🛎️ The Accor-ometer: Beds, Beers & Bad Decisions
Beds. Supposedly the fluffy rectangles of joy where you rest, recharge, and dream of not dying. At Accor hotels, however, a bed is often a medieval torture rack wrapped in a sheet thinner than a Ryanair napkin. Add in kettles that give up on life, showers that double as waterboarding devices, and breakfasts cooked by someone clearly holding a grudge — and you’ve got the full package.
Across Britain, Accor’s empire of “hospitality” has produced ibis rooms smaller than prison cells, Novotels with the nightlife of Ibiza, and Mercures that feel like community centres awaiting demolition.
This is The Accor-ometer: Beds, Beers & Bad Decisions — my deranged mission to rank every single one of them, from “shockingly tolerable” to “call my solicitor.” Expect towel swans, broken lifts, Guinness crimes, and the occasional moment of accidental competence.
🍺 Want more hotel crimes?
Beds and breakfasts aren’t Accor’s only offences. Across Britain, Guinness is being poured into the wrong glasses, served in tins, or arriving flat enough to be declared clinically dead. That’s why I launched The Great Guinness Glass Audit — a mission to rank every pint crime with forensic detail.
🛏️ The Accor Archives
Every Mercure, Novotel, and ibis I’ve endured, catalogued for posterity. From towel swans and Jesmona Black Bullets to hash browns that haunt my dreams, here’s the full roll call — the highs, the lows, and the “please burn this from my memory.”
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Mercure York Fairfield Manor – Towel swans, four-poster bed, a bidet, and Camden Pale Ale in the correct glass. Downton Abbey cosplay with a bar queue that moved slower than medieval serfs. One of Accor’s rare “nearly got it right” moments.
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Mercure Newport – Chaotic, quirky, and somehow charming. Felt like the design brief was “controlled mayhem,” yet it worked. A Mercure with character instead of crushing despair — which is saying something.
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Novotel Newcastle Airport – Executive upgrade, Jesmona Black Bullets, Guinness smuggled past bar rules, and Wi-Fi strong enough to livestream my breakdown. Sadly, Clubland rave next door turned bedtime into Ibiza-on-Tyne.
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Novotel Coventry – Rituals toiletries and Accor perks fought bravely against stained carpets, a corridor condom machine, and Guinness poured into a Becks glass. Comfortable enough if you leave your pride at the door.
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Mercure Blackburn Dunkenhalgh – Grand manor house vibes with spa tranquillity, let down by tired details. Looks like a castle from afar, feels like a conference centre up close. Best enjoyed with the lights dimmed and expectations lowered.
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Mercure Daventry Court – A complimentary Twix set the tone: cheap thrills to distract from suspicious décor and staff who greeted me like I was there to steal the carpet. Mercure doing what Mercure does best — mild disappointment.
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ibis Styles Crewe – Splashes of colour and fake fun plastered over corridors that felt like a storage facility. Chipped sinks, loyalty confusion, and a design scheme that screamed “student halls.”
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Mercure Bradford Bankfield – A beige wedding venue that doubles as an endurance test. Gothic gloom meets budget banqueting. A “gentle descent into madness” that starts at reception and ends at the bar.
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ibis Birmingham NEC – Wi-Fi that flew, Guinness poured correctly… yet bin bags in corridors and bruised apples at breakfast dragged it all back down. NEC = “Not Exactly Comfortable.”
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Mercure Brands Hatch – For five spa minutes I was Scarface in slippers. Then reality returned: dated tiles, patchy service, and the sad truth that this was Kent, not Miami.
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Mercure Newcastle Washington – Loyalty recognition delivered with all the warmth of a hostage negotiation. Rooms as inspiring as a filing cabinet, corridors that could double as endurance tracks, and Guinness rationed like contraband. A Mercure where hope goes to hibernate.
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Mercure Telford Centre – Beige-on-beige décor, dog favouritism at check-in, and a Guinness saga that belonged in a courtroom. Even by Mercure standards, bleak.
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ibis Preston North – Budget in theory, punishment in practice. Bland, joyless, and about as comfortable as sleeping on a bus stop bench.
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ibis Wakefield East – Castleford – Bleak, bare, and unforgettable for all the wrong reasons. Castleford’s answer to punishment accommodation.
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ibis Nottingham – A budget stay with free cardio included: broken lifts, endless corridors, and just enough chaos to qualify as survival training.
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ibis Budget Newport – Prison fencing, car thefts, pot noodles in a canteen, and beds designed by sadists. If Shawshank had a loyalty program, this would be it.
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Mercure Doncaster Centre – Race weekend chaos, hash browns that haunt me still, and Wi-Fi that gaslit me into believing it worked. Therapy not included.
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Mercure Barnsley Tankersley Manor – Timber beams, festive lobby tree, and Guinness in the proper glass briefly fooled me into thinking I was in safe hands. But scratch the surface and you’ll find chipped sinks, average rooms, and Wi-Fi that moved faster than the bar staff. A manor in name, motorway pit-stop in spirit.
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Mercure Birmingham West – Grey walls, dead-eyed service, and the ambience of a tax office in limbo. Birmingham West is where hope checks out permanently.
📨 The Accor Tip Line
Think I’ve missed a gem of an ibis? Know a Mercure so tragic it deserves its own documentary? Or maybe you’ve survived a Novotel that should be added to this hall of shame. Send me the evidence. If it’s juicy enough, I’ll investigate and add it to the Accor-ometer — crediting you as an Official Snitch in Slippers.
