Property: Mercure Sydney Central
Status: Accor Plus Platinum
Room booked: Standard King
Room upgraded/type: Yes. Top floor, two room corner suite.
Rate: Corporate rate ~$250/night
Free internet: Yes.
Free Breakfast? Yes
Early check in/late out: Yes, see below / not reqd.
Welcome drink: 1x house beverage.
Welcome gift: Bottle of Joval Ate Shiraz, boxed chocolates, box of small museli bars / coconut slice etc.
Two night stay for work.
Arrived about 10am and asked to store my bag so I didn’t have to take it to the office.
“Your room is ready sir” was a very pleasant surprise.
That was followed by acknowledgement of loyalty and “we’ve upgraded you to executive suite”.
I’ve stayed here plenty and the upgrades are generally a higher floor, a coffee machine, or both.
So I was surprised to find myself on the top floor in a two room corner suite.
It has an expansive bathroom with a shower big enough for six people or a small elephant.
It had two rain showers and two standard wall showers. And unlike most places there wasn’t a valve to switch between them all. You could run all four at once.
I did test the rain shower and wall shower at the same time - purely for research purposes - and can report it was very relaxing.
The bathroom also had one of those windows from the shower out to the living room and to the view of the city beyond.
I know these are a love/hate thing for some people. But when the bathroom lights were switched on, the window slowly frosted over - taking maybe 20 seconds. Nifty.
The other thing I liked was that the hotel recognised my profile preferences.
I can’t handle the soft saggy pillows you get in most hotels and my profile includes a standing request for a firm pillow.
Even at 10am this was on the bed waiting. Very few Accor hotels can mange this, and even this property usually doesn’t.
Breakfast is a standard mid-scale Accor buffet with a DIY coffee machine. There’s also barista coffee with no coffee tax for Plat and above.
This property has also resumed giving the option to forgo housekeeping in favour of 100 ALL points.
I forgot photos sorry. But
these pictures are accurate and seem to be the actual room I was assigned.
At checkout I thanked the front office manger for the upgrade and said what a terrific room it was. He offered to add it as my preferred room for future visits. I’ll be very happy if that actually happens.