Mercure St Helens

I (Martina) my son and my sister had to attend our Uncle's funeral on March 16th last. We arrived at the Mercure Hotel Linkway West on 15/3/'23 checked in and then our cousin arrived to take us to the mortuary to say our final goodbyes to our favourite Uncle, after spending an hour with him, we went back to the hotel and decided to have a meal in the restaurant. We ordered our meal and after half an hour my sister and son got their meal, I had ordered fish and chips and mushy peas, they had their meal eaten before I got mine, I took a piece of fish and some chips and it was tasty and then I took some mushy peas and started to chew and I felt this loud crunch and I thought I had broken a filling in my tooth so I took the food from my mouth into a serviette and I found a piece of glass, I then emptied the ramekin dish of mushy peas onto my plate and I found more glass. I went into the bar to get a staff member to tell them and the girl said I will take it back to the kitchen. Now my mouth was sore, I had cut my gum (top right at the back) near a double tooth and the skin peeled of and the tip of my tongue was swollen, I was told there is no glass in the kitchen and to report it to the manager the following morning. I did report it to the manager Khem Djedidi in the bar on the 16/3/'23 the morning of my Uncle's funeral. He did say the hotel policy is NO glass in the kitchen. As with the glass I found in my dinner the protocol is the food and glass are put into a sealed container and sent back to their supplier with my complaint and it would take 4/5 months before they would hear back from them. So he gave me his business card and promised to be in touch so I trusted him to get back to me. We went to the funeral and afterwards we went for a meal and my mouth was extremely painful my tongue was swollen so I went to the bathroom with my sister and I squeez my tongue and to my surprise I got a splinter of glass out but it was embarrassing to be the only one at the table not to be eating only having smoothies and for the few days I was there it was cold drinks and smooothies. My son & I went back to the hotel on August 8th for 2 days to visit my Uncle's grave on August 9th for what would have been his 95th birthday and I enquired at the hotel reception if Khem Djedidi was working that day and the lady said yes, so I asked if he would meet me to discuss the glass issue and she opened my file on the computer and said we have no record of this complaint, so later that evening when we were going out for food I asked at reception if the manager would meet me and she said no and no explanation why? I was disappointed. On the morning of our departure for the airport the receptionist gave me a business card for Vicky Owen and said email her and she would help me with my query. I did when I got home and eventually I got a reply stating it wasn't her department and she would pass the message on to Khem and he would be in contact with me but he hasn't the manners to reply and there has been NO contact from the hotel at all. I can only guess that he didn't bother sending the glass to the hotel's supplier and ask questions. I am entitled to know where the glass came from that ended up in my meal. Really disappointed with the hotel and staff response.

Easy feeling hotel with lovely staff

We booked a one night stay in the hotel as a base for meeting family and friends on a return trip to StHelens. The hotel staff were friendly, we used the leisure centre and had the facilities to ourselves for the most part. The room was great, would have been even better if there was conditioner. Breakfast was good and the chef accommodated the vege requests. What stopped this from getting a 5 was the evening meal. We had a lovely meal and the restaurant was quiet. We were enjoying a conversation with the family we had come to see with a backdrop of Christmas songs in the background, when they switched them off and had the football blaring. We could hardly hear each other speak. We did ask the staff could they go back to the Christmas songs which didn’t seem possible, they turned it down. Ruined the atmosphere.

Early check in, large comfy room.

Third time we have used this hotel and again another good experience. Had evening meal for first time and could not fault it. Will definitely use this hotel again.