Mercure Southampton Centre Dolphin Hotel 4 stars

Unmanned reception so needed to go find staff for check-in. Room not serviced during our stay. Bar out of beer.

Very good. Quiet. Comfortable beds. Nice white towels.

The hotel is well situated for looking around the Old Town of Southampton and also near to many and varied restaurants of a good standard. However I was not impressed with the hotel itself. The first room we were given was small and the beds went back into a recess with a post between them. The only bedside table was set back so reaching it was difficult. The room also had no coffee table. We were given another room but the issues with this were not addressed. There was no hot water in the hand basin and the remote on the TV didn’t work properly. After asking for two days I bought some batteries and although not perfect it worked better! The room was shabby with holes in the lamp shades, a large stain on the carpet and on the final day no tea or coffee provided.

I have copied this from a review that I left in the early hours of our first nights stay. I booked another hotel room in the same earlier hours and left your hotel to go and check into our new hotel for our remaining night before going to the Boat Show. No way we could stay another night!! * Not a 4* hotel * Seriously dirty carpets * Propped window open with piece of card * The noise from the location of the room at the front of the hotel was so extreme that I haven’t slept a wink and typing this at 4:53am. Please do your research better than I did, Either that or ask to have a room overlooking the car park but the fumes from cooking would probably get you next. The individuals falling out of these venues didn’t get cleared away by any security which I think is terrible as there is no choice to close windows as there is no ventilation/aircon and was a warm night. Booked another hotel for our second night. * Parking- if you choose this option be careful as it’s subject to availability. Although they don’t tell you this. They Would refund you but we choose this hotel based on our car being secure if there had of been no spaces we would have been in some random car park away from were the hotel is. Not a problem but we choose a package with parking. They have no barrier so anyone wanting to park in Southampton fir a night out we’re obviously using the hotel car park. * Not the end of the world but no draft beer or cider it was all off. We just went to a local bar but can see that this is a recurring theme. * the bed creaked and cracked just getting out of it or on it! * Reception area grotty and unmanned but with the times as they are maybe you can understand this but not the grotty part. At the very least this hotels carpets throughout haven’t got like this overnight or since opening since COVID so they haven’t invested pre COVID to sort this out. So not sure how much you can blame on COVID * room was a privilege room and wasn’t remotely a privilege. I think this hotel just rely’s on its coach loads of guests waiting to get on there cruise liners and couldn’t really give a monkeys. We have stayed in Mercure hotels mostly in France and this was was not a pleasant experience. Sent an email haven’t had a response!

We often stay here the night before boarding for a cruise because of it's location near the port. We booked a Privelige room for two people. On arrival we found only one hand towel, no toiletries and no bottled water. We asked reception to sort ti's out at 3.00pm and went out of the hotel. When we returned at 5.30 nothing had been done so we made a second request and it was then sorted. We booked breakfast and were very disappointed both with the selection and quality of what was on offer. Overall the hotel had an air of tiredness bordering on shabby and was not up to our previous experiences. We'll have to seriously consider if we stay here again

hotel in need of a revamp as very dated and tatty . Room very hot- needs AC.

No sleep due to faulty shower head dripping and loud TV in another room,at 2am to 7am

Always good been about 4 times over the years.Car Park is tight for space though

The location is good. Unfortunately hotel needs a lot of improvement. The water in the shower was just light warm so it wasn't possible to have hot nice bath time. The whole room looked tired too. Not convenient as many steps

We have stayed many times at the Dolphin but this time we feel standards are slipping. Breakfast offerings and variety was meagre and lack of staff noticeable. In our room, one bedside lamp was not working. After simple checks, it was apparent the bulb needed changing. Reception tried to help by giving me a replacement bulb but that was not working. Back to reception again for a third - working- bulb which they found and brought up to the room. Why didn't I telephone Reception? Because there was not a telephone in the room which is very surprising for a Mercure group hotel. We needed the lamp working as our room was gloomy with dim lighting. Check in was very good with efficient receptionists and they eventually sorted the light bulb well.

Have stayed here before and would have rated those stays as a 5 star. This night was booked at short notice. The room was huge but unfortunately very weathered and tired which came as a surprise. We did not complain as we were only staying for 1 night and the hotel was very busy with the boat show. We would still revisit but would check that we had a newer room. Staff excellent.

Lovely staff

The staff were friendly and helpful throughout which is great. I thought the corridors, communal areas of the hotel were really quite dirty when we arrived (floors not clean, dusty etc.) although the room was fine. The room was a little pokey but fine. Unable to get any hot water to shower, told this was down to age of the building and distance from boiler. This isn’t somewhere I’d necessarily book again in a hurry.

Stayed one night pre cruise. Very disappointed to see most staff not wearing masks. The breakfast was a buffet with every customer serving theirselves with the same serving utensils. Not Covid friendly and it would appear this hotel has no idea that the pandemic is still going on. Don’t stay at this hotel if you want to remain Covid free. Hotel is in need of refurbishment which you think they would of done during lock down. The service in the dinning room was poor with little attention paid to Covid restrictions. Was woken up at 0600 with noise in the court yard,

I only stayed one night pre cruise. I found that Covid precautions were not followed with few staff even wearing a mask. Despite the dinning room not being busy service was slow.