Royal Home Hotel Apartments

I do all our travel plans, sometimes 2 a year and have always had excellent accommodation going by Trip advisor reviews. Why I omitted to check this one is beyond me. We were 2 couples who had spent 6 weeks travelling through Europe and had a 1 night (paid for 2 as we were arriving early morning and would need to rest after our long flight). We arrived 7.30 am. I did not feel good about this place when the taxi driver had to call the place to get the location. On arrival looked OK from the outside..felt a bit better, till we went inside. Very basic reception area, reception guy/manager, clearly was not expecting us & could not find our deposit. We paid for another night so we could have our room. He wanted to keep our passports & give them back later when he had finished with them. No way, I said I would wait for them. We were taken to our 2 bedroom apartment, very spacious rooms and at some time would have looked quite luxurious...but not now. The place was dirty looking, the kitchen smelt, the cupboards were filthy on top & inside, as was the stove top. We did not needed to use it fortunately. One if the double beds had no sheets, the other bed sheets clearly had been slept it. The towels looked used. I went to see the manager & requested clean linen all round, which they did. We were pretty tired and looking forward to a few hours of sleep before our pre booked Dubai tour (arranged with the property on booking the room via email). A shower was very needed. This place had 2 bathrooms, one of the shower roses fell off as soon as the water was turned on. We made do with one bathroom. A few hours sleep and we were refreshed to hit the sights. We turned up at reception for our tour. A phone call was made, the tour guide arrived, clearly not speaking English.??? We advised this us not what we expected, we need an English speaking guide. After many phone calls, the Manager/receptionist,/ IT guy/housekeeping, advised he was taking us. This was going to be interesting. Mohammed was very slow at moving & speaking, some tour guide! We hopped into his car, our first stop some unoccupied beach, it was very hot & he indicated we should take photos. I explained to him this us MIT the sort of tour we had in mind. I had been to Dubai before, the rest of our group had nit. We need a tour with commentary & visits to popular sights. He informed us he was from Pakistan, had only lived in a Dubai for 18mths, I guess had no experience in tourism . He did drive us around for a few hours, dropped us off at Mall of a Emirates and collected us again after a pre arranged time. Whilst it was nit the tour we had expected, for the small fee we paid on arrival for a tour, we did get our money's worth in time alone. Fortunately we only had the one day/night here, it was very awful, would NOT recommend this place. The next time we did a a Dubai stop over, we stayed at the Sheraton Mall of Emirates, a lot more expensive, but fabulous and clean.

I stayed for 2 months during March-April 2013. I was on work assignment in Dubai and my company put me here. The place is approx 15-20 mins away from airport. I stayed in 1 BHK suit. The suit was equipped with sofa, TV, STB, dining table in living room. The kitchen was equipped with hotplate, fridge, microwave, toaster, water kettle. The hot plate in my room was not working but after intimating the reception about the same, they replaced it with brand new one immediately. The utensils in kitchen were 2 pans and 4 spatulas, clearly visible that they have been used by many people before. They had dinner plates, bowls and little cutlery as well. The bedroom had double bed with dressing table, iron with ironing board. The rooms were big but ok, nothing to be categorized as royal or luxurious. But since I used to be in the room only for few hours of evening and night, it was ok for me. The room cleaning service used to come daily. But they don’t change bed-sheets and curtains often. On most of the Friday’s they'll only provide new napkins and towels without cleaning the rooms, don’t know why. It seems the management at the hotel has changed recently and hence the new team is trying hard to give good service.The hotel is equipped with wi-fi network but its chargeable. The advantage of the place is it is near to 'New Gold Souk', so easy to give landmark to cab drivers. They do not have any pantry attached. The nearest restaurant is Kamat's which delivers food only if total bill is above certain dirhams. The nearest metro station is either Al Karama or Al-Fahidi, both at 20-25 mins walk. Same for bus stop too. Nearest one are atleast 15 mins walk. There are 2-3 grocery shops nearby. 1 is just behind the hotel, adjacent to mosque. The better and bigger one is in New gold souk building and another named 'maxim' near fab-india. There is no gym in the hotel. They have roof-top swimming pool, but after looking at it, not sure if someone uses or willing to use it. Overall I'll recommend this place only if you are going to work in nearby vicinity (like me). Else there are much better and nicer places available everywhere in Dubai at almost same or even lesser price.

Not enough blankets in bed, no pleasant surroundings, taxi drivers had difficulties finding the hotel.TV-cable had bad connection. Free transport to airport though, upon request.