Mercure Mont Saint Michel

We stayed at this hotel for two nights. If we hadn’t booked and prepaid for two nights we would have left after the first night. This hotel is not deserving of a four star rating. It would be better described as a motel than a hotel. It has a restaurant next door that you have to leave the premises to get to. On arrival, we had no idea how to get through the barrier that prevents entrance to the village. We eventually managed this after about 15 minutes but should have been told in advance that a code was required. When we mentioned this to the receptionist, she couldn’t have cared less and was only keen to tell us that if we wanted to leave, we had to pay Euro 4 to get a code. Due to a train delay we didn’t arrive at the hotel til around 9.50pm and hadn’t eaten. We asked where to get some food and the receptionist told us that the hotel had no food but she directed us to a vending machine down the street. Again, she couldn’t have cared less. This evening we needed a corkscrew to open a bottle of wine as there was no corkscrew in the room. We asked at reception and they had no corkscrew. The extremely unhelpful receptionist sent us to the bar across the street to get our wine opened. Rooms mediocre at best- ugly, old brown carpet and paint chipped off doors. Toilet area the size off a cupboard and poorly ventilated. The Poor customer service from the receptionist staff left us feeling like this hotel is soulless.

The hotel was recommended by my friend and her husband who are staying in France but they also stay in Singapore many months in a year. They helped us to book a tour to north east France and they too joined us for the tour. The tour started from Paris then to Claude Monet's Impression, Mount-Saint Michel, Saint Mao, Chambord Castle etc. We stayed at Hotel Mercure for these locations we visited and enjoyed our stay.

My boyfriend and I stayed at this hotel for 1 night while visiting Mont Saint Michel. The town was very quiet because it was off season but the hotel had a restaurant that was open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. You can’t beat the location if you are visiting Mont Saint Michel. The free shuttle to the Mont picks up right across from the hotel and drops off in front. Our river facing room in the Normandy building was very comfortable and quiet. We really enjoyed our stay at this hotel.

I would like to say that this hotel is very convenient to either walk or take a bus to Mont Saint Michel. I really like the window view that I can see both river and the infinite view. The breakfast is very full of variety of food and fruit, especially Kiwi.

When I set my computer up in room 13, I found it was having difficulty accessing websites. According to my computer, I had a strong signal, but web pages were taking several minutes to complete downloading, would get timed out, or I would get error messages indicating absence of network or inabillity to connect. My immediate reaction was to try connecting with my mobile phone. According to my phone, the Wi-Fi signal strength was fluctuating mostly between 0 and 1, with very occasional spikes up to higher levels. I mediately complained to teception, and I got the usual excuse that nobody else was complaining. An attempt was made to reset the hotel router, but there was no improvement. Next morning I went for a walkabout in my room and the public areas of the hotel wit my phone. There was a perfectly good signal in the corridor outside my room. As soon as I entered my room and closed the door behind me, the signal strength fell to 2 or 3, but was still sufficient directly outside and inside the bathroom, but when I walked into the actual bedroom the signal strength fell to 0 or 1. I actually called a receptionist to my room and showed her what was happening. I was told that the hotel would be taking remedial action, but this would not be possible before my check out date. I have previously stayed at this hotel in 2012 and I did not have this problem then. However, I had a room nearer the front of the hotel. I can only assume that room 13 and possibly all the rooms in the same block of the hotel are in a wifi "shadow". But on the 3rd night of my stay, I noticed an improvement in Wi-Fi performance. I also noticed a reduction in the number of cars in the car park. I therefore take the view that this hotel has INSUFFICIENT WiFi BANDWIDTH for the number of guests staying. In this case, whoever is furthest away from an antenna will be the first to suffer a deterioration in performance. Of course since the network was patchy, a guest using a mobile phone, could simply move round the room to where the signal was strongest, which in room 13 was the bathroom. However this is not an option for computer users. I tend to use the internet mostly at night. Before the age of smartphones, this would be a time of low Wi-Fi demand, but now that everybody has smartphones, which most people do not switch off at night, all these phones will still be taking up Wi-Fi bandwidth. Very possibly the hotel will have purchased more bandwidth by the time this complaint appears. Having blasted this hotel for bad internet service, I can say that this was the ONLY problem. There were no other problems. The hotel is clean and well maintained. The hotel has a very good restaurant and there is plenty of choice. Local specialities are seafood and the salt marsh lamb. Restaurant service is unusually fast and efficient. The only thing to remember about the restaurant is that it closes unusually early. Orders will not be taken after 2100h. The price I paid was good value for money. I noticed that some unbranded hotels in the area were charging sky high rates even in low season. If you arrive by car, you will need to get a 6 digit code from the hotel before you arrive, in order to be allowed to drive your car into the mainland part of the town. These codes cost €4 and you need one each time you enter the town by car. This might seem a nuisance, but the benefit is reduced traffic congestion when driving to and from your hotel, because the cars of tourists not actually staying in St. Michel are excluded. The causeway and the car park at the base of the Mount have been demolished, and replaced by a bridge on which public vehicles are prohibited. Instead there is a free bus service to and from the Mount.

The hotel is located precisely at the shuttle stop for riding to Mont Saint-Michel. This could not be better. Across the street are shops, and the restaurant at the hotel also provides good choices for meals. The room was very comfortable and quiet. Highly recommended.

We were amazed by how patient and courteous the front desk staff was. This is an incredibly popular destination and there was a constant stream of people checking in or out, and as far as we could tell no two spoke the same language! Yet the staff maintained a genuinely warm atmosphere and did a wonderful job of engaging each of us. As many others have pointed out, you stay at this hotel for the proximity to Mont Saint Michel itself - and the location is excellent with a shuttle stop right out front. (Alternatively, it was an easy 50-min walk to the Abby, which you'll probably want to take advantage of since the shuttles appeared to be packed all day.) The hotel itself is pretty utilitarian and showed its age, though our room was quite spacious, which would be nice for a family. Our room was in the back building and had a lovely view of the river/canal and bike path with lots of privacy - not a building in sight from our perspective. You did have to walk up stairs, but only 1/2 a flight. The shower and vanity room was quite nice and modern, but the toilet room did not seem to vent and had quite an odor. And to reiterate what so many have said, make sure you get the gate code from the hotel ahead of time. You cannot get into the area/town without a code and there is only one gate, so you will make a long line of impatient fellow travelers wait behind you while you figure it out. But if you plan ahead an pay attention it's very easy, and although we had planned to call the morning of our stay to get our code, the hotel actually emailed it the day before so we didn't have to.

If your room is on the 2nd floor and you have a heavy luggage and cannot lift, ask to give you a ground floor room. Our beds are also a bit worn out. The bathroom has been renovated so it's very clean.

Visit started off on the wrong foot when we got to the town and couldn’t get in. We were told the hotel was supposed to give us a code for the gate. After 30 min of trying everything to get, had to make an international call (which was $$ for us) just to get the hotel to give us the code. Why it couldn’t be emailed or sent before you get there is unknown to me. Make sure you get the code beforehand!!! Room was dirty and the walls were super thin. We could hear a baby crying all night. We would not stay here again.