EME Catedral Mercer Hotel

The hotel itself is lovely and sits in a great location, which made the way we were treated even more frustrating. My two friends and I went up to the rooftop, one of the places advertised as among Sevilla’s best, but after we explained what had happened to the waiter, we chose to leave. There were only a few occupied tables. Nobody greeted us or seated us, so we found a table ourselves. A waiter came over, silently wiped it because it was dirty, then walked away without bringing menus or offering help. We waited a while, and one of my friends finally went to the bar to ask for menus. The response there was indifferent. A little later, another group arrived and was welcomed, seated, and given menus with attentive service right away. The contrast was hard to miss. It was a very disappointing visit, and the service didn’t live up to the rooftop’s reputation.

The package with my clothes is now lost in the postal system, and the hotel has refused to offer any financial compensation. I’ve also had multiple letters ignored by Head Office, so I had to file formal complaints with the Andalusia Tourist Board (Junta de Andalucía) and consumer authorities. We stayed at the EME Catedral Mercer in February. At checkout, the items I’d handed to their ilaundry service four days earlier still hadn’t been returned. The hotel sent my luxury clothing, worth over €600, to a random hotel in Paris. After I spent weeks tracking it down myself, management sent it from France to the wrong address and zip code in Italy. During all this, Regional Manager Pablo López Zafra was defensive and showed no empathy. For a hotel that claims five-star standards, the customer service and handling of my belongings were disgraceful. I wouldn’t stay here if I expected my property to be safe or my complaint to be treated with basic professional respect.

We ended up leaving. When the waiter finally came to take our order, I told him how the service had made me feel and why we weren’t staying. It was a quiet Sunday afternoon in Sevilla, with just one or two tables occupied. My two friends and I had hoped to enjoy drinks and a few tapas on what Google calls one of the city’s best rooftops. The hotel is beautiful, charming, and well located, so our expectations were high. We were directed from the entrance to the fourth floor, where the bar and rooftop are. Nobody seated us when we arrived, so we picked a table ourselves. A waiter said nothing, just cleaned it because it was dirty, then went off to serve someone else. We weren’t given a menu, so after about 10 minutes I went to the bar to ask for one and for some information. The bartender answered but didn’t seem interested. When I got back, another group was seated at the table next to ours and immediately got menus and QR codes. The difference in attention made the staff seem unprepared, especially for a place promoted as “the best rooftop of Sevilla.”

The staff were very attentive, breakfast was great, and the location was perfect. The rooms let it down: they’re small, have no wardrobes or drawers, the windows don’t block the street noise, and there’s no separate bathroom. It has some of the boxes for a five-star stay, but I’d call it a 3, or a 4 at a stretch.