Located right on the promenade, the Mecure Nice is near everything you'd want to be close to when visiting Nice. We spent 3 days here and had it not been for the stellar location, this would have been a 3-star experience.
Across the street from the beach, if you pay for a beach facing room, you get treated to beautiful, unobstructed views, seeing throngs of people walking the promenade and street performers to about 2AM every day. Luckily, there were 2 sliding doors in the room that virtually eliminated all noise from the street.
Right outside the hotel, you're pretty much in what's considered the "Old Town" with innumerable eateries, bars and shops. If you go out to the Promenade des Anglais and turn left and follow the beach, you'll hit the Cours Saleya in about 10 minutes. Just make a left wherever you see a passageway and you'll enter a massive open air food and shopping extravaganza to put most others to shame. It's considered very touristy, but worth a visit and a dinner or two. My best guess is that their are several hundred restaurants over 10-15 sq. blocks. It just kept going on and on and nearly every seat at every eatery was taken.
Our room was clean, modern and had a powerful AC unit--a welcome relief as it was 100+ degrees for our entire stay. Now for the problem. Even though it is a non-smoking hotel, people smoke. On the balconies and in their rooms. We had the misfortune of being next to a disrespectful guest who pretty much chain smoked the first 2 days of our stay. What started as a questionable odor in our room because pretty unbearable by our second night. Our room literally smelled like an ashtray. It made sleeping difficult since the smell irritated our lungs.
On day 3, we asked if we could change rooms and since they were fully booked, we couldn't move. The staff didn't seem very sympathetic to our situation and said that fans had been put in the offending room. Needless to say, the following days, our room still smelled like an ashtray. By the time we left, all our clothes smelled like we'd just came back from Vegas.
This is a tough one because I don't want to fault the hotel for a guest smoking, but at the same time, the smoking was going on for more than just a day and anyone cleaning or going to that room would have smelled the smoke--which was also noticeable in the hallway upon exiting the elevator. Since it's a non-smoking hotel, something should have been done with that guest sooner rather than later.
Tip #1: If arriving by train and don't mind a 15 minute walk, this hotel is walking distance. Exit the hotel and head in the direction of the beach. Otherwise, pay a $30 cab fare. read more