Mercure Exeter Southgate Hotel 4 stars

Nice building with friendly staff. Rooms well ventilated and good sizes. Very clean.

Very comfortable modern hotel. Service was excellent throughout. I arrived at check in just in front of a large tour group but they did not have any impact on my stay. I was upgraded to a Privaledge room which was very spacious. I made use of the coffee machine which these provide and the complimentary orange juice in the fridge. I was able to have an evening meal in a quiet corner of the bar which was very good.

I regularly stay at this hotel and this trip was a little disappointing. Whilst the staff on the front desk were as helpful as ever, I felt there was understaffing elsewhere to the point it impacted on the stay. Firstly, the breakfast seem very chaotic, it wasn't a relaxing experience. Indeed I waited so long for them to refresh the basics of hash browns that the rest of the plate got cold and needed to be discarded, then the milk was out in the coffee machine, then the water ran out, the juice ran out etc etc. Basically the staff were firefighting in replenishing items . Also one member of the staff was very curt with me, she snapped at me when she overhead a quiet conversation between myself and a man (I didn't know) discussing the wait for the hash browns, she butted in saying "a told you there was a 5 minute wait", referring to the wait for the vegetarian sausages I had requested, I calmly explained that I wasn't referring to those (I fully accepted I needed to wait for something that was being cooked especially for me) but was waiting for the hash browns for my daughter that they had promised were coming in 2 minutes about 10 minutes earlier! She then stomped off without apology. I would also note that the orange juice was watered down to such an extent that no one in my party was able to drink it, we have never noticed this on previously trips. The other staff issue was the overstretched cleaners. On day two I returned to my room at about 4:30pm to find that whilst all the other rooms had been cleaned in my section they had skipped over ours (presumably they were focusing on the rooms where people had vacated and where they had new arrivals coming). The problem was we were due to shower to get ready to go out for the evening and all our towels remained dirty on the floor, the tea and coffees were not refreshed. To be fair they explained that they they were short staffed, so I asked if they could come in and just replenish our towels and tea and I would go out for 10 minutes to give them time to do so. When I returned the drinks were being refreshed in the fridge and the guy asked if I had a bottle opener I said there wasn't one (we had been opening the juice with a spoon with difficulty). He said he would look for one, he went off and never returned (I held off showering for half an hour as I kept expecting him to return at any moment - he didn't). On the second night I was woken at 4:30am to the sounds of a screaming woman, shouting and loud voices. I got up very worried and looked out the door, absolutely everyone in the vicinity had been woken by the commotion, and every door was open with annoyed people peering out. The women in the corridor were clearly drunk and we all asked them to calm and quiet down. I retuned to my bed and then decided I should call the front desk and ask that someone walk the corridor because whilst they had calmed down a bit some noise remained. The member of staff seemed a little reluctant to come up saying that it sounded like that the situation had calmed down (he might have been concerned about dealing with drunks alone which I do understand), I insisted that someone came up (because they were still in the corridor making noise) and he did. He spoke to the ladies who were continuing to cause disruption in the corridor albeit not screaming and shouting, just loud voices and crying etc (I think this was a situation where it would have been better for your staff to have had more than one person attend - for their own safety, I certainly wouldn't have wanted to have been in that man's position). On checking out the next day, when asked if I enjoyed my stay I did mention the commotion the night before and the lady kindly said she would wipe my £8 bar bill, whilst I accepted the kind gesture and thanked her, I realised that I did not have an outstanding bar bill (it must have been an error), I couldn't be bothered to explain as I was in a hurry to check out. In summary, I think that on this stay overall there was just an unfortunate set of incidents which in aggregate did make the stay a little disappointing. Had I never been to this hotel before, I think I would not book again, however I do know this hotel very well and this isn't my usual experience so I will book again. We all have bad weeks and I think that this was just one of them!

Hotel lovely but the room was sparse. Body wash hanging off shower wall. Only one coffee per person for the visit in the room. Bed quite hard. Have stayed at hotel before : first *time room was hard to tell from a Premier Inn

This is the third time we have stayed at this hotel and, once again, we had a very positive experience. Well located for the city, clean, efficient and welcoming. As special mention for Alicecand her colleague on reception.