Me and my sister were staying here for one night for a concert at Bercy stadium but I noticed the Gare de Lyon is actually really shady. We saw homeless people outside the hotel and then there were grab-on salespeople lurking around, too. Other than that, the Mercure garde de Lyon hotel is ok, it's close to the metro so that was fine, the decor is modern and we had no hassle checking in.

But our room smelt really bad. I think they painted it recently because it was a fume-y like smell, like tonnes of chemicals, that kind of smell. I was worried we wouldn't be able to get to sleep that night so I had to open the window. Even then I had to close it after 5 minutes because the room got too cold.

What I'm most dissatisfied about is that the next morning, we went to Champs Elyees to do some quick shopping and came back 10 minutes after 12. We knew check out was at 12 so was worried we'd cause some hassle but the staff at reception said it was okay. We went back to our room and packed and as we left, we passed an argument between a supervisor and a housekeeper.

She stopped me and asked me something in french. I thought she was asking if we came out from our room because I heard her speak our room number (I don't know how to speak french but I at least what the numbers 1, 2, 3 are in French!), and I thought we may have upheld their housekeeping duties or something like that, but when I said "Sorry I didn't speak French" in english, she just held her arms up and rolled her eyes at me.

I didn't know how to feel from that but it came across as rather unprofessional and really rude, especially to a guest staying at your hotel!!!

My partner and I were civil partnered in Scotland on 1st October 2011 and, as part of our honeymoon, were travelling via Eurostar to Paris and following on to Spain the next morning at 7am.

We were arriving around midnight on 2nd October at Gare du Nord station and leaving the next morning at 7am from Gare du Lyon station. As we wanted to minimise disruption on the morning of 3rd October, we booked ourselves into the Mercure Paris Gare de Lyon. This would mean that we could make the most of the short time that we had there and walk straight into the station in the morning to catch our train.

Having stayed in Paris once before and had the hotel cancel my booking without my agreement, I encouraged my partner to email the hotel beforehand and inform them that we would be arriving late. He emailed them on 31st July informing them that we would be arriving in Paris at 23:50 and therefore would be rather late checking in. We got a reply the same day from (Michaël ... Chef de Brigade) informing us that this was fine. We therefore booked the room at the price of €140.00.

When we arrived at the hotel around 1, we waited at the reception for around 15 minutes before being dealt with. We were finally informed by a rather unfriendly chap called Sami that our room booking had been cancelled because the hotel was very busy and that they'd relocated us to a sister hotel much further away, The Novotel Paris Bercy. To add insult to injury we were shown to a seat where we were told to wait for a taxi for 20 minutes. We requested to "Sami" that this was completely unacceptable and that they fulfil their end of the deal and provide us our room. He refused to help and said that we could complain to the manager the following morning when he arrived (after 9am). Obviously we could not do this as we would be well on our way to Spain by this time. He assured us that he would pass our complaints to the manager and have him call us in the morning. He did not.

The taxi finally arrived around 2am and took as a 20minute drive to the next hotel. The taxi driver then informed us that we owed him €12. We had previously been informed that the Mercure hotel would be picking up any costs that we incurred due to their mistake. As it was now almost 2:30am, we were starting to get quite angry. We refused to pay and left the taxi only to find that the taxi driver would not let us leave with our baggage without paying. My partner had to run to the Novotel Paris Bercy’s reception and bang on the door until a concierge eventually came and let him in and came down to explain to the taxi driver that the hotel would pick up the taxi fare.

We got into our hotel room at 2:30 but, due to the distance from the station, we had to set our alarm for 6:30. We were absolutely exhausted but barely able to sleep due to the fact that we were stressed out completely from our ordeal and our hearts were racing. I imagine we managed around 2 hours sleep each that night on what should have been a happy and relaxed first night as a married couple.

When we got up the next morning and got our taxi from Novotel Paris Bercy, we asked the receptionist to come down and speak to the taxi driver before we got in to inform him that the hotel would pay the bill. Even again, it took her around 10 minutes to convince the driver that this was ok.

I’m pleased to say that once we got on our train to Spain, we quickly cheered up and put the horrible first night and Mercure experience behind us. To be absolutely honest, we were not remotely surprised to find that the manager did not phone us the next day nor even have the decency to email or write to us and apologise.

What we were surprised about, however, was when we arrived home and discovered that the mercure hotel had billed us almost £550 for the 4 hours we spent in their hotel. We had tried to put the awful experience behind us and get back to our normal lives only to discover that we still had to fight to get our money back. In what I’ve now come to understand as the Hotel Mercure’s special blend of customer service, they did not reply to any of the emails that we send them. It was only after my partner threatened them with legal action (he’s a lawyer) that we finally started to get some correspondence from them and even then, it was thanks to Booking.com’s complaints team that we finally got our money back.

Did we get any apology from Mercure in the fact that they ruined the first night of my honeymoon? What do you think?

- Accommodation at the Mercure Paris Gare de Lyon: from January, 4 to January 7, 2012.
Case number F4K-0IMB, reservation number 1201040503 made directly on site hotel hotel on June 13, 2011, or more than six months in advance. As we reached the hotel, there were no triple room available and after discussion with staff, we were allocated on the first night in two double rooms, which generated discomfort and stress again to our family.

No problems with this hotel or the staff. Everything worked as it should and although the room overlooked the station approach and taxi rank, there was no noise from outside whatsoever.+++++++++++++++