I recently stayed at the Merchant Lodge Hotel in Glasgow, Scotland for two nights. The Merchant Lodge is a very charming old building which, in a former life, was a warehouse for Glasgow’s tobacco industry. The room rate I paid during my visit was £40 per night for a double, which included ensuite bathroom, hair dryer, iron & ironing board and breakfast. Other room amenities were TV, phone and a kettle with coffee/tea-making supplies. Extra blankets were stored in the closet. Rooms in the Merchant Lodge seemed to me to be fairly soundproof; I did not hear any sound from other guests filtering through the walls or floors/ceilings during my visit.

The location of this hotel is perfect for seeing all that Glasgow has to offer and you’re in very close proximity to many major streets (Buchanan, Argyle, Glassford) and transit (subway, buses). If you arrive or depart by rail, Glasgow’s main railway station (Central Station) is no more than a 10-12 minute walk down the street.

The staff at Merchant Lodge were excellent during my visit. Upon my arrival the very friendly receptionist provided a warm welcome and assisted me by providing maps and directions for tourist sites & other amenities in Glasgow. For security reasons you must leave your room key with reception every time you leave the hotel, and then retrieve it upon return.

There is no lift in this hotel - the only way to access the four floors of rooms is up a VERY sharp, winding, stone staircase (which is charming if you’re physically fit and don’t have too much heavy luggage). Due to these stairs, I would not recommend this hotel to anyone with any kind of physical disability or restriction. The rooms themselves were, in my opinion, decorated rather severely - everything was made of pine: floors, door & window trim, shelves, furniture, bed frames, etc. To me, this monochromatic scheme made the rooms feel rather stark and cold.

At first, everything seemed fine with this reasonably-priced, well-located and friendly hotel, but once I started digging below the surface the true state of the rooms began to emerge. The ensuite bathroom was relatively clean but the rest of the room was disgusting – there was gobs of dust and dirt everywhere; the place looked like it hadn’t had a proper, thorough cleaning in years. Mirrors were coated in dust and severely streaked. At one point I moved a bedside table to access a phone jack and was horrified at the mounds of dust, filth, dried liquid stains and grime behind the table. The bed was extremely saggy and very uncomfortable to sleep in and worst of all, was made up without a mattress pad (bottom bedsheet directly on mattress) – how unhygienic! Any glasses/cups in the room were simply gross – lip prints, smudges and dirty finger marks all over them. Every time I ran water in the bathroom sink, it came up the shower drain. There was no security lock/bolt on the door, only a wobbly push-and-turn affair that anyone could pick or force open with minimal effort. I did not feel safe in my room.

I guess the highlight of my stay at the Merchant Lodge Hotel was the evening I returned exhausted from a full day’s tour of Glasgow and just wanted to rest. Preparing for a nap, I drew the heavy curtains closed and with a thunderous bang the entire curtain rod, brackets, beam and curtains came thundering to the floor (these curtains were huge and heavy, covering the floor-to-ceiling windows). After this incident, the front desk clerk moved me to another room across the hall. This second room made the first one look like The Ritz. To start with, the massive window in this second room was stuck open to the very top of the frame and I couldn’t pull it back down; I had to get the desk clerk up from reception to wrench it back down. I went to hang up my clothes and found that the closet door in this room had sagged significantly - and had dug a groove so deeply into the floor - that I couldn’t get the door open to access the closet. I guess the final insult from this particular room arose when I climbed into bed that night – the sheets (again, no mattress pad) had not been changed from the last guest, and I’d rather not say what nasty things were waiting to greet me in this bed – needless to say, it was my last, restless night at the Merchant Lodge Hotel. The toilets in both the rooms I stayed in simply would NOT flush despite my best efforts. I only discovered from the clerk at checkout time that the secret to making them flush is to quickly pump the flush handle up and down 3 times – only then will they flush. Pity they didn’t inform me of this procedure when I checked in.

Throughout all this, the staff at the Merchant Lodge certainly rose to the occasion. While I was experiencing these problems the front desk clerk was very responsive and quick to rectify any problem he could, and while doing so apologized profusely for the current condition of the hotel. Apparently they are, or will soon be, undergoing a full refurbishment of all rooms. From all appearances the staff at this hotel did the very best they could while working in such a tired, broken-down establishment, but to me they also appeared slightly embarrassed to be working here (who wouldn’t?).

The breakfast (especially the sausages) at the Merchant Lodge was too disappointing to even write about. Also, if you have problems sleeping through a lot of street noise do NOT stay here!! As people have remarked time and again in reviews of this hotel, the noise from the clubs across the street is indeed almost unbearable – you can’t actually hear the music from the clubs but there’s non-stop drunken shouting and screaming from club-goers in the street until well after 03:30-04:00. I was well aware of this fact when I booked the room, and the receptionist did warn me about it upon check-in, but I was prepared – I brought and used earplugs, which truly saved the day (or night as the case may be). The hotel staff is very well aware of this street noise problem and offered me free earplugs upon check-in… does this tell you something??!!

It’s a great pity my experience with the Merchant Lodge Hotel did not work out, but your mileage may vary should you decide to visit (in my opinion the Merchant Lodge web site flatters this hotel in the extreme, making it appear deceivingly upmarket and well maintained). Despite the negative reviews here on TripAdvisor I still really wanted to give this hotel a chance, thinking “Oh, surely, it can’t be all *that* bad”. How wrong I was. In many ways this place has so much going for it (superb location, great staff, good amenities, affordability, charm, history) and so much raw potential – it just needs to be redeveloped and refocused.

Sorry Merchant Lodge Hotel, but unless a total gut renovation and refurbishment of this hotel takes place, I personally have to say “Never Again”.