Stay Report: Hilton Madinah (Saudi Arabia - March 2014)

Stay Report: Hilton Madinah
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photo courtesy of Hilton.com

In my previous trip to Madinah, I stayed at a different but spent a lot of time in the Hilton’s restaurant as the hotel is very close to the Mosque.  For this reason, when I was returning to Madinah I decided to book my stay at the Hilton Madinah.  As I said, the hotel is located very close to the Mosque - you walk out of the hotel, turn right, and walk for 30 secs and you are at the mosque. That was about the only good thing about the hotel.

We pulled up to the hotel entrance on the first floor and then took the escalators up to the second floor to the lobby to check in.  The first floor contained the entrance to the street while the second floor contained the check-in desks, the business center, and the restaurant.  The lobby was not very big but looked updated enough; unfortunately this is where the updates ended.  Check-in was extremely slow and inefficient, and the staff were not courteous at all.  I finally was able to check-in, received my key, and proceeded to my room. 

photo courtesy of TripAdvisor.com

The room looked outdated and needed to be overhauled as the rooms looked very good for the late 90's but seemed not to have updated since then.  As you enter the door, on the left hand side was the entrance to the bathroom.  The bathroom contained a sink, toilet, and bathtub which were nice but the bathroom also needed to be updated.  Across from the bathroom was the closet, the fridge, and other such items.  In the main area were 2 double beds with a night stand in between – the beds seemed to be the only thing that had been updated in the room as they were very comfortable and in comparison to the new Hilton standard beds.  Across from the beds was a chest with drawers on the bottom and a TV on top, and next to that was a desk.  In between the bed and the window were some tables but there was also room to put in a roll-away bed.  Instead of a sofa-bed, this Hilton had upgraded to the new Hilton rollaway which are way more comfortable than the sofa-beds; at least you can get a decent nights rest on the roll-away.

photo courtesy of TripAdvisor.com

The hotel had a couple of facilities available for guests.  Breakfast was complimentary and while the selection was good, the seating area was very small and could not accommodate the crowds.  When we went early in the morning, we could easily find a seat but as we left -- and the crowds getting bigger – the seating became limited and it was more of a 'fight for your chair and your life' type of situation!  Another facility in the hotel is the lounge on the second floor.  The best part of the lounge are the windows alongside one part which faces the Mosque and provides nice views of the crowds and of the Mosque itself.  The lounge itself contains comfortable and relaxing chairs, and the lounge serves food but the food is bad, expensive, and the service is EXTREMELY slow.  The last facility is the business center, which is located in the lobby level and contains two computers with fast internet access and a printer.  At the time I went, wifi was not available neither in the hotel nor in the rooms so the only way to access the internet was through the business center.

Overall, the location of the hotel along with the beds and the business center are the positives.  Everything else, from the outdated look, the lack of customer service, and the slow service in the restaurant, are all things that need improvements!  An example regarding the lack of service – we were three people staying in the room so we asked for additional toiletries.  The request was made on the day I arrived into the hotel and two days later, and multiple requests later, still never got the shampoo (nor other items we requested).  One pleasant note on the service:  we did have a medical issue and needed another fridge in the room and that the hotel was responsive to that.  It took multiple tries and explanations but eventually they brought a bigger fridge.

Stay Report: InterContinental Dar Al Hijra, Madinah (April 2017)

Stay Report: InterContinental Dar Al Hijra, Madinah
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In my previous trips to Madinah, I had stayed at the Hilton which was located very close to the religious area but the rooms were not good and looked like they had not been updated since 1990.  Because of this, I looked for other hotels and found the Intercontinental – there are two InterCons located in Madinah; one was right next to the religious area while the other was a bit further away.  The reviews for the one next to the religious area were not good so we decided to pick the one that was a bit further away considering previous guests had given it high marks.

From the outside the hotel looked decent enough but on the inside the hotel looked older and had a really small lobby.  As you entered into the hotel, on the left was the concierge desk and straight ahead was the check-in desk.  Further towards the left was a seating area for both the lobby and small café.  Next to the café was the business center and further down were escalators which led to the second floor dining room.  As with the hotel in Makkah, this hotel was also booked as part of a tour package but I had emailed the hotel and was able to locate my reservation and add my IHG number.  For this reason, when I checked in I was greeted as an IHG member, given a welcome letter, and there was fruit and sweets located in the room.  Even though I had emailed the hotel about the reservation, it was a very long and complicated checkin process.  There were two staff behind the desk but neither seemed to a) know what was going on and b) neither seemed to have a good grasp of English which further delayed the process.  I finally checked in and received my keys to the room.  The elevators were located behind the checkin desks, but there were only two small elevators and it took a long time to get a free elevator.

Our room was located on the second floor, at the end of the hallway. The room itself was big in size, but had the same old décor and look as the hotel.  The room was shaped like an L, with long straight side that leads into the main room.  As you entered into the room, there was a small entryway which contained a table; on top of this table was the complimentary fruit and sweets.  The entryway led to a long hallway on the right hand side, which eventually led to the bedroom.  In the middle of the hallway, on the right hand side was the bathroom while on the left was the window which faced out onto the street.  The bathroom was a decent size and contained a sink, a toilet, a bidet and shower.  The shower was big but the sink area was compressed.  Further down the hallway was the bedroom area.

As were three individuals, the room contained three single beds.  As you entered into tone bed area, on the right was the closet and storage shelves.  The closet contained a safe, the ironing board and iron, while the shelves contained the mini bar and complimentary water.  Right next to the closet was the first bed – and there was not a lot of room between the bed and the closet.  On the other side of the bed was a nightstand which separated the first and second bed.  Next to the second bed was the third bed – and again there was little room between the two beds.  On the other side of the third bed was another window.  The beds were comfortable enough to provide a decent nights sleep.  Across from the beds, against the wall, was a desk, a TV on top of a set of drawers, and two chairs with a table in the middle.  The décor of the hotel and all of the amenities in the room looked old; the hotel phone looked old and sometimes did not work and there were a lack of plugs and no USB ports available. 

Amenities in the hotel included a business center, free WiFi, a restaurant, a café, and

concierge services.  The business center was a computer and a printer in a room; however, most times the door was locked so you needed to request the concierge to come and open the door.  There was free WiFi available in the room, but it was spotty and the login terminal sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t.  When it did work, the speeds were decent, but trying to get the WiFi to connect was a bit difficult.  As an IHG member, I received two complimentary drinks from the café.  I was going to order additional items, but again language and communication barriers prevented me from completing this task.  Breakfast was included with our room and this was available in the morning in the restaurant.  The restaurant was also decorated in the old décor and on the first day the breakfast had an odd layout which made it difficult to walk around – had there been more guests it would have been impossible to walk around.  Luckily the layout got better on the second day, but it still was not the best layout.  The selection available in Madinah was not as nice as Makkah and both the selection, freshness, and taste were average. 

As with the hotel in Makkah, the Madinah hotel had poor service and poor communication skills. The poor service started at checkin where they could not understand the information, it was right on the screen but they were mixing everything up.  The poor service continued when we tried to contact the front desk regarding an issue.  It took almost 30mins and at the end no one understood a single item.  Same thing happened when I wanted to request a late checkout; when I first approached the desk, the attendants English was not good and so just said “wait for manager”.  I had to come back when another attendant was there who did speak English.  It was extremely difficult to communicate with the staff for any issue.

Overall, it was a disappointing stay at the Intercontinental Madinah. The hotel was located farther away from all the other hotels so it was a longer walk to get the religious area.  Once you got the hotel, the service was poor and the hotel looked old.  In the end, there was nothing positive about the hotel.  There are other hotels which are closer to the religious area, so I would suggest to stay there; at least there is one positive aspect then.

Stay Report: InterContinental Dar Al Tawhid, Makkah (April 2017)

Stay Report: InterContinental Dar Al Tawhid, Makkah
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I was going back of Makkah for the third time and was looking for a hotel that could accommodate three people in one room and one that was close.  I had previously stayed at the Hilton Makkah, which was nice but only accommodated two persons per room, and the Hilton Makkah Towers, which accommodated three people but was not updated and has since been torn down.  I had heard good things about the Intercontinental, and after previous good experience with the brand in other countries decided to book the Intercontinental Makkah Dar Al Tawhid.

The hotel is conveniently located near the religious area and provides clear access to the King Fahad gate number 74.  The location of the hotel is one of the best attributes, as it is still central while not being crowded.  The main entrance to the hotel is on the street, which faces away from the Kaa’ba, while there is a second entrance that leads directly to that area.  The rooms either face the main entrance side or the Kaa’ba side, and there is a price difference between the two rooms.  You enter the hotel through the main entrance, and you can either go downstairs to access the religious area or you go upstairs to access reception.

I had booked the hotel as part of a package through a travel agent, so I was unable to add my IHG number prior to the reservation.  For this instance, I was not greeted as a loyalty member.  I added the number at that time, but still no additional perks were received at the hotel (the hotel had poor customer service all around so I don’t think it would have mattered even if I was able to add my number prior to the reservation).  Checkin was extremely slow, inefficient, and chaotic.  There are about 5 people working behind the desks but there are no real lines and no order; whomever can push to the front and get the persons attention will be checked in.  It was nowhere near the level of a 5-star hotel.  When I checked in, I reminded them that we were three individuals so an additional bed was needed in the room; the front desk said they would alert housekeeping.  I received my key and went to my room.  As I said before, the hotel was split into two sections – those who had the religious view went to elevators A-G and those on the street side when to elevators K-N.  There were plenty of elevators available, another positive aspect of the hotel, but you had to punch your floor number into the keypad and it would direct you to which elevator to use.   This aspect was not explained and many guests had not used these types of elevators so there was a lot of confusion and lot of people getting off on the wrong floor.

Our room was located on the 5^th floor.  The hallways and entryways to the rooms were very large – which indicated this was an older hotel (from my understanding, it is somewhat older and has only been moderately updated as the Saudi government has told the hotel it will be demolished; all hotels will be built across the street as they expand the religious portion).  The room itself was large in terms of size, and also looked like it had been moderately updated.  

As you entered the room, you entered into a long hallway which led into the room.  As you walked down the hallway, on the left hand side was the bathroom and then further down the closet.  The bathroom contained a sink, a toilet, a bidet, and a shower.  The bathroom was a decent size, but both the water pressure and temperature were inconsistent; sometimes they were great while others it wasn’t good.  The closet hallway contained two open closets, each wide and the first closet had the iron and ironing board while the second closet contained the safe plus slippers.  There was also supposed to be a robe in there, but that wasn’t provided until the next day.  The hallway ended as you entered the room.

The room itself was quite large and comfortably fit the three single beds.  As you entered in the room, on your left against the wall were two chairs with a table in the middle.  The two chairs faced the bed, which was against the other wall.  Next to the bed was a nightstand and next to that was the other single bed.  There was then a lot of space in between the second bed and the window, and this is where the rollaway was put (once it arrived as it took multiple calls and requests for the bed to arrive).  The beds themselves were decent and provided a comfortable nights rest.  Across from the beds, against the other wall, was the luggage holder with drawers on the bottom, the TV stand with the TV on top and drawers on the bottom, and then the desk.  It was a very long table so it provided some good storage, but there was a definite lack of power outlets and power ports in both the room and in the closet (it was difficult to find two plugs to plug both your device and the iron in at the same time).  What the room did have was a console on the nightstand which electronically controlled the lights and windowshades.  Through this console you could close both the lights and the shades without ever getting up from the bed.  You could also control whether the prayer speaker was on, as you could pipe in the call to prayer and the prayer directly into your room.  Our window faced the street so it wasn’t a great view, but it did allow for some people watching which was nice.

Amenities in the hotel included restaurants that served breakfast, lunch and dinner; a

café that served coffee and light sandwiches; a business center, a spa, a kids room, club lounge, and free WiFi in the room.  Our room came with breakfast so I was able to try the restaurant, as well as other amenities including the free WiFi and the café.  The breakfast served was very good and broad in terms of the food options.  In every country, the breakfast buffet at the InterCon has always been good and here it was also the case with fresh pancakes, eggs, waffles, cheese, salad, bread, and other options available to be served.  The breakfast came with complimentary juices and tea/coffee; any other service needed to be paid for.  On our last day we tried the café, specifically the light sandwich.  We had ordered the croissant sandwich with cheese which basically was a large croissant with a small amount of cheese; definitely not worth the price paid for the sandwich.  The free in room WiFi was nice and provided a decent speed.  There was no mention of a restriction regarding the number of devices, but after connecting 5 devices we were told we had reached our number when trying to connect the 6^th device. 

While the room was decent and so was the WiFi, what was lacking was the customer service.  There was no customer service in the hotel at all.  The service was subpar, it took forever to request something and then it took a long time for the requests to be fulfilled, and there were definite communication issues as very few individuals spoke or understood basic English.  We had a plumbing problem and we had been requesting all day for the problem to be fixed, and since morning they had been saying “ok we will take care of it” and did nothing.  By the evening, I went to go talk to the manager at the front desk.  When I went to the front desk, I was told to wait and after waiting for about 25 minutes I was told the manager has requested that I go upstairs and dial a direct extension from my room.  I did that but there was no answer at the extension so I had to go back downstairs to talk to someone, and that’s when the manager’s assistant came to talk to me; he had been behind the desk the entire time.  When I talked to him about the poor service, his explanation was “we are completely full right now and that is why you are getting poor service”.  To me, a hotel should be able to function efficiently and effectively whether you have three guests or three hundred; if you cannot handle the guests then either don’t work here or don’t have these many guests.  I have heard this explanation before and to me it seems like an excuse for poor service and poor management.

Overall, while the location of the hotel and the breakfast are nice the abysmal customer service really left a negative impression of the hotel.  The poor service started at check-in and continued through checkout.  Positives included good location, nice breakfast, decent WiFi, and large rooms.  Negatives included abysmal customer service, lack of communication with guests, and lack of clarity.

Trip Report: Saudia, Saudi Arabian Airlines, Abu Dhabi to Jeddah (April 2017)

Trip Report: Saudia Airlines, Abu Dhabi to Jeddah 

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We were travelling to Saudi Arabia for a religious pilgrimage.  From Abu Dhabi, we have a choice to take either Etihad or Saudia.  I have previously flown with Etihad and find their service to be extremely bad and their staff rude; so I decided to fly on Saudia.  The last time I flew Saudia was in 2007, and then the service was decent but the planes needed to be upgraded. Since then, Saudia has invested in upgrading their fleet so I decided to try them out.  Since Saudia is part of SkyTeam, I also get SkyTeam miles with Delta (another perk).  

Our flight from Abu Dhabi to Jeddah was scheduled to take off at 11:50a.  After the reservations been booked, I tried to go online and manage the reservation but could not.  I had booked the flight through a travel agent, but for other airlines this had never been a problem.  I called the reservation number to manage my booking, including adding frequent flyer numbers, requesting special meals, and seat assignments.  I had downloaded the Saudia app but even through that I could not manage my booking.  The day before my flight I went online to checkin – online checkin is only available in some markets – and when checking in I could change seats and review my booking. 

Even though we had checked in, we were still told to be at the airport 3hrs early.  We arrived to the airport two hours early and there was no one in line so checkin and luggage tagging was very quick.  We received our printed boarding pass and went to spend some time before the flight.

The flight was scheduled to take off at 11:50am and boarding scheduled to start at 10:40am, but when we arrive at the gate around 10:30a the inbound aircraft had not arrived yet.  The aircraft arrived around 11am and it took a while before the plane was ready to be boarded which resulted to a delayed start.  The operating aircraft is an Airbus A321in a 3-3 layout.  The boarding process started and we boarded the plane.  The first three rows were in 2-2 business class layout followed by economy class.  When I checked in, I was able to select seats in front of the plane.  While the outside of the plane looked decent, the inside of the plane indicated it was an older plane.  There are positive and negative aspects of older planes – the positive being bigger seat width and seat pitch while the negative include less amenities such as USB ports and PTVs.

As this was an older plane, the seats were large and comfortable with a good seat pitch.  There were no USB port nor any PTVs, the only feature of the seat was channel and volume control in the side of the armrest (some of which worked, some didn’t).  The passengers boarded and we deplaned behind schedule – as in before Saudia never seemed to be focused on ontime departure.  As soon as all passengers had boarded, refreshing wipes were passed out.  A safety video was screened on the overhead screens (some of which came down, others didn’t).

The scheduled flight time is 3hr10min but the actual flight time is around 2.5hrs.  We reached cruising altitude, but even after that the flight attendants took another 30-45mins before the service started.  They first started by delivering the special meals, but it took them another 20-30mins before the regular service started.  The service included a meal and drink service.  The meal included a choice between chicken and fish with rice.  The meals were substantial in amount but were average in taste.  After the meal both tea and coffee were offered.

Once the meal trays were cleared, there was really nothing to do to pass the time.  The entertainment on board including the airline magazine as well as some programs shown on the overhead screen.  The shows included lots of commercial and only 10mins of Mr.Bean; however it was difficult to hear thru program as the channel system stopped working many times.  After a bit more time, we descended into Jeddah.  We landed and taxied to our parking spot – Jeddah does not have any jetbridges so every passengers deplaned via stairs and buses. 

Overall, it was an average flight with Saudia.  I had not seen any changes in the last ten years, as both then and now both the aircraft and service were decent; nothing spectacular and everything right above basic.  From others who have taken the Boeing 777, those planes have good seat pitches, USB ports and PTVs so I am a bit torn as whether to take Saudia longhaul – they have good specials and prices but their service can be average.