We stayed at this hotel for 2 nights in Nov 06. The rooms were very clean and decent size and we were lucky enough to have sea views which were fantastic (shame there was no balcony). I think the rooms even had hair dryers (important for us women!).

There is a large selection for breakfast including a good range of herbal teas. You could also eat your breakfast on the terrace facing the sea.

The staff were very helpful and even let us have a late check out for free.

Nearby are a plethora of restaurants (sushi, Italian etc) and a few bars

However next door to the Mercure is the IBIS which is half the cost (we paid around £25 per night per room) the only major difference was the IBIS didn't have a hair dryer or mini bar. If I were to stay in this area again I would opt for the IBIS.

Off topic
You do not need to carry your passport with you to exchange money as they accept photocopies of your passport at banks and exchange places.

We found we couldn't use our visa credit cards to book internal flights (this was with GOL and Webjet - equivalent of easyjet). The only card you could use was an American Express - so if you plan to travel around it's worth looking into getting an AMEX otherwise you will have to withdraw cash each time to pay for internal flights. With AMEX you can also book online with GOL and they conveniently have GOL online machines near the check in desks if you want to purchase tickets during non working hours.