InterContinental Hotel Jeddah

Big disappointment! This hotel is ripping off the guests in every way. The room includes buffet breakfast, but since breakfast is not served during Ramadan, you have to pay 300 SAR for suhoor, which is same thing as breakfast but served 2-3 hours earlier. When you tell the staff that the buffet breakfast has already been paid for, they say that you can get “breakfast” in the room, but the buffet breakfast i.e suhoor only with the payment of about 70 euros per person. Furthermore, even if the reception staff tells you to contact room service in order to choose among 3 possible kinds of breakfast (suhoor) and adjust it, the staff don’t want to replace eggs with cheese, or milk with yogurt. Who cares if you are allergic to eggs, for example, or you are just intolerant, or you don’t like it. And you are fasting the next day. Furthermore, a double room includes two buffet breakfasts, right? But if you are staying during Ramadan, you must pay for second breakfast-suhoor something like 170 SAR (40 Euros). I've stayed in this hotel before, the hotel is nice, and pretty clean, with a nice garden. But certainly not anymore because they made me feel like I was being punished for fasting, they made me feel like a fool which I am not.

I stayed at this hotel for one night in room 208 on Dec 22nd. As soon as you walk into the hotel, you can tell that it’s been there for a long time and is in major need of a renovation. Originally I had planned to stay longer, but the room had maintenance issues so I cancelled the rest of the nights and moved to a different hotel. The issues included a mildew smell from the air conditioning in my room and a generally rundown hotel room. The shower in the bathroom was only the handheld type. Usually with the handheld shower heads I’ve seen in other hotels, there is a shower head holder where you can place the shower head while you are lathering up. However, in this particular case the shower head holder was broken and I had to manually hold the shower head the entire time, which made the process or lathering up extremely difficult. Just another sign this hotel needs a major renovation. Not only is the property falling apart, but they had weird rules about not being able to store any electronics. Apparently they have had employees steal laptops and other electronic devices so they don’t allow guests to store any electronics in the luggage storage area (no exceptions). It’s the first time I’ve ever heard this from a hotel. In the future, even if I decide to overlook the rundown condition of the hotel, because according to the hotel staff’s own words that employees(I’m guessing bellboys because they are the ones in charge of luggage storage) have been known to steal electronics from the luggage area, I will never stay at this hotel again. If the bellboys have sticky fingers, then how can anyone be sure that the housekeeping staff or maintenance staff don’t do as well? A really shady operation for an IHG property if you ask me. The only saving grace was that the breakfast was good and they had gluten free options so I gave this hotel 2 stars instead of one. In general though, this hotel has some major problems and I would advise people thinking about staying at Intercontinental Jeddah to reconsider their decision (Don’t stay here).

This hotel is beautiful, clean and conveniently located. However, I would not recommend it to foreign female solo travellers, as the reception staff were arrogant, derisive and dismissive toward me. They did seem to be extremely helpful to male guests though. I must add that the doormen were exceptionally helpful and courteous, especially Aslam. The head security guard was downright rude and pompous; my unforgivable transgression being to dare order a Starbucks to be delivered to the lobby, where I was working.