Mercure Southampton Centre Dolphin Hotel 4 stars

The hotel is superbly located in the city centre with the added bonus of private parking. The reception staff were friendly and welcoming, the room well appointed and the bed really comfortable.

Very kindly, we were upgraded on request. We were a bit concerned about some of the noise comments on the Hotels.com site. Your staff responded immediately.

We knew it would not be quite the same

I was given the opportunity of an upgraded room which was appreciated.

no problems encountered except we booked as a couple and after having booked the train ticket from London - your hotelgot in touch and said I was not allowed to accompany her - although this was not raised when i booked.

I had recently attained Accor gold status and was looking forward to a possible room upgrade as is listed as a benefit of this status. Not only was this not offered but the standard room we received (108) was the smallest of any Mercure I have ever stayed in, smaller than an Ibis room, and indeed smaller than the room given to our friend who only has silver status. The bed was tiny - not great for two fairly tall adults!

Old tired room. Carpet stained and rucked up. Very average.

Found my stay great nice room polite staff.

The rooms were physically clean but in my daughters room, the shower, sink and toilet were obviously blocked somewhere in the drainage. My room had residue of the someone having used the toilet and it not having been flushed away, which I did when I noticed it. The receptionist was informed that housekeeping or maintenance needed to be advised. But no real apology was offered, which in reality was not really her fault as either she did not know what was appropriate or she didn’t care. So all in all it was very disappointing and not what I, as a regular hotel user would expect and unless there is no other alternative I would avoid Mercure properties. Which is sad as the reason I chose this hotel is because I had stayed there many years ago when it was a Forte hotel.

The hotel was booked because we undertook a flying visit to family, and The Dolphin was a 30 second walk away. The room (which was an upgrade) was poor, with the imprint of a pair of buttock on the was, a carpet that I would be ashamed to put on a compost heap, and a filthy bathroom with grouting missing and a shower that flooded the room. The only reason for the 2rating is that the bed was at least comfortable.

Friendly efficient staff and all measures taken to help provide a Covid safe environment

Lovely staff at front desk! Helpful, polite and professional! Breakfast was lovely too.. the area it’s self... hmm a little strange! Very strange people outside! Seems rough and I’m from London haha

The hotel is well-located for the ferry port and is also a short walk away from the railway and coach stations. The staff on the whole are friendly (big shout-out to the young Australian lady who dealt with us professionally and with genuine warmth), however the hotel itself is very disappointing. We enjoy travelling and also travel with work, so are well-used to staying in hotels and knowing what to expect. We were both shocked that the hotel has been awarded 4 stars by the AA. We had three different rooms during our stay. The first two were very tired and unkempt. There were cracked tiles in the bathrooms, dodgy flushes on the toilets, curtains not hung properly, stained and worn carpets, scuffed walls, thick dust in parts...in one of the rooms the hot and cold taps were labelled incorrectly causing my partner to burn himself. The final room we had was in a better state of repair. There was a little dust on the window sills, but it was much better than the previous rooms. The bathroom had clearly had work done on it to modernise it, and the toilet flush was working to perfection! The sink taps in the bathroom were both lukewarm, rather than one hot and one cold. The mattress was the worst thing in our final room. The side nearest the window was seriously sunken. My partner was on that side and whilst he thought it would be okay initially (he tends to prefer softer beds than me), he did confess towards the end of the week that it was getting uncomfortable for him. Neither of us could face moving rooms, or the embarrassment of explaining our problems to reception yet again, so he put up with it. We had arranged breakfast as part of our stay, but again this disappointed us somewhat. My drink order every morning was black coffee, but I was given white coffee on two days, and on another my black coffee arrived with lots of floating bits in the cup. Some days we were given stirrers for our drinks, some days not. Some days we were offered sugar, some days not. We ordered from both the continental menu and cooked breakfast menu, but didn’t receive our continental options. Once the food had been placed in front of us, the waiter vanished off and didn’t come back to check everything was alright, otherwise we could have asked about the missing continental elements (and also the missing ketchup — again, a bit of a pattern). The room itself ought to be cleaned regularly. I happened to spot a Hula Hoop on the floor of the breakfast room upon arrival. It was still there on the day of our departure. This truly was a disappointing stay, and has made us question whether to use Mercure in future if this is the standard to be expected at their 4 star hotels. As I said at the start, on the whole the staff were friendly, but the hotel itself needs a lot of work doing to it. Certainly would choose a different hotel should we need to visit Southampton in the future.

The stay as ever was great. The only let down was the lack of policing of the wearing of masks in public areas. This put us off as it needs to be adhered to and enforced by the staff.

Nice, clean & comfortable hotel would definitely stay there again, only downside was that the taps in the bath had been fixed to only work the shower so couldn’t run a bath.