Hotel Mercure Antibes Sophia Antipolis 4 gwiazdki

Turned out to be an excellent choice for a hotel if Mouratoglou is fully booked. Short walk to Mouratoglou in about 5-7 mins. We enjoyed our one night stay in a modern room/nice bathroom with a view of the pool. Kids meal was excellent (generous portion of chicken/fries). Sometimes when we wanted variety from the food at Mouratoglou, we would pop over for dinner!

There was a mistake and the hotel did not accept us when we arrived late at night with two very small children. Also promised to refund the money for the stay that didn't happen, but as a result they didn't refund the money paid. Very nasty and arrogant attitude of the staff.

Great pool area with loungers and sun and shade areas. Staff friendly. The standard rooms are functional, but lacked basics like a safe and minibar. Do not disturb signs on the door were just ignored by housekeeping - every day, despite telling the house keeping every day & reception that housekeeping was not needed, staff still came in the room to clean. With work sensitive material in the room that was very frustrating. On check in reception staff asked whether housekeeping was required and if not a donation is made to a children’s charity. I asked for the donation to be made - but it may be that if a room is not cleaned the housekeeping do not get paid. If that is the hotel policy they should explain that as it is a very unfair policy on housekeeping staff. The bar area is very nicely decorated with comfortable seating both inside & on the terrace, but the bar prices are shockingly high. A bottle of sparkling water was €10, beer €9 and -€5 for a coke. Unsurprisingly every night the bar was empty. There is a local bus into Antibe - €1.50 ( have to pay cash) but the last bus returning to the hotel is at 20:00. A taxi from Antibe to the hotel is €40, Uber price is around €25. Hotel arranged taxi to Nice airport €90. The area surrounding the hotel is beautiful for walking and cycling. Antibe is a lovely traditional town with choice of restaurants and bars and beaches. It is totally different to glitzy Cannes which is just 10 minutes from Antibes on the train.

Our first impression was we’ve ended up in a not-so-fun place, in the middle of nowhere, off the beat, from Antibes but who says first impressions last ? It’s really a great hotel just a short drive to Nice and Antibes. It’s actually perfect NOT to be the center of either those cities with parking issues and overnight noise . Another big plus is the closeness and walking distance to Mouratoglou Tennis Academy which was the main reason we stayed here. The restaurant has a nice little restaurant with a limited, but well prepared, menu. We stayed over two weeks and dined in the hotel half that time . Last but not least, the staff is absolutely delightful. Super friendly and always smiling. I’m sure we’ll be back, hopefully soon. Thank you for taking such good care of us 😀

Overall, this hotel compares with similar in the area, but like all the others, I am at a loss where they got their 4 stars from… four stars in this region do not compare with 4-start hotels in other parts of Europe. On the positives, the staff are really friendly and helpful, the wifi is fast, the room has a smart TV, and the restaurant food was not bad. The breakfast is adequate, usual array of cold items but little by way of hot food. There is an outdoor pool, but it was closed at this time of the year. However, the rest was a bit hit and miss. I would have preferred to see the staff wearing masks, not one did on my 4 day trip. The room and hotel are in dire need of a refresh, there were scuff marks on the wall and the bathroom was a cheap moulded-plastic affair which is dated and tacky for a 4-star hotel. The rooms themselves are fairly basic and lack any finesse or extras that you’d normally find at 4-star level. The heating/aircon didn’t seem to work and the rooms annoyingly had a real lack of plug sockets, with none at “laptop level”. Also, given these hotels are in the middle of no-where, this hotel offered no transport options and I had to rely on an unreliable Uber service to get around. Be aware that this hotel caters for functions and parties that get quite noisy, and these can be annoying if you’re there on a work trip. And finally, the hotel forgoes room cleaning for charity donation. I know this is supposedly optional but there is a hard sell here and it’s not really transparent to who or how much you are donating, and really, if you want to support a charity, there are better options than forgoing room cleaning, so I was left with a feeling of cost-cutting at the expense of the customer. Not really sure I’d want to stay here again, but these Sophia Antipolis hotels survive on a lack of competition.