I'd like to call myself a 'biscuiteer', but having mistaken a
small, wrapped block of hard foam designed to clean shoes for some kind of free
snack, possibly even a biscuit, I think I’ve seriously failed the entrance
examination.
I'm safely ensconced in my room at the Mercure City Center Hotel
in Dusseldorf and I thought I'd scout around for freebies. That's when I
encountered what I thought was a biscuit. Life can be infuriating. There's not
much for free: a sachet of premium peppermint tea, two elongated sachets of
instant coffee, some 'Zabielacz de kawy creamer' – that's powdered milk to you
and me – and a couple of sachets of sugar. Oh, there's also a bottle of Evian
mineral water.
Hoteliers get a little angry when I suggest that a locked minibar
means they don't trust their guests, but I hate that unmistakable feeling of
exclusion – ‘keep out!’. There's a couple of locked doors, one being a small
safe that has been rendered unusable, and the other some kind of fridge, which
I'm guessing is either empty or jam-packed with beers and wines and wasabi
nuts, but just not for me. I wonder if they thought, 'hold on, we've got
Moggridge staying with us, lock the minibar and don't give him access to the
mini safe either, he’s got nothing worth nicking'. There must be some kind of
policy decision that says 'lock the fridge and the safe and don't leave any
keys floating around'. Annoying, yes, but so far I have very little to complain
about, apart from trying to find the elevator after I checked in. One of them
was out of order so I was directed along a corridor to where I would find
another, but I got lost and had to ask for directions. It turned out the lift
was up some stairs, on the first floor, so I figured what was the point? I
walked instead and soon found room 211, which was absolutely fine. There was a
carpeted floor, a single bed, a flatscreen television, power points, a
telephone (that worked!) and various leaflets. The bathroom, of which more
later, was small but perfectly adequate.
The hotel was under four minutes' walk from Da Bruno, my all-time
favourite Italian restaurant (turn left on leaving the hotel and keep walking). I had booked my usual lonely table for one, but advise anybody
reading this review to go there, it’s the best.
Breakfast was good, but the surroundings were too white and bright
for my liking. There was a glass roof letting in the sun, which was fine. They
had everything one might expect from a hotel breakfast offering: sausages,
scrambled egg, sautéed potatoes, mushrooms, boiled eggs, cooked meats, a
variety of breads, including croissants, yoghurt, fresh fruit, cereals, tea and
coffee and fresh fruit juice, not forgetting cake.
Every day (I was here for three nights) I chose a bowl of fresh
fruit and a bowl of yoghurt plus a banana, some scrambled egg with sautéed
potato and mushrooms and a cup of English breakfast tea. Tea is always such a
faff as it is contained in a sachet that needs to be opened – sometimes a big
problem – plonked in a cup into which hot water must be poured and so on;
that's the problem with self-service, I tend to get fed up with the process.
But I won't complain too loudly
about the Mercure City Center because it's a cut above other hotels in its
price bracket, so the only causes for complaint that I can see are the locked
safe and minibar, the unruly coathangers – you know the ones I mean, not proper
hangers with hooks but those you can't get off the rail. Again I find myself
thinking that the hotel doesn't trust its guests – they can't trust them to
tell the truth when asked "did you use the minibar?" so they lock it;
they don't believe their guests will have anything worth putting in a safe, so
they lock that too, and because they think their guests will half-inch the
coathangers, they provide the unruly variety.
And there were issues with the
bathroom too. Well, not the whole bathroom, just the hot water situation,
particularly in the shower: it wouldn't warm up and the only way to make it hot
enough was to turn the lever in such a way that the flow was severely limited
to little more than a dribble; it was the same with the sink tap. It made
showering less of a pleasure than it might have been, that's all, but still
it's another negative to add to the locked minibar, the locked safe and the
unruly coathangers.
The
Mercure City Center does have a restaurant, the Four Seasons, adjacent to a
small and cosy bar where I enjoyed a couple of dark ales prior to dinner
outside of the hotel in my all-time favourite restaurant, Da Bruno. I have,
however, experienced dinner at the Mercure and it’s fine.
So, in
summary, you can’t really go wrong with the Mercure City Center: it’s close to
Da Bruno (an excellent Italian restaurant I have reviewed already), it’s close
to Dusseldorf Central Station which is only a short ride from the airport and
you’re only a 20-minute stroll from the Alt Stadt, or old town with its many
bars and restaurants, not forgetting the shops.
Lastly,
of course, there’s free WiFi and if you haven’t got a computer there’s one
close to the front desk.
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