Romantic Oxford Stay: 4★ Mercure Eastgate Standard or Privilege Room, Breakfast & 4pm Checkout

Average Stay The check in was smooth and the receptionist very helpful. The room was very warm and quite small the shower controls loose in the shower and the shower very small and dated. Breakfast was adequate but not really very appealing . The hot offering looked like it had been there a long time. Serving utensils for beans etc needed to be washed/ replaced on a regular basis. .This did not appear to happen. Quite a basic really.

Great location. Nice rooms. Great location. Nice rooms. No food or bar was disappointing on a Fri evening. Breakfast coffee served in self pump flasks .. machine or pots please.

Disappointing The Hotel had a very bad drain smell in the reception and corridors, mixed in with a cheap air freshener smell, probably trying to mask it. My bedroom was fine and without smell, thankfully, otherwise I would have complained and moved accommodation. The room was clean and of a decent size, but the pillows are solid lumps - they didn’t have any feather ones. The rooms are very warm and the windows do not open. All in all, a bit of a shame, I will stay elsewhere next time.

Decent hotel with friendly staff, but don't take your car! We've stayed here several times because of the convenient location (central Oxford, right on the High Street). It's presumably the location which allows Accor to get away with premium prices for rooms which are acceptable but hardly luxurious. This is a decent hotel with nice facilities in the rooms, although the stairs and corridors look like they haven't been re-carpeted since the 1980s. As it's a very old building the rooms are on the small side, and there are some areas where full modernisation isn't possible, but they've dealt with this pretty well by eg putting secondary glazing over the old windows, preserving the looks but controlling the temperature and street noise. That said, the wardrobe in our room was really difficult to open and close, and there were no shelves or drawers for clothes. In our room there was no way to have the bedside lamps lit without both ceiling lights as well, so it was a choice of dazzling or gloomy with just two tiny reading lights. The staff are charming and extremely helpful. The big drawback is the outrageous parking charge of £30 a night, which has been added since our last stay. Again, they do it because they can get away with it: the nearest public car park is a fair trek away. With Oxford's new congestion charge of £5 a day, your hotel room is going to cost you £40 on top of the advertised price if you drive to the hotel. It's probably too far from the station for most people to walk there with luggage, so you'll need to allow for a bus or a taxi instead.

Friendly staff but could do with refurbishment The staff of this hotel are friendly and helpful, but the hotel could do with some refurbishment, it looks somewhat tired and there is rather garish purple decor throughout. There is a pervasively musty smell, there should be more air freshener used. Breakfast was OK. Very centrally located. My room was large and well-appointed, which is very much a plus point.