DAR AL MANASEK HOTEL

I put on my new abaya and new trousers underneath, left my room feeling excited to go to Masjid Al Haram for fajr prayer. I’m walking in the lobby and all of a sudden I slipped and fell in the dirty puddle of water. Turns out they were cleaning the floors and gathered all this dirty water (huge amount) and didn’t think to put a wet floor sign up. Ended up hurting my hands and knees. When complaining, they said they moved the sofa so we should’ve known about the puddle.. not taking ownership and I didn’t receive one apology. So embarrassing and hotel should be very embarrassed too, if not more.

Pros- Surrounded by loads of souks and markets. Plenty of food and drink huts. Friendly people. Next to the Mosque there are shopping malls, where they have loads of stalls to get personalised gifts, restaurants that they have in the UK which helps if you’re a picky eater. Queues are segregated. Good vibes until you go to the hotel -.- Whenever the Azan would go, all the shop keepers would cover their stalls with sheets and go to the Mosque, no one missed a prayer (which was beautiful) nor did anyone try to steal. The Mosque would become packed very quickly so it was a first come first serve bases or you’d be praying on the streets, but people would share their prayer mats with you, there’s been a time where we’ve forgotten the prayer mats, as we were running late for prayer so we had to pray on the pavement (people were also praying on the roads) because the Mosque was already packed and the security weren’t allowing anymore people in. Shop keepers have given us clean black bin bags to pray on or given us a long rug to pray on which goes to show they’ll do anything for anyone to pray on a clean surface. Cons- Not the cleanest hotel out there. The rooms were awfully structured, over cramped, bathroom was so tiny, can’t do a 360 turn. The shower and toilets were dirty. Doing wudu was impossible as the bathroom was cramped. There was a worker there during our stay there, he helped us with anything we needed, told management our concernes and they tried their best fulfilling our needs, they changed our mattress, new bed linen and fresh towels. None of the workers at the front desk knew how to speak English. Quite a bit of a walk to the Mosque. Where the hotel is based isn’t the greatest, streets are dirty and loads of oncoming vehicles, not very safe. The areas very rundown. The day was great, until it was time to go back to the hotel. Wish I took pictures to put up

This hotel as well as almost all hotels in saudi arabia has the same problem which is their toilets are small and not well maintained. Some of them are even smelly. Rooms are small and usually has 3-4 single beds. All hotel rooms are designed for umrah trips. So there are always multiple single beds in all rooms. Ac was good, but always gets too cold and everyone catches cold here because once you get outside it's extremely hot and inside it is too cold. So this difference may cause sickness. So my advice is keep your ac low. Room was dirty when we arrived. And it was not prepared for us. Amenities used by previous guest were still lying there. So we called them to send someone. They took 12 hours to come and clean the room. During rush hours they cant cope with the huge crowd. They dont have enough manpower. Room does not have wifi. Only the lobby has wifi. Bed was good and comfy Lobby and corridors and lifts were good. They have 5 lifts. So it was really helpful during rush hours. Staff were friendly. The hotel does not have a reataurant. You will have to find food outside.