Hotel Mercure Brussels Centre Midi 4 stars

TV was not working and could not tun it on. Bathtub and its handle can be improved for clean and comfortable experience. Preferred fluffy pillows for better sleep. Overall cleanliness of the room is above average.

The rooms are big and newly refurbished. But the staff could do better in welcoming guests. there are no welcome packs or drinks/snacks for Gold members, the construction in front of the hotel made access difficult, the bathroom lights are too dim, and the shower was weak. I wouldn't return here; there are many better hotels in the Accor group alone in the Midi area.

I will preface this review by stating that I work in the hospitality business and I understand how hard it can be to attract good staff, I had some serious issues with my stay that must be addressed. I arrived at Hotel Mercure Brussels Midi after my train. I was treated to a complimentary upgrade due to my ALL Accor status, which I was very pleased with. I was happy to find out that I had been upgraded to a suite before I even arrived at the hotel, and asked. This was a very nice touch and made me feel like I want to stay at more Accor properties in the future. HOWEVER, the suite that my girlfriend and I stayed in was horribly unprepared to accommodate guests. There were serious and inexcusable failures in the housekeeping that I feel compelled to mention. Firstly, upon entering the WC off the living room, I went to the bathroom but was shocked to find that there was no soap to wash my hands with on/near the sink. This was my first negative experience with the suite, which alone would not warrant a strongly worded review. However, upon entering the bedroom, I noticed that a card had been placed on the bed indicating a complimentary bottle of water available for guests. I could not find the water anywhere until I opened the mini fridge. I found the bottle of water, and it was half empty! Additionally, there was somebody else's leftover food stored in the fridge, and it was clearly overlooked by housekeeping. Again, this issue would not necessarily warrant a review, but paired with the others, I believe it is a serious concern and indicates a lack of proper training for housekeepers. My third issue arose when I entered the main bathroom of the suite, located off the bedroom. The bottle of hand soap was so low that I could barely get any out to wash my hands. Also, it was stored in some kind of metal holder that partially blocked the mechanism, making it even harder to get any hand soap out of the bottle. My fourth issue had to do with the availability of soap and hair products in the shower. I began to shower and clean myself, only to discover that there was no body wash in the bottle, much like the hand soap. I then tried to see if there was shampoo or conditioner to use, and to my absolute shock, all three bottles were completely empty. I want to emphasize that the bottles were not just mostly empty, they were COMPLETELY empty, even one quick test or look from housekeeping would have confirmed that they needed to be replaced. I was soaking wet at this point and would have essentially had no good way to get more soap. Luckily, my girlfriend was with me, so I instructed her to call the front desk and request more soap and shampoo. On the phone, they agreed to replace it but did not give a timeframe. I then told her to tell them that it was urgent and needed immediately. Luckily, they were prompt in replacing it at that point. This repeated issue with the soap constituted some of the most negligent housekeeping and cleanliness standards that I have ever experienced in a chain hotel, let alone Accor, from which I have come to expect consistency and a modest standard of guest comfort at the bare minimum. I was extremely unimpressed with the housekeeping, especially given that I was staying in one of the best rooms in the hotel, which should be held to an even higher standard than normal rooms (Although this soap issue would be completely unacceptable in a normal room as well). My fifth issue had to do with the drain in the shower. I found the drain to be horribly clogged to the point that I had to turn off the shower every few minutes so as not to flood the floor of the bathroom. I understand that this is not an easy problem for housekeeping to identify, so I kindly let the front desk staff know on the way out, and they promised to take care of it. However, this did significantly detract from my experience with the bathroom, because on top of all the soap issues, I felt that my time in the shower had to be limited and constrained by how fast the drain could clear the water. My sixth and final issue revolves around the demeanor and professionalism of the evening staff. I checked in fairly late, and I understand that the nighttime shift tends to attract less professional staff. However, upon check-in, there was nobody at the front desk. One of the two people (a man and a woman) was found behind the bar around the corner after I searched for help. She was clearly in the middle of cleaning something, which is, of course, appropriate, but I found her to lack urgency when she realized that I needed to check in. Instead of rushing over to help customers who had clearly been waiting, she told us to wait just a minute. Again, I think this comes down to a training issue. Active customer needs should always be the top priority of staff. Cleaning or other maintenance tasks can wait unless they are urgent. In this case, the woman's task was clearly not urgent. I would like to mention that this woman working the desk was very kind and welcoming once she spoke to us, but her lack of urgency was something I noticed. She also had a speech impediment, which made me question the decision to put her in a customer-facing role, as communication with her was not the easiest. The next issue had to do with a male employee whom we also saw in the lobby as we were checking in. We headed to the elevator after receiving the room card, only to find that it had just been occupied by this male employee. He asked us which floor we needed to go to, and we told him floor 2. He then proceeded to press -1, which was the floor that he needed to go to. Once the elevator started going down, he pressed floor 2 so that we would go up after. This honestly left me a bit shocked. It was extremely unprofessional and indicated a lack of care for guest experience. Based on the pace of his movement, he did not urgently need to go downstairs, and he should have prioritized the guests in this case over his own need to go down. I know this seems like a small issue, but these small things add up to make or break a guest's experience. All these issues put together made my experience at Hotel Mercure Brussels Midi mediocre, bordering on negative. The one redeeming aspect of the stay was the complimentary upgrade, but the recurring issues with housekeeping especially detracted from the overall experience quite significantly. I want you to know that I do not intend to leave a public review, and I just hope that you see this feedback and correct the issues that contributed to this negative experience. I understand how hard it is to find good staff nowadays, but nonetheless, I found the housekeeping and the front-end staff to lack care and candor. I would also like to mention that I had no issues whatsoever with the desk staff on the morning of my checkout. The two women working the desk were very attentive and greeted us with large smiles and a genuine concern for the quality of our stay. I wish I could say the same about the nighttime staff. Thank you for your attention to these issues, and I hope that you can implement new measures to prevent such easily fixable issues from detracting from guest experience in the future. Thank you.

Facilities were well maintained, rooms were worth the prize.

The location of the hotel is walking distance to main train station, metro, bus, and trum. And if you like walking the Grand Place is near. The staff are friendly. There is a water dispenser at the lobby still or sparkling water.