Unbelievably disappointed with this hotel and a majority of its staff. We experienced a tragic void of cleanliness, professionalism and hospitality during our entire stay at the Mercure Hotel in Toulon, France. Unfortunately, our fruitless attempts to resolve these issues directly with on-site management (which does not exist) and corporate personnel (impossible to contact) leave us feeling violated of our dignity and robbed of our time and money. We hope the following information will help others in the future, including travelers, hospitality staff, Sébastien Bazin, Gilles Pélisson, and the like. CLEANLINESS: Upon our arrival, we could literally see dust and dirt on all of the shelves, counter tops, balconies and floors of the hotel and room. Even the carpet in the room was so dirty it stained the bottom of our clean socks. The toilet room smelled bad, like, well, a used toilet. We politely asked for it to be cleaned, however, no one ever came, not even to freshen up the room at any point during our stay. COMFORT: The air conditioning did not work in our room, ever. When we spoke to the front desk staff about the sweltering temperature of 90 degrees F in our room (even though the thermostat read 16 C) and were informed to “leave the room for awhile to let it work”. We left at 3:30PM and returned at 11PM to a less sweltering temperature of 85 degrees F in our room. We asked staff member available, Alexi/Alex at the front desk, if he could fix the thermostat. He begrudgingly came to take a look and was profusely sweating after one minute in the room. He could not turn on the air conditioning even though the thermostat read the same 16C. He said we could open the window, but that would just let in the bugs in and turn off the air completely. He also suggested we leave the room to wait 15 minutes for it to turn on…? Given that that strategy did not work when suggested earlier, we asked for a different room with working air conditioning. He laughed at us and said no because it would not make his manager happy. We said we would happily speak to the manager about the issue and he laughed again, said no, and stated management is not available on the weekends. We then asked for some sort of a solution and Alexi/Alex appeared annoyed and said “there is nothing to be done” and that he had to get back to his “other duties” at the hotel. Turns out it was actually the end of his shift and he did not want to stay any longer that his end time to deal with this problem. We noted that the sheets and bedding were surprisingly all polyester, which doesn’t breathe like cotton, and acts like a heat conductor and made it more difficult to achieve sleep. He laughed again and said all the rooms are the same and there is nothing to be done. We went back to the front desk to ask for help from the next staff member and found that the only person available was a very kind, intelligent security guard named Cherkre(sp?). He informed us that he is actually employed by a
64 Reviews