REVIEW | Hôtel Mercure Chantilly Resort & Conventions

Every year my boyfriend Sam and I gift each other a weekend away as a birthday gift. This year my birthday in September was during our Cruise to the Norwegian Fjords, thus my boyfriend decided to plan my ‘birthday present trip‘ in the month of December 2024. While first looking at Germany and some of its Christmas markets, often hotels where really busy and in the end we stumbled upon a nice getaway in Chantilly, France.

For our stay in Chantilly we booked a nice half-pension package at the Hôtel Mercure Chantilly Resort & Conventions. It’s a big hotel in the style of a rural French ‘château’ (fitting it’s neighbour, the Château of Chantilly). It used to be a Dolce Hotel of the Wyndham Group but has been thoroughly renovated and became a part of the Accor group by turning into a Mercure.

It had become a running gag between Timothy and I that we call them ‘Meh’rcure as often we are not overly impressed or even disappointed by them. However the Mercure in Chantilly really is an exception and was a very good hotel to stay at.

Upon arrival in the reception area which was tastefully decorated in a festive style for the month of December we had a very warm welcome by the staff. We received an explanation of everything in the property and a room key to our ‘upgraded’ room (due to my ALL Gold status). The upgrade wasn’t anything fancy, just a room with a nicer view over the golf court.

The room had a nice big bed in the middle, with power plugs on both sides of the bed, USB-A and USB-C plugs on one side and some extra USB-A plugs inside the reading lights on both sides of the bed. You wont run out of outlets to charge your devices.

Opposite the bed there is a desk and chair in the corner as well as a wall-mounted TV with a wooden bench under it, ideal to put your bags on it.

Next to the door to the bathroom where the coffee and tea facilities and minibar. They had a separate cattle for hot water, a Nespresso coffee machine and the minibar was even complimentary, but holding just a bottle coke zero, a bottle of fuze tea and a bottle of apple juice it wasn’t much to write home about. At least it was restocked daily.

Water could be had complimentary by filling the provided glass bottle in the room at the filtered water station in the corridor next to the elevator. With a choice of chilled still or sparkling water.

The bathroom was rather standard, but I liked that the toilet was slightly hidden behind the wall on which the washbasin was mounted. The bath was nice to sit in to take a bath, but because it was rather high, not the easiest to climb in an out of. Also the location of the bath tap made it impossible to run a bath without getting wet.

Plenty of fluffy towels where provided and they had a honey scented line of products to use in multiple use containers.

Despite the size of the hotel it didn’t feel like a factory. The hotel is clearly build to cater for big groups as it has extensive conference facilities for groups and corporate outings as well as a massive golf course on the property. There are also some references to horses as it can be used to house attendees of the Chantilly Horse Race course in case there are events held there.

In the basement level of our wing was the 24/7 open gym, well they couldn’t close it off anyway as it was just located in the hallway towards the pool. I liked the way they decorated the gym area as it was made to look like you were working out on the golf course.

The inside pool was nice and featured a relaxing nook in the corner which was slightly warmer than the rest of the pool. Even though the website advertised it as having a Jacuzzi, there wasn’t eny bubble or jet function in there though. Alongside the inside pool there was also a steamroom and a sauna.

The property also featured an outside pool at the other side of the property, but being a cold December period when we visited this was closed and drained. Near the outside pool they also have a sort of games room with table football and other games available for free by asking the reception, only the indoor golf simulator required a €15 fee.

The bar and restaurant both had a lovely décor and made it feel very warm and cosy yet contemporary.

In the evenings we had a two-course meal included in our half board package. At first we thought this was rather stingy, as usually a half board package includes a start, main and dessert.

The staff on the first night immediately suggested that one of us would order the starter while the other would order the dessert so we could share. Being a bit sceptical we enquired if it would be possible to have both the starter and dessert for an extra fee. This was perfectly possible and for just an additional €7 we opted for that, on hind sight a big mistake.

The entrée consisted of six different small plates to share, some very delicious, others very original.

For a main we each had a full plate, and the dessert came also with three different dishes to share (with one of them obviously being the crème de Chantilly).

As we obviously almost exploded the first night and weren’t able to finish all of it, we opted to just split the single portion of entrees and desserts the second night, which was still more than plenty.

The breakfast in the morning was of course using a buffet formula. There was a very nice eggs made to order counter as well as some other hot options like bacon, sausages, scrambled eggs and pancakes.

They also had some fruit and yoghurts on offer. The offer of charcuterie and cheeses was rather basic, with only three types of meat charcuterie slices, no sliced cheese, and a rather meagre four different blocs of cheese to slice off from, especially considering the huge cheese dome they had standing there.

Also the offering of sweets was rather limited with only a croissant, pain au chocolat and the aforementioned mini pancakes. For a hotel catering to these sizes of groups this offering was rather small and basic. Everything was however very delicious and I think everyone could find something to his or her liking, I just expected a slightly wider spread.

All in all we had an excellent stay at the Mercure in Chantilly and I can recommend it for a rural stay out in the green forests and/or if you wish to visit the Chantilly castle and grounds.