Mercure Kings Darlington, Pullman Suite

Staff was great, friendly, helpful and gave me an upgrade. However, the rooms were quite run down, old carpets and bathroom. Also, the elevator to the last two floors did not work.

I have been in Mercure Hotel for a week. Location is perfect, town center, near to train station (15 mins walking) Teesside University (20 mins walking). Staff is friendly. My room had all what you expect for a single bedroom, big enough but minimal compliance to cleanliness has there were spider webs on the window. Served breakfast was what you will expect, although when it is busy, tables are left unclean for long time and food took long to get replaced. The “restaurant” bar has just a few options, and some of them were not available, which is a shame. I have asked for any alternatives, and I was told “the menu was old”. The lift is only available to 2nd floor. From 2nd to 4th floor there is no lift, nothing that bothered me, but there were quite a lot of clients needing assistance to take bags up to 3rd and 4th floor.

Parking is limited, located in a fairly small underground car park beneath the hotel. The greeting from the girl on reception was very warm and welcoming. However, there were about 6-7 builders sat in the lobby eating KFC while being fairly boisterous, burping and generally not setting a great first-impression. Not the fault of the hotel, but is quite intimidating for some people when checking in. The layout of the hotel is like a rabbit warren - so my room (333) was quite hard to find. When I got there, the room was very small indeed and was badly decorated (quality of finish). The door wouldn’t lock because the locking mechanism didn’t line up to the holes in the door frame. The bathroom lacked any meaningful ventilation, the toilet seat didn’t fit the toilet and the shower (over bath) was so narrow that the shower curtain stuck to you throughout the entire duration of washing. The room was dusty. The TV remote didn’t work well and was held together with tape. The window opened, which was very nice. The bed was clean and soft/comfy. There is no soundproofing - I heard the conversations of my neighbours clearly (to the point that I heard all the discussion on his zoom meeting). You can also hear absolutely everything that happens in the corridor. When you go to sleep, there is a smoke detector directly above your bed, which is fine - however it flashes light periodically throughout the night (probably once every 10 seconds). It’s so bright that you notice it with your eyes closed. Once asleep, I had a reasonable rest. Breakfast disappointing - the usual selection of buffet cereals and warmish meats. Absolutely no staff greeted me, the only time I heard from one of them was to demand my room number. No idea if there is actually an on site restaurant, no one told me about it if there was. Luckily there’s a great independent Italian restaurant less than 5 mins away. Upon checkout no one asked me how my stay was. The location is absolutely brilliant if you need to be centrally located within Darlington. I would not recommend, and would probably look at other options next time.