Mercure Palermo Centro — Hotel in Palermo

I don't know where to start. I cannot remember the last time I stayed at such am awful hotel. Maybe in 2008 when I first started travelling and on a very small budget so I expected what I paid for.||How can they call themselves a 4 star hotel. I feel so strongly about this that I am forfeiting sleep at almost 3am at this hotel on my second last night because of such a horrible experience so far and a few hours ago. Read on.||I personally would not have chosen this hotel had my tour company made me stay here. Look at their reviews. It says it all. Any time I book a hotel myself I go through all their reviews and will not book anything below 4.5 stars. ||Firstly I had notified the hotel well ahead of time that I was arriving and staying here for 4 nights and I was celebrating a big milestone birthday. ||I was promised by one of the managers that they would keep an eye out for me for a better room as they were already full and did not want to provide a complimentary upgrade to one of the largest available rooms despite my circumstances. I also have some personal needs and cannot sleep on tiny beds. I don't even know what type of 4 star hotels provide tiny little single beds anymore. This simply doesn't happen.||They wanted to charge me an astronomical amount of money per night for a larger room. I was happy to pay to upgrade, as I have done on many group tours. However I was not going to justify paying a rate which could get me another hotel room. Highway robbery.||So of course a few days before I arrived and even continuously up until I arrived I kept asking for updates and of course there was nothing. I should have known better. I was given a disgusting little room that was so small, no space to put my luggage, a table with no chair, a bathroom that had again nowhere to put any of my creams and essentials, yellow-stained towels (which they promised to replace the next day and never did), no room service, no housekeeping after a certain time, mouldy corners, broken corners, broken powerpoint (see attached image of a sample), dirty germ-infested minibar that is so tiny it is impractical, a minibar fridge that does not keep anything cold (they kept blaming this on the fact that you can only place 1 item in there to keep it cold and that was rubbish anyway). The list goes on.||I was given a room with a window that faced the firestairs and every morning I woke up to the stench of the kitchen cooking breakfast.||You can't even control the cooling system.||Oh my god. What a nightmare. I have been on the road in Europe travelling for 5 weeks now and I can tell you this has been a nightmare stay and I cannot wait to leave after tomorrow. ||Every other 4 star hotel has been 50 times better and we are talking about hotels in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and France. They all went above and beyond when they were given the same information about me, and some of these hotels upgraded me absolutely free. My hotel in Luxembourg which was a Sofitel (meaning upgrades are very expensive and it is in one of the most expensive cities in Europe), upgraded me free of charge for 7 nights. That's right.||The absolute icing on the cake was 2 days ago I asked a nice man at the bar if I could reheat food using their microwave and he said it was not a problem. The following night I went downstairs and was met by another man who was not so friendly and obliging and then got his supervisor to come out and tell me that it is a No. It is illegal. Then she went to the front desk and they told me the same thing. Illegal?? Are you joking me?||When I checked in I also asked the girl and she said I can call them to help me when I am ready. These two women on the evening of Saturday 12th Oct seemed to claim that either I was fabricating the truth or that their staff didn't understand English. Oh I can assure you it was very clear they knew what I was asking. My tour leader then saw me and he thought it was totally ridiculous and asked the staff and was met with the same response.||I have never in my almost 2 decades of travelling to 47 countries, been denied of using a hotel microwave. Heck 2 hotels on this trip even sent one to my room to use to make me happy.||They then told my tour leader they think it is unsanitary to reheat "cheap food". That's right. Calling my food cheap. It was not cheap. Throw in the insults why don't you.||Disgusting hotel. Disgusting staff. Rude staff. ||What is a joke is I actually went around the corner to hotel ibis and asked if I could use their front desk microwave and I told them this story and they thought it was laughable. They helped me and I was grateful.||Now you understand why I am so livid. Rest assured I will be passing this feedback on to my...

I have been staying in many Accor hotels throughout Europe for many years both for business and leisure purposes. Unfortunately, my experience in Mercure Palermo Centro has been by far the worst. We have arrived with my family at around 20:30 to the hotel, quite tired after a drive from Catania. We were not aware of the bad surprise waiting for us. I had simply booked a room through booking.com for 2 adults + 1 child (child to stay for free). The receptionist told me that the room that I booked is called "Family Annex Room" (to be honest I did not pay any attention until that moment) and it is located in another building, 100 meters away from the main hotel building. I have rechecked my booking confirmation and also showed the staff, and there was no indication at all anywhere stating that the room I booked was going to be somewhere else. I therefore asked to stay in the main building and they said that it's possible but only if I pay a surcharge of 100 € / night! The receptionist and the manager on duty on the evening of April 8 were really not helpful at all and they said that I should solve my problem with booking.com. So, I called the customer service (it was around 21:00 and we are more tired and hungry!), I have proved that there's no indication about a different room location. After some moment, I was offered by the customer service that the hotel can offer me to stay in the "upgraded room" (which means simply a room in the main building), one night for free and the second night for 50 €. So, it went down from 200 € to 50 € but why should I pay for this? As we were really exhausted, we decided to go to this other building. This room is located in an office building, where only one floor is allocated for Mercure. The building is probably the ugliest in the center of Palermo, the lift is out dated and my 9 year old daughter was anxious all the time we used it. We have not been shown or guided about any emergency regulations such as fire exit/stairs. What would have happened in case of an emergency situation in that office building where we were left alone? We had a very bad sleep as the bed was cracking all the time and from 06:30 in the morning there was a lot of noise from the main street (Via Roma). Because of this, the next morning I went back to the reception asking that we would like to change to a room in the main building for the second night. Guess what: They said it's possible but again with a surcharge! So I was offered this room for free the previous night but they wanted to rip me off when I wanted to change the room. I refused to pay and slept in that ugly office building one more night. Thanks God my stay at this Mercure Hotel (in reality where I stayed is not a hotel!) was only for 2 nights. My whole Sicily holiday was almost perfect, with the very nice & friendly experience of an B&B in Catania but the worst part was the accommodation in Palermo. The only good part about the hotel is the location, being really central and accessible on foot to main attractions. Maybe the rooms in the main building are good but we...

I personally recently walked to the hotel and asked for a booking to be made several days henceforth for Saturday, Sunday and Monday. My passport and credit card was copied by a receptionist. I did not receive either a paper or email confirmation of the booking. The next day I came again and left a bag to be stored whilst I visited the nearby Cefalu for 2 nights again saying I would see you on Saturday. On arriving on Saturday and attempted to check in I was informed that my booking was actually for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. As such I would have to pay for the Friday night. After much discuss to and forth between myself and 2 receptionists they agreed to waive the payment for the night ai had never booked. Then to rub salt into the wound they said if ai wanted to stay for the Monday night I would have to pay 50% more than I had been quoted for the first 2 nights. They claimed to have no discretion but would raise the issue with the manager on Monday. I replied that would be too late for me to make alternative arrangements if necessary. They then insisted I pay for the first 2 nights right away which I did reluctantly. I then went to my room only to find it was cell like with only a small opaque window with the linen and towels station outside my door from which the cleaning staff constantly came and went whilst having conversations easily heard in my room and outside the opaque window was an area that staff also congregated and had easily audible phone calls once even whilst leaning agains my window. This was room 205 at 175 Euros a night. I kid you not. And they wanted nearly 300 for the third night. I immediately about the room at reception to be told that all such rooms were booked out but perhaps they could find one on a highest floor for the second night. I never heard from them again. I arranged via Booking.com for an apartment for the Monday night.virtually half the price and windows with a view in a a great location. On the Monday whilst have the pretty ordinary breakfast one if the receptionists came up and said that the manager had agreed to the same rate for the third night. I told them as I had on Saturday that was too late and I had booked elsewhere. But even if they had said given the inconvenience etc you have endured the third night is gratis I would still have checked out of that appalling room. The most expensive and the worst room in 3 weeks of travelling around Sicily. A bad taste in my mouth to end what had been an otherwise...