Mercure Chester North Woodhey House Hotel 3 stars

Only problems were the room was too cold, tv was missing remote control, room telephone didn’t work.

Date of Stay : 18 February 2020 Duration of Stay: 1 Night Booking online, checked in and checked out online is a big mistake. Cost of room was £61.75. Unauthorised pre-authorisation of £90.00 taken without my consent. Today, 9 days later, is 27 February 2020 and though no services were used during the course of the stay, the excess money has not been returned to my bank account. Why does a hotel have to retain customer's money for no reason this way? Hotel car park is poorly lit and in a deteriorated state with overflowing bins outside reception where smokers have littered the floor with cigarette remains. Light fittings in hotel reception are cosmetically damaged and the ceiling above the main reception light fitting has been poorly patched up where a square shaped fitting formerly hung. I'm an ALL Silver card holder and no complimentary drink was offered to me on my arrival. The corridor leading to the lift from the reception was equipped with a rolled up wet towel that served as a draught excluder. The corridor leading to the room was devoid of lighting immediately outside the room. The room was room 312; a large sized, poorly equipped room. The outdoor ambient night time temperature was 3.5 degrees Celsius and the room radiator never warmed up for the entire night and the indoor room temperature was 12.9 degrees Celsius! The phone in room 312 was inoperable so had to phone downstairs as an outside customer (I may as well have been outside as it probably would have been warmer than inside!). There were no portable heaters available to compensate for the lack of heating. The customer service representative came to the room to try to "see" if the room radiator was warming up at all to no avail. This experience is my worst ALL experience, particularly in respect of the discourteous, unauthorised taking of excess money from my bank account and the apparent refusal to return it. I am totally disappointed by this action. This hotel needs to be closed and refurbished to a higher standard as it falls far short of ALL standards. It is sub-standard! I continue to wait for the return of my money. This is probably being done to every customer that stays at this hotel. I'm not a rich man and the excess money that refuses to be returned is not much money but it represents a principle of underhand behavior by this hotel. This is the first time that I have used the online services for booking etc and shall not be using these again for ALL hotels. This has altogether been a sad experience and represents the absolute bottom of customer service experiences. The hotel claims that central booking is responsible for monies taken while central booking claims that it is the hotels responsibility. Customers DO NOT want to experience this rubbish service and the poor response from ALL and the hotel have prompted me to seek hotel services elsewhere in future. I booked my stay at this hotel because of its proximity to my intended place of work and consequently my day of work was ruined by the bad experience the night before.

Lovely location, room was cold apart from that nice stay.

My partner went out to the front of the hotel in the night and was assaulted on his return by a drunk resident. The Young night receptionist was nowhere to be seen and cctv only covered behind the desk. We reported it and the police came. In the morning, at breakfast, the female receptionist was speaking to my partner about the man who had assaulted him (they knew who it was as there had been complaints earlier) in front of his young daughters and only moved away when I asked her to! She and the manager tried to persuade him to go with them to the assailant’s room to open the door and identify him! When we refused as this is not safe, the receptionist suggested taking photos of the assailant when they woke him. I think the cctv camera was being moved as we left but this is too little too late. Cctv should be in the public areas and staff should be there 24 hours.

This was a nice enough hotel but you definitely get what you pay for. Check in was very quick and easy, even without doing the online check in beforehand (which frankly seems a little pointless). The reception was well presented and the staff were friendly and helpful. The room itself seemed decent and clean however we had a dirty towel left on the floor of our room and one of the mugs was half full of water and had clearly been used. Even for a rate as cheap as £42 a night, basic housekeeping is still expected. Breakfast was good for the price however we were the only people there and it was quite apparent the food had been sitting on the hot plates for some time. We then witnessed a member of staff come out of the kitchen coughing, initially without covering his mouth and then proceeded to cough into his hand. After sitting to eat, the same man and the chef came out and moved some of the food around. The old eggs were taken away and fresh ones put down, only to be rearranged... by hand. Overall, the hotel was adequate enough for a quick stopover and for the price, I was not disappointed but some seemingly basic issues have brought my score down drastically to 4/10.

This weekend we stayed at your hotel in Little Sutton Nr Chester. This was our first night away in 6 months. On our last holiday we stayed in your hotel in Stratford upon Avon and had the most amazing time! It was perfect for us and our little 1 yr old and the staff and facilities where second to none. Knowing we wanted a night away we didn’t hesitate to book a Mercure hotel again after valuing our experience with you last time. We couldn’t have been more disappointed. The hotel was old and shabby, it felt dirty and when we first arrived there was not a person in sight, it almost felt deserted. Our room was in the furthest corner of the hotel with a bit of a trek to find it (especially with an 18month old), then when we got there it wasn’t the room we had booked with 3 single beds and a travel cot crammed in. My wife made the epic trek back down to reception to get it changed - which they did fairly quickly. This room was better but still dirty and the curtains where 3 inches to short for the windows?!? We decided to head down to the pool/spa and gym. The gym was more of a cupboard with some equipment stuffed in - safe to say I didn’t bother and the pool was grubby, the lights continued to flicker and we didn’t bother with the ‘spa’. We went out for tea and forgot to pick up some water for the room on the way home. I bought some at the hotel bar and it cost me £4.10 for 1 bottle of water - so extortionate! I expected to pay a lot for bottled water in an up market hotel - but that was ridiculous and the state of the hotel didn’t make it any more acceptable. We all eventually got to sleep after the dog barking down the corridors and the heavy doors keeping our baby awake on several occasions. Breakfast was ok - can’t grumble at the food, but the experience was odd. We where the only ones in the dining room, no music, no people - it was all just very strange. We booked with Mercure because it was a brand we trusted and have used many times before! Staying in Manchester, Chester and Stratford Upon Avon. I am shocked that you are happy to put the Mercure name to that hotel and has left me feeling very disappointed with the hotel chain. Not sure I would be rushing to stay at a Mercure again in a hurray.

Warm welcome, staff were friendly! The children in the room next door were noisy and you can hear a lot through the bedroom walls. The interior could do with an upgrade and the room we were in, there was a funny smell when you enter. I assumed that was the chlorine smell from the pool on the bottom floor? The location was fine as it was close to Cheshire Oaks where we went for the day and also close to the motorways to get to Manchester and Liverpool which we also visited!

Clean rooms, friendly staff, nice food and heated swimming pool.

Great stay, clean room, friendly staff, lovely pool and very reasonably priced

The room was clean and tidy however it was a bit dated. There are rust/marks on the bath which didn't give the bathroom that clean feeling - even though it was! The shower was awful, luke-warm water only when the shower was set to extreme cold. Not ideal. Quick check-in at reception and good late service at the bar. For a 1 night stay, it was adequate, but don't quite feel I got value for money.

Room was ok but too hot. Breakfast on first morning was an absolute shambles. We arrived half an hour before the end of service to find one poor waiter having to cope with a roomful of rowdy children and aggressive adults. We sat down for 10 minutes without being acknowledged (there was no buffet so had to wait to order). Eventually we headed to reception to complain where we were met with sympathy (as there was already another guest there complaining about noise from the children running up and down the corridors during the night) but little action. Eventually we placed an order for food and drink but after another 15 minute wait one plate of food arrived but no drinks or food for my partner. After that we gave up and abandoned breakfast. We were offered a refund for breakfast but it couldn't be actioned over the weekend (surely there must have been someone in charge who could have authorized it? Or don't you trust your staff?). They said they would leave a note for the general manager to do the refund but as yet no response. We were offered a drink from the bar but at 11am that doesn't seem appropriate. Breakfast the next morning was ok but the ambience of the dining area is dreadful. My guess is that they are understaffed. The waiters we did come across were pleasant bu harassed.

First time stay in this Hotel but extremely satisfied with the standard, service ,cleanliness and Room. Lovely and quiet, First class in our opinion.We are going to go back asap to spend a couple of days in Chester ect. Great Location.

The rooms were dated and breakfast is the worst ever service I have ever received and I stay in hotels every week

Great location, we were very happy with our suite which was large and extremely comfortable

Issue with the original room as the heating was broken and was on full blast and too hot. The lady behind reception was great and she organise another room within a few mins. Just the second bed wasnt a double bed and wasnt as nice. But we were really grateful for change in room and heating couldnt be fix there and then. Staff were brilliant so friendly