Author's product rating: 
| Advantages: |
Location, good value at promotional rates |
| Disadvantages: |
Not worth the full rate, some unwelcoming staff |
| Recommend to potential buyers: |
yes |
I recently reviewed an Ibis hotel in Austria and a fellow Ciao member expressed surprise that I should write a review on this topic. Thinking about it I can see why; one chain hotel is pretty much like any other and if you want to know about the location well you can easily find out on the hotel website. All of which made me think I would probably not bother reviewing the Mercure Mitte Hotel in
Hannover but some interesting points arose during my visit and I thought it worth voicing them aloud here.
A chain hotel is not usually my chosen type of accommodation, partly because I don't like to spend too much but also because I'm not a fan of faceless hotels with no character. I booked the Mercure Mitte in Hannover because the cheaper accommodation was quite a distance from the centre and I took advantage of a promotional rate through the Mercure chain's parent company Accor. We booked on line and about a week before I e-mailed the hotel directly to say that we would be arriving very late on the Friday night. I received a prompt response saying that this was not a problem and that check-in was possible until 1.00 a.m.
The hotel is situated just on the edge of the centre of the city, a five minute walk from the central shopping area and pretty Old Town. The Christuskirche underground station is just around the corner. There are plenty of bars, eating places and shops in the immediate area and a small but rather pleasant park is directly in front of the hotel.
The building itself is non-descript, the middle section of a modern block with businesses either side. As you enter, reception is to the left and the restaurant and bar are too the right. When we arrived an amalgam of German dentists were making lots of noise as they drank in the bar.
As I hunted in my bag for the papers, I told the receptionist in German that we had a reservation and she asked in what name it was. It had been a while since we had booked so I couldn't remember whose name it was in and motioned that I was going to check the paperwork, but the receptionist repeated the question in what seemed to me a rather irritable way. She confirmed the reservation and went about allocating a room, telling us that she was only able to allocate a smoking room - we had requested non-smoking. She said it wouldn't matter because we would not be able to smell the smoke. Keeping an open mind we trooped off to the room anxious to offload our luggage and grab a drink before the bar closed.
As I had anticipated the room reeked of stale cigarette smoke but that was not the only problem. The bed was a small bed with only one pillow and one quilt - which even had one person only slept in it, would still not have been big enough to cover them. Investigations could not find any more bedding. Back to reception.....
The receptionist insisted she had no non-smoking
rooms to allocate but I held my ground. She said she could put us in a smoking room with a double sized bed but not a non-smoking room. I still held my ground. Then she found a non-smoking room and my partner went back to the first room to get the bags and meet me at the lift on the second floor where the new room would be.
I waited to be issued with the keys for the new room but the receptionist started shaking her head and frowning. She couldn't give us this room because it was an interconnecting room and the other was already occupied. Finally she found a room (remember there were apparently none left) but we would only be bale to have it for that night and would have to move to another room the next day because it was booked for the following day - all of which sounded implausible given that she told us when we complained about having reserved a non-smoking room that rooms are allocated on arrival not in advance. I told her we didn't want to come back to the hotel in the middle of the day to change rooms but she said if we packed our things the maid would take them to the new room. It wasn't ideal but we had secured the non-smoking room we'd asked for so to refuse would have been churlish.
So what of this room? Bland but comfortable, spotless en suite, television, built-in safe, desk, reading lamps - as much as you would need for a short stay. We were at the rear of the hotel and while the view wasn't spectacular at least it wasn't of a collection of bins but rather some nice apartments with pretty window-boxes. I needn't say any more about the room - it was fine and we slept comfortably.
Down in the bar the party was still in full swing. The bar is small but we found a table and I pushed to one side a small tray on which was an empty coffee cup and glass. Within seconds the barman had appeared at the table to tell us that someone was sitting there - he had gone outside to smoke. Feeling a little offended at his manner, we grabbed another table which was just being vacated. The phantom gentleman from the other table never appeared....
When we were asked to order our drinks the barman visibly showed irritation when I had to ask him to repeat something; the bar was noisy and the music was far louder than was necessary - perhaps a chicken and egg thing as people shouted even louder to be heard over the music each time the volume was increased. We were asked whether we wanted to have the drinks charged to our room and when I said I'd pay cash, he quite openly sneered. Feeling quite unwelcome we didn't linger long in the bar; I have no idea what has problem was. The hotel is not exactly 'exclusive' but neither were we looking scruffy or out of place - the place was full of Germans wearing Hasselhoff style mullets for goodness sake!
We didn't have breakfast in the hotel as it was not included in the room rate but we did find an excellent bagel café just round the corner. The hotel has a restaurant, 'Leander', which looked quite appealing and was advertising a special asparagus menu - as do most places in Austria and Germany at this time of year ('Spargel' in German and very good).
I won't go into the other hotel facilities - these are listed on the hotel website.
And so to bed....where, a few minutes, after we'd turned off the light, the phone rang: it was the receptionist saying that we could stay in the same room for our second night but would have to exchange the key cards because they had only been made valid for one night. Success!
The following morning we found that the new receptionist had been briefed as to what was going on and happily exchanged key cards. When we checked out she pointed us in the direction of the luggage store so we could leave our bags until later in the day. She was helpful and friendly and totally different from the first receptionist and I was left feeling much more positive about our stay.
The two questions my stay raised were these. Are you treated differently when you don't pay the standard rate? And, why pay more for accommodation that doesn't offer anything extra - either in terms of facilities or service.
Perhaps I took everything too personally? Maybe I expected too much? Perhaps I thought that paying more would get better service? The service was no better than anywhere else I've ever stayed - in fact it fell well below most places I've stayed before. The room was no better than other places I've stayed. There was nothing extra save a pen and a few sheets of a notepad. Anything that was over and above what I would get in a bed and breakfast or a hostel was charged additionally anyway.
It's hard to say whether we were treated differently because we'd paid a special rate. If we weren't I can only assume that most guests feel sneered at or looked down upon at some point during their stay. I did feel vexed that we were told there were no non-smoking rooms when there actually were and wonder whether the receptionist simply couldn't be bothered to look.
Overall the only reason I can think of that one might pay a little more to stay in this hotel is that it is closer to the centre of town than the cheaper possibilities. I'm not saying that I wouldn't recommend the hotel or that I would never stay there again - just that it's only worth the promotional
price and certainly not the usual rate.
We paid 59 Euro per night in June 2008
Rooms for two people vary in price between 89 Euro and 119 Euro depending on size of bed (queen or king) or two single beds.
Oddly, the cost of breakfast is shown as both 16 Euro and 17 Euro.
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