MERIDA PALACE

We stayed one night at the hotel to go to the Theater Festival. The location is excellent, the building has a lot of charm, and the staff is very friendly. The pool is minimal, it only admits three bathers at the same time. The rooms need a renovation. In ours, the bathroom did not have a shower, but a bathtub with a half screen. Another aspect that could improve is the closing time of the hotel bar on theater days. Upon leaving, while all the establishments in the square located in front of the hotel were full, the hotel bar, whose terrace overlooks that very square, had closed at eleven, which is surprising on a day when most of the guests would possibly have left the theater just at that time wanting to have a drink.

On a road trip that passed through Mérida we decided to stay in the central area of the city and so we decided to stay in Ilunion. The location is super central optima. The parking we decided to use the public without using the hotel service. We were sympathetically welcomed and we always felt a lot of sympathy - even though so close to Portugal we felt it was easier to speak English than Portuguese - which is strange. The pool area and the pool itself is very small - but we still liked it since we had a privileged view over the square. The room had a pretty generous size even though we found it could be more careful and updated. The breakfast we didn't think was actually jus to the 5-star hotel - little variety and some packed items - and not fresh. The common areas of the hotel were impeccably treated.

Room was infested with bed bugs. We checked in on July 9th and planned to stay for 2 nights… I was with my husband, our child and our baby. At 3:00am I woke up covered in bug bites and immediately found a bedbug falling off of my body when I went into the bathroom. I proceeded to wake up my husband and we found 2 more live bugs, old dried blood stains, dried bed bug exoskeletons and bed bug fecal matter all over the mattress, bed frame and sheets. I immediately went to reception and showed them pictures I took in the room. The receptionist at the time was very regretful and asked if we wanted to change rooms. I had two sleeping children in the room, and really just wanted to leave the hotel before my clothing and luggage became infested. She told me that we had to wait for the manager to arrive, at 9am to process a refund and cancel the last night of my stay (we had prepaid) My husband slept on the floor and I stayed awake with the baby in my arms. At 6am there was still no word of the manager or any type of refund or assistance in booking a safe place to stay for my family. At 9:30, over 6 hours since I first reported the issue I talked finally talked to the manager and she proceeded to make be go back into the bug infested room to “prove” that there were bugs, with two other staff members. The staff found 2 more live bugs almost immediately. They proceeded to continue to look with me in the room. I was disgusted and afraid I would carry home the infestation. They continued to look, as if the live adult bugs, blood stayed and fecal matter, and physical bug bites all over my body was still not enough to prove that there were actually bed bugs in the room. Now I started to get upset. I was understanding before this, and just simply wanted to get out of the hotel and to a safe place with my young children. It is clear they just wanted to make excuses rather than deal with the obvious infestation. This makes me seriously question the cleanliness and health and safety standards of this hotel. The customer service was rude, and I had to push to receive a refund. I asked for a letter confirming that there was in fact bed bugs in the case that I brought bed bugs back home with me, and she refused to provide that. This is disgusting. And the way I was treated by the staff was embarrassing and unacceptable.