Mercure Carcassonne La Cité hotel 4 stars

The hotel is in an excellent location and has secure parking. The good points: the location, the room was spotless and the beds were comfortable. The bad: breakfast was a disaster zone. There was no social distancing whatsoever, staff didn't enforce the one way system so that people constantly reached over us, stood next to us... Although people did have masks, they had them under their noses, on their arms... Despite having paid for breakfast, we only went to breakfast on 2 out of the 3 days (once going almost at the very end in the hope most people would have gone). We felt very unsafe so chose to eat at a cafe. Secondly, the hotel offers to not clean your room due to covid. This suited us well, but we were shocked to find that someone had been in our room, had taken out all the used towels, but not replaced them, and taken out the bucket from the bathroom bin, leaving it at the side of the bin. Reception informed us that the cleaning staff would just have forgotten they were not supposed to clean the room, but it seems odd that towels were removed, but not replaced, and that the bucket from inside the bin was taken out, but not replaced. No cleaning had taken place, the beds hadn't been made - very odd... We would consider staying again, but not during covid times because we did not feel safe.

Although the firework display was cancelled, the stay was still worthwhile, food great and staff helpful.

Great location close to the "cité" and nice staff overall but very average hotel al in all. Most importantly, over priced versus expectations. I would have picked a cheaper hotel for a family as we didn't have any extra specific confort.

The positive side: The hotel itself is nice and well-kept. We had a nice room, comfortably sleeping three people. The pool is excellent and seems to have been recently renovated. The hotel is clean and quiet and a 5 minute foot walk from the Porte de Narbonne and access to the old town. Food quality was good, breakfast was nice. There is lots of free parking available. The negative side: Ridiculous breakfast policies, due to Covid you are supposed to serve yourself with your own cutlery, the same cutlery you use to eat with. Is there a better way to spread COVID than this? There are 15 guests in the restaurant and 2 guests in the bar, not permitted to switch TV on to watch Euro 2020 because it might attract a crowd?! Our room door would not lock and could not be fixed. I told reception door would not lock before we went out for a meal. We return three hours later and the door is still unlocked. According to reception, it cannot be fixed. We were offered a different room, which was irrelevant as we were back in the room and could lock it from the inside.

Hotel exceeded our expectations. Staff very helpful. Room good size and lacking nothing. Free protected parking. Would recommend the hotel without hesitation.

Excellent service, friendly staff, good clean room and good location with private parking in the hotel grounds.

Despite the new measures against the Covid, my stay was comfortable.

Personnel au top

franchement super

Excellent service. Top quality support from the staff thank you

We loved this hotel, our room (20) was excellent. It was huge with a fantastic bathroom and very well equipped. We could see the city walls from our window and it only took 5 minutes to walk to the city walls.

The front desk staff were excellent, friendly and welcoming. However, the standard rooms at 18m2 are small [when compared with competitors] and the dining room staff were inefficient at best and ineffective and dilatory at worst. We had to wait almost an hour for our starters and others who arrived after us, and ordered similar meals , were on their main course as we still waited. My question to the [head?] waiter brought nothing more than a sort of gallic (or Catalan) shrug and some incomprehensible mutterings. The truth is simply that they had forgotten us. Well, we can all make mistakes AND we can apologise. But not a single word, not even a simple 'sorry' came our way. NO, this is NOT a 4 star hotel.

We had a superior room which was comfortable although the bed was too hard for me. On our first of two nights we chose to eat in the hotel. A large coach party had taken over the restaurant (really more of a cafeteria in appearance), so we were squeezed into a nearby characterless room with the other guests. There was another room like a pavillion room overlooking the terrace which would have been far more pleasant for us to use, but this had been alocated for about 10 people, possibly staff training or a small local society. This was a poor management decision in my opinion. The food however was good so congratulations to the kitchen staff. Our first morning we went to breakfast after the coach party had just left and it looked like a plauge of locusts had just the left. The next morning the breakfast was more civilised.

Probably one of the very best hotel experiences in our lifetime. My wife and I decided to stay for the weekend prior to flying to the UK and we were pleased we did! The hotel is located in a superb, quiet location with great views and within easy walking distance of the castle. The reception experience was amazing, no information spared and a free tour of the castle provided by a knight was recommended. The tour was also a highlight of the stay. Excellent restaurant as evidenced by how busy it was, superb food to match. Breakfast first class and all staff encountered cleaners, waiters, reception etc were friendly and helpful. The room was clean and to a high standard. Through our working lives we have stayed many hundreds of nights in similar category hotels and when we rate this hotel as excellent this is based on substantial experience.

We arrived at the hotel and were greeted by a most unhelpful male receptionist who said we didn’t have a reservation but due to my husband’s persistence he found it. The room was lovely. Evening meal was perfect and the bar and restaurant staff were very helpful and courteous. Check out the day after was undertaken by the same rude receptionist who was very abrupt and again unhelpful although he couldn’t do enough for the French business man checking out in front of us. He didn’t even acknowledge our departure with au revoir. He didn’t even lift his head up from behind reception even though he wasn’t busy with other guests. But for his attitude this hotel would have had an excellent rating. He is a team member who let the side down.