Staycation – Grand Mercure Kemayoran

Since I developed fear of travelling by plane, Mister kindly tries to make me happy by propossing staycation in Jakarta most weekend.

Last Saturday we decided to try Grand Mercure Kemayoran which just had their grand opening in October 2015. I had sighted the construction of this hotel several years ago and always wondered what they was constructing until few months ago when they finally put on the name of the hotel.

They started the exterior construction last year which  I was tempted to send a text to Ahok complaining that they were chopping the big trees off  the Kemayoran street, but then I saw a plank saying that this park construction was actually approved by Dinas Pertamanan DKI. 

They replaced many of the old trees with Ketapang Kencana and Kamboja which was saddening. The park looks good but I was hoping that they would have left more old trees like angsana and flamboyan.

We booked the hotel online and used our  accor plus member and the room cost us around IDR 800,000 for a standard deluxe room with breakfast.

When we got to the hotel, part of the parking lot was still under construction. The lobby was HUGE and beautiful.  But so was everythig else.

Lobby was on the ground floor with many sofas and tables and four reception desks.

Beautifull lobby, pictures don't do justice

The room was spacey with sofa and bathroom was also spacey buth no bathtub though the ameneties was complete (shower gel, shampoo, conditioner, comb, soap, body lotion, cotton buds, sewing kits).

They also provided hairdryer. There were two sets of bath towel and hand towels (I don’t really care if they dont provide face towel, who needs it anyway, at least I dont) which were really fluffy and clean, the perk of staying at a new hotel.

The bed and pillows were king coil and the pillows were heavenly, crips and fluffy. I stayed at  hotels which provided king coil pillows which were damp, GARGGGHHHH.

AC was blasting on full mode and was darn cool.

What I love about the room was the interior. They have a big painting of the hotel itself tucked among the green lush of kemayoran and the bedside lamps were of tree shape which were really beautiful. 

They gave 4 bottles of mineral water but no mini bar nor room service menu.

The only downside of the room was the floor was of hard tile and no carpet. This makes a lot of noise and too cold to walk on without slippers. I was awaken many times by upstairs neighbours when they came back to the hotel at 2 in the morning and walked in they room with their high heels.

Breakfast area was also HUGE, with many selections of food.
They served poridge with full condiments, soto bandung for Indonesian breakfast. There were also salad, fruit and desert section. Drinks were of standard cold juice, coffee and tea.
One thing I noticed was the dimsum was served behind the counter, so when you didn't pay full attention or see someone else having dimsum, you would not notice they served it. you need to ask the maitre to get you that.
The Dimsum was so so, but I like their black pepper beef lamien.

Overall the food was good, not as many selection of that in Sana-sini Pullman Thamrin, but it was close in comparison.


After breakfast we went to 5th floor to check out their ballroom and it was also HUGE. I think it could easily have 1,000 person in there.

Two downsides of this hotel:
1. The swimming pool was TINY, I mean Oh boy.., for a hotel this large, couldnt they  build a larger swimming pool than a 10m x 5m for adults pool and a 3mx 2m for children pool (based on my Kira2 only)?
and it was facing a parking lot of the next building where people kept taking pictures while we were swiming.

2. Room service was really bad. We ordered  gado-gado and seafood fried rice (no menu was available in the room so you need to phone the roomservice and ask them what was available). The lontong on the gado2 was black in color, smelt bad and hard as a gone-bad tofu.
Nasi goreng was bland and came with 5 prawns and nothing else.
Probably someone would say, who eats in a hotel anyway. Well, in a staycation we do.

Overall I would give an 8 for this hotel, considering the huge building, spacey lobby, room and breakfast area.
Hopefully they will be able to maintain the cleanliness, the building and the park in the future.

Would I go back?
Not in a near future since I love a good swimming pool.