Mercure Genova San Biagio

When booking this hotel we reserved it online through booking.com. When arriving at the hotel they asked to pay the amount. The receptionist said we couldn’t pay on booking.com and had to pay either cash or card directly to the hotel. After the questioned as to why this was, the receptionist then got another male staff involved who explained to us that the reason we can’t pay through booking.com is because the payment takes up to 3/4days until it reaches the hotel? Which was not our problem and the hotel shouldn’t be advertised on websites like booking.com if you are not happy with them taking their percentage and also having to wait a few days for the money. We eventually paid through booking.com after attempting to pay by card on their machine and noticed that they wanted to charge twice the amount through the card machine than the price stated on booking.com.
We asked about how secure the car park was as had seen in a previous review someone ask about the cameras in the car park and the hotel stated that there were 15 cameras watching the car park. This was not the case. There was three cameras that we see and not one of them worked as at night time they did not show infra red ( they were infra red cameras).
When walking to our room we noticed that the room we booked was supposed to be watched by the cameras. There was one camera in the corridor near our room and again this camera did not work and was also faced into the wall. We had a look at the other cameras along other corridors and they were was turned into the walls? Not sure why this was but didn’t give a great impression.
The breakfast in the morning wasn’t too bad. This was a buffet.
When leaving in the morning my partner went to give back to card for entering the room. He handed this to the receptionist who told him that we hadn’t paid and we needed to pay. My partner told the receptionist that we paid on arrival the day before. The receptionist kept insisting it wasn’t paid. My partner asked for a receipt to be printed and the receptionist then managed to find it and tell him that we had already paid 🙄
Overall just felt as if we were getting mugged off a lot of the time.

It is quite far from the city center, there are no restaurants around the hotel, there are old furniture in the rooms, the menu in the restaurant inside the hotel is very inadequate, the waiters do not speak English. The food is bad, they can't cook it well. The first night we stayed on the 3rd floor, insects appeared in the room, we changed the room, they did not come for cleaning on the second day, in general, Merkur hotel did not provide a good service as its name suggests.

Positive: very very kind and great staff! If the people who work there, would not work there, and would not be that helpful, I would give only 1 Star. But every single person who works there does the maximum service and sooo kind. These people deserve good working condition.
Good bar and great breakfast. Nice location. Quiet and we didn't hear other guests in the room.

Negative: very outdated, asap needs a deep clean. Our bathroom was dirty with mould. I asked for an extra deep clean, they came and did it, it did help a lot. So really they should just do proper deep cleaning, with citric acid, strong brush, and clorid. Carpets,the matrasses are old, dirty, stained. Has to be replaced. Human hair on the matrasse. If they would have put washable matrasse cover it would not look so bad. the mattress was out... Deformed by over using.

I dont mind that wooden furnitures were chiped, sratched, thats not a big issue. But clean bed and bathroom is the bare minimum and this is not the staffs fault, its the management. For a 4 Star hotel this was a very let down.