Mercure Alameda Quito

Hotel claims to provide 5 Star amenities even though there was no air conditioning in the room - and not even a ceiling fan to circulate the air. The only option was to open windows, which meant hearing all of the city noise (cars, drunk people at night shouting/singing in the street, and sounds of the city). The room also didn't have a fridge provided, and there was no iron & ironing board present, but we had to specially request these. The shower in our original room wouldn't switch off and almost flooded the bathroom - after switching rooms, the hot water even in our second room would take 5 minutes to heat up before each shower. Rooms were very rundown, clearly in need of an update, and were not cleaned appropriately over several days. Cleaners hoovering at 7.30am waking us up - also lots of banging noise from the ceiling which we could only assume was weights being dropped in the gym above. Staff claims to speak English fluently but there were several misunderstandings which caused us problems throughout our stay (especially with Taxis being arranged for destinations we never said we were going to!). We were not advised at the time of booking that shower caps were mandatory to use the pools AND that the hotel would charge $5 each for them instead of providing them to guests for free as part of the hotel. No other hotel in Quito made this mandatory. There was also a mandatory 10% tip added to every bill without our consent and without us being told!!!

We have stayed here before and we generally find the quality and service to be good. There was a glitch this time, however. We had a 3 night stay. On day 2, we started to smell sewage in the bathroom. It became so bad, we had to switch rooms. Further, the pillows provided were uncomfortable and difficult to sleep on.