Mercure Miyagi Zao Resort & Spa

The hotel is quite far from nearest Sendai station, luckily hotel have arrangement with bus company for free pickup which otherwise will cost ¥1400 (a 70 min bus ride). Checkin is smooth and FO staff is efficient. Breakfast is great with my favourite DIY ramen and pho, standard in all converted Mercure & Grand Mercure. Hot spring/onsen are spacious and the outdoor onsen is good with nice view and open air. Checkout is also smooth with room rate prepaid. The best thing is a few hours after I left the hotel to arrive at my next hotel (another Accor hotel, a Grand Mercure in Nasu Highland), when I checked my account in Accor app while queueing for checkin, the points and night credit for my stay in Mercure Miyagi Zao have already been posted. This is super, super efficient.

We really enjoyed staying here. It takes a bit of getting used to, the rooms are spacious and fun for a family but as others have noted, the corridors smell weird, somewhere between stale cigarette smoke and dust. The bathroom was absurdly small but functional, Toto toilet, proper water pressure in the shower, etc. Overall, the place needs a bit of maintenance, the pool really really needs maintenance, it was pretty unpleasant in the changing rooms. OK that was the moaning, now for the positives. Location is beautiful, views are stunning, breakfast was amazing, huge selection, wonderfully maintained, super clean, friendly staff. Check in was a breeze, everything works well and the staff spoke English which was very much appreciated! The lounge section is really nice, lounges are great fun, loads of free food and drink, nice atmosphere, other patrons are super polite and friendly. And finally the Onsen. Absolutely one of the nicest experiences we had, clean and well maintained, wonderful water, felt absolutely fantastic afterwards. We would come again and recommend but hope that Mercure spends a bit of money to maintain it as the place needs some TLC. Thanks team!

The breakfast was good and felt the quality was fairly high. There were some European items which I dont often see on holiday buffets in Japan. On the whole though it felt like a rough budget stay. The beds were clean, but the rooms dated and stained, cracked wallpaper etc. It rained that day and there was a sense of wet air in the room. The lobby area has a very strong citrus smell, which felt chemical and the lounge wasnt calm, rather than ambient, they just turned lights off to save money. Kids enjoyed the pool, it appears to have had some paint work done. Water wasnt heat and was cold. The view is nice, but windows are dirty. Thats a fair summary.