Pros
- Reasonable price
- walking distance to thames & tate modern & st pauls & millenium bridge & shakespear theatre
- starbux, pret a manger across the street

Cons
- Temperature controls in the rooms seem flakey / unreliable. Overly warm sometimes.

- *terrible service ** - TV started spontaneously turning off. Called front desk , after 30 minutes nothing, called again. In the third attempt they finally came up. He looked at tv, and suggested a room switch was possible (by then it was 11pm). I asked if he could simply switch the tv's to which he said, he would need engineering to do that. It takes engineering to move a tv ? really? So much for trying to address a problem with a guest. A complete lack of under effort to fix the situation, and a lack of follow through.

- Internet access charge is steep. Unless your willing to sit in the lobby and get wireless.

- Bathrooms are a bit small & shower felt dingy.

My husband and I booked a room here for 1 night. We were up in London to see a show and fancied a night away from the kids. The location is spot on; very close to Waterloo (it took about 15 minutes to walk) and behind the tate modern on the south bank. Because it was a couple of blocks back from the river it was nice and quiet, but there were plenty of places to eat around.

On check in the staff were incredibly friendly and the lobby was nicely decorated and very inviting (with some very interesting clocks on the wall). Our room was next to the lift (but we didn't hear it at all) and we had a view of the main street below. The rooms are small but big enough and, like the lobby, very inviting. The whole place was clean, BUT, there were mold patches in the bathroom; not enough to put me off, but quite noticeable.

As a previous reviewed has written, although they look nice, the blinds are pretty useless. We stayed the night it snowed, so it was lighter outside than usual and our room was really light even in the middle of the night.

We didn't eat in the restaurant here and we didn't stay for breakfast. At £15.95 per person for breakfast, this seemed very expensive. We went over the road to Dell'Aziz for breakfast and it was lovely (it has a great selection of teas). Check out was straight forward and easy.

All in all, I would say that this is a really nice hotel. The board says that rooms are £285 per night. We paid £87 through hotels.com and would say that that price is a bargain, but it is not worth the off the street price. I think I saw that they rated themselves as a 4 star. It's definitely not a 4 star but it is nice. If you want a comfy place to stay, with friendly staff in a great location, then this is perfect. If you want something a little more special however, then I would perhaps look somewhere else.

LOCATION
The hotel is few streets back from Tate Modern, so you're quite near to the riverside path at Bankside. The nearest tube stations are Southwark and Borough, each about a 5 to 10 minute walk away. There are several restaurants and cafes in close proximity and Borough Market is a short walk away. This is a good location to stay in London as there is plenty to do in the area.

BEDROOM
Like most London hotels, the room was quite small. The décor was a bit little bland and not in keeping with stylish reception area and (wide) corridors. We heard from the receptionist that the rooms are due to be refurbished soon which should hopefully bring the rooms up to date.

The room was clean and the bed was comfortable.

The triple-glazed window had 2 sets of blinds and did a good job keeping out traffic noise and sunlight had there been any (we had 3 inches of snow the day we stayed).

The air conditioning was effective at keeping us warm and at drying out our snow-sodden clothes.

Our Room was at the front and had a view of Southwark Street and an office block.

Minor quibbles were that the safe didn't work (dead batteries?) and the TV had a couple of faults (permanent red lines displayed and the cable for plugging in an MP3 player didn't work).

There was a mirror on the wall directly opposite the bed - I'm no feng shui expert, but I suspect this to be a pretty basic mistake.


BATHROOM
Was compact and looked a bit dated, but everything worked flawlessly.
There was a bath with shower – the water temperature and pressure were spot on.
There were a few large chips in the bath enamel and the grouting was peeling a bit in places.
The sink seemed to be too large for the room.

FOOD
We only stayed one night so didn't get a chance to eat at the hotel.

SERVICE
As we've come to expect at a Mercure hotel, the staff were friendly, helpful, efficient and knowledgeable.

COST
Having booked and pre-payed in advance, the hotel represented good value for money.
Breakfast at £15.95 per head however, does not. Premier Inn do a very decent breakfast for about half this amount, although the price of their rooms in London is becoming almost laughable.

SUMMARY
A great place to stay if you're on a budget.

I recently completed a 2-night stay at the Mercure London City Bankside and I have to say that it was a VERY positive experience — and coincidentally, it was my very first time staying at an Accor property.

As others have said, the location is great — easy walking distance to a great many of London's attractions AND the client I was there to work with. The rooms are small but very well appointed ... the decor is updated modern with more of a boutique hotel feel ... and the bed was just as comfy as comfy could be.

Where the Mercure shines though is with the desk staff, who were helpful and friendly from beginning to end. I did encounter a few little inconveniences, like a safe that wouldn't work and a toilet than ran unless you jiggled the handle in just the right way, but in all cases, the staff was quick to remedy the issue.

The hotel does have it's fair share of quirks — like an astounding number of fire doors one must navigate throughout the hotel that can make getting your luggage to your room an unpleasant and challenging experience -- but I'm sure that's more about London's laws than the hotel's idea AND I'm also sure they would have been happy to help me with my luggage if I had asked.

My only problem -- and the ONLY reason I'm not giving the hotel 5 stars -- was in the restaurant. I ordered the prix fixe dinner, which included a glass of wine, a bowl of soup, a meat and mushroom pie with my choice of side item for £16.50 and paid a £2 upgrade for a wonderful duck terrine as well as £7 for two large bottles of sparkling water (one to take back to my room) so my bill should have been for £25.50 but they presented me with a bill that itemized everything and it added up to £30. When I brought this to the attention of my server, she took my question to some other woman I expect was her manager and the manager insisted that the math was correct -- actually came to my table and started pointing at items and showing me how they all added up "properly" -- in fact the manager said that my server had made a mistake and had given the duck terrine at no charge. No matter what I said, my explanation of how the bill should have been tallied made ZERO difference -- the manager simply said that it was correct and that was that! So I signed the receipt and went to the front desk staff to explain what had just happened. I believe that the front desk would have credited me properly, but the truth is that I'm on an expense account so I didn't really care one way or another whether the bill was £25.50 or £30, BUT I felt they should know that the restaurant staff needs some lessons in basic addition before some other guest who's paying their own way had the same problem. Truly, this ONE negative experience was the ONLY issue that cast a bad light on the Mercure -- and I'm sure the desk staff followed through and dealt with the restaurant staff. That said, I was a bit shocked when I checked out the following morning to see that my bill had not been adjusted. I don't think I should have had to ASK for the correction to be made -- I simply thought they would have taken the initiative and adjusted my bill because it was the right thing to do, whether I was there on an expense account or not.

I'll be back in London on business in a few weeks and I very much look forward to staying at the Mercure again -- AND seeing if the restaurant staff has polished up their math skills.