Elaf Bakkah Hotel

Our experience was terrible. First we made a booking of 2 days through the 'agoda' app. When we reached the hotel at 3 a.m because of the rain, the receptionist who was very rude, told us that our booking was cancelled. After arguing a lot, he made a new booking. The rooms were average, but the carpet was dirty, the washroom was small and the housekeeping was poor. The breakfast was awful only 10 items out of which most were bad so not recommended for families to stay in.

The kitchen is divided into sections of people of different nationalities. We are from Uzbekistan and they put us in the section of cheap food. They also did the same with other 3rd world countries. Other nationalities like Turkish, Dutch, German+ eat from the section of high quality food with delicious garnish. Such as sauces, good meat, multiple variations of meals. The food is horrible here, very little choice of food. They don't even bother putting salt and pepper on the tables. Very few greens, (cucumbers, salad, cabbage) and greens are molten and dirty, the breakfast is the same every single day (boiled eggs, boiled sausages, boiled beans, 1 type of jam). Dinner is practically same every 2-3 days ALWAYS. Boiled beans, rice, chicken nuggets (old and not fresh), eggplants and cheap food like that. The best we have got in 11 days is fried fish (2 times). The meat is inedible, good meat is rare. The sink doesn't properly work a lot of times and shower water isn't hot sometimes. Wifi is bad, the kitchen staff isn't nice and professional. Kitchen service is 1 out of 5.

Advantages ..Clean, neat, and nice staff there, shuttle bus is there.. Restaurant is moderate,, not bad, but sometimes serve only Turkish food according to the guested there, food can be delivered also from the Restaurant. Disadvantages .. area not fully serviced only one grocery and one bad Restaurant outside, but gift shops are easy. Distance from haram was an issue for me, if I have more money I would book in other side at Alsa'a tower direction where more restaurants and front of haram.

Excellent hotel with neat and clean rooms and great room service. It has free shuttle buses to haram every 5 to 10 minutes which takes less than 5 minutes to haram. WiFi connectivity speed is not great but it does the job. I recommend it, especially to those who are looking for reasonable prices and a reachable location to the haram in 5 minutes or less. The only note I would like to highlight is the bus station at haram is not safe as people pour into the streets in front of buses and there is construction going on. I forgot to tell you that if you want to order food from outside the hotel then you would need to download the hunger station app as there are no restaurants nearby within walking distance. One more note is that they never pick up phones, and I have to go to the reception myself to request anything but the positive side is that the staff are nice and friendly.

Three stars from our 3 nights stay. Few good and bad things which we got are follow- Pros - Price is better than some other big hotels around haram. - new built rooms. - bus service for haram is best 24/7 almost continuously go up and down. Cons - customer service is not good. Only few Receptionist know english Arabic mostly. Nobody pickup the calls at desk or even Manager, we tried 10-15 times from room but noluck. - Hotel food is good for Turkish people as we see most groups are turkish at hotel so if any asian(india/pak) looking to stay be ready to find food outside. We eat mostly inside clock tower food court or if you want to get indian or pak food use app Hunger station and get delivery. - Big mistake in hotel service is Cleaning. Nobody will come to do cleaning unless you ask for it at reception. So you have to ask them if you need anything.(washroom cleaning,water, towels, coffee, cups, bedsheets etc) -there is only one small shop outside where you can find some snacks,fruits, milk water and one turk hotel(bangladeshi people work there). No any other fast food or other good restaurant at walking distance near the hotel like pizza, burgers etc. Overall experience is good. From all other things Alhamdulilla we are happy that we came for Umrah and going back with so many memories.