Mercure Holland House Hotel & Spa, 24-26 Newport Road, Cardiff. Accor Hotels
We needed a 2-night stay in Cardiff so decided to try www.lastminute.com as it popped into my inbox. Some good deals, though not necessarily better than www.booking.com , so were tempted by the ‘secret hotel’ stay in 4* with spa – £109 for two of us for two nights room only so not bad.
You don’t know which hotel it is until you have booked, so we were quite pleased as I have stayed at the Mercure before. Alas, very disappointed. Pleasant reception staff, very helpful with all the relevant hotel details. Be warned – do not go with room 1204! It is a comfortable, spacious room with tea and coffee, toiletries etc as you would expect. But, it backs onto the lifts and has a constant very loud air-conditioning noise that cannot be switched off. We tried, as did someone sent up to check we weren’t idiots and didn’t know how to press the on-off button on the wall.
We should have changed rooms after the first night but could not be bothered for just one more night. Is it this noisy in all the rooms? I have no idea as I do not remember this from my previous stay. In any event, we would not choose to stay here again and will go back to Jury’s Inn closer to the city centre. With the secret hotel option, you would not know until it was too late, so we will also go back to booking.com in the future.
