Restaurant/ pool bar: in general and this might be the working attitude in the Colombian coast, service staff is not very attentive and not working very fast. So you need to order way on advance to get a simple coke or water although they have sufficient staff standing around. In Europe or Asia service is much...

We extended our stay from 3 nights to 7 as the stay was a welcome rest stop during our travels and a chance to indulge in some comforts. On this score the hotel is very good. Our first room was on the 4th floor deluxe corner which was lovely and large. But the view from the 4th floor to the pool does not afford a sea view. Our 2nd room was on the 16th floor and was a standard room. Smaller but still plenty comfortable. The balcony allowed a sea view but frankly I would not go out of your way for one as it is a limited view. In fact the beach is some 200m away and you will need to walk along a dusty road amidst construction. But once there the hotel provides chairs and umbrellas...simple, not loungers.

There are 2 negatives in our experience....first, we both got sick after our first night. A cocktail and fish by the pool but we ended up with a bug that lasted several days and a doctor's visit. Apparently everyone knows (apart from us) that the water in Santa Marta is not drinkable. Actually we didn't drink any tap water so not sure where the bug came from ... Ice in the cocktail? But the bug is the reason we extended our stay.

Second issue is our first night, aside from the bug was ruined by a ridiculously loud neighbor who insisted on playing music and talking loudly on his phone the whole night. So be warned the walls are thin.

On the plus side the staff are some of th nicest we have encountered. The doctor was free of charge by the hotel. In fact all of our interaction was extremely welcoming.

Our stay overlapped with a Colombian holiday so the hotel was full over the weekend, mostly nationals. Good family atmosphere. A little quieter during the week.

Overall we liked the hotel. Would we return?....we leave feeling good about Mercure but not about...