A HIDDEN GEM
Stayed at this beautiful hotel for 10 nights, to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary. We opted to stay on an all-inclusive basis, in a Club Room with sea view, on the 4th floor. Check in went smoothly and it was great news that our room was ready for us and we could check in early, as we arrived at the hotel at 10.30am after a night flight.
The hotel has its own app which you download onto your mobile, which allows you to message different departments within the hotel e.g. Reception, Housekeeping, Restaurant reservations etc. This was brilliant for any queries we had. Thank you to reception staff who helped us to install and navigate the app. Loved the lift system, you had to use your room key to operate the lift, stopped children playing and messing around in them.
Our room was amazing, with beautiful views out to the sea and a large balcony. Loads of space in the room and all lights and air conditioning controlled via a panel next to your bedside. The air conditioning was brilliant and could be adjusted to your preferred setting. Whilst unpacking we realised there was not enough coat hangers, used the app to message housekeeping and within less than 2 minutes a member of staff appeared with 10 more. Same again, use the app to request a chair for the shower (mobility issues) and was left in the room whilst we were out. Cannot praise the app highly enough, every time we used it we got a response immediately back. Not sure if it was just Club rooms but each evening housekeeping came round asking if you needed anything e.g. extra towels, toilet rolls, vanity kit, water you name it. Our room cleaner was amazing and left us some towel animal creations for when we came back up. (see pictures)
The Club Lounge is exceptional, worth every penny and made our holiday. We ate our breakfast in their every morning. Dishes from the menu cooked to order, beautifully presented and served to you. The staff could not do enough for you. Ishwor, Faisal and Kate worked so hard between them to make sure that we wanted for nothing and their focus was on ensuring that not just we but everyone staying in the club rooms had a lovely holiday. One day I was ill with an upset stomach and Kate made me tea that her mum made for her when she was poorly. Needless to say we will be making it at home when needed.
Between 3pm and 5pm afternoon tea is served in the Club area. The standard of this was amazing, beautiful sandwiches, cakes, scones with jam and cream. Again, you could have more sandwiches if you wished or cakes. Earlier in the year we had visited Dubai and had afternoon tea at the Burj al Arab, the Intercontinental Club afternoon tea was in our opinion far better.
Between 6pm and 8pm was cocktail and canopies in the Club area. Again, Ishwor and Faisal would make you any cocktail you asked for. My favourite was the Passionfruit Martini. There were hot and cold canopies to choose from and these varied day by day. We often had the canopies and cocktails and missed our evening meal as so full.
Access to the Club area also gave you access to the adult only swimming pool and there was poolside service for soft drinks, tea and coffee. Fresh towels for the pool were provided daily by the lifeguards. Only Club guests could use the adult pool and lifeguards checked guests room numbers to ensure they could use the facilities.
We ate in the Nama restaurant on a couple of occasions, which is typical of an all-inclusive buffet restaurant, some of the dishes could have been warmer. It had live cooking stations inside and a cooking station outside. It was self-service for food but if you were all-inclusive drinks were brought to your table. Most evenings had a themed buffet and there was also a cooked meat to choose from if you wanted it. We had the lamb one evening and it was delicious.
We used the hotel app to book the Drift restaurant for 3 different visits. As all-inclusive guests to you get 50% of the total bill at the end. The food and service there was amazing, one evening we were celebrating our anniversary and staff went out of the way to make us feel special and even provided us with a cake and sparkler candle. I would highly recommend you pay a visit to Drift it really is special.
There is no evening entertainment in the hotel, but there is a lovely seating area at the back of the Drift restaurant which had piped music to listen to.
So, how could it have been even better ...
There were some strange rules around the all-inclusive option. (See photograph of what is available for all-inclusive guests) For example, you could not get an alcoholic drink in the club area during the day, (soft drinks and tea/coffee not a problem) unless you wanted to pay for it but you could walk 70 steps out of the gate to the pool bar, get one on all-inclusive and bring it back to the club area. The beer/wine served at the pool bar was exactly the same as the beer/wine behind the bar in the Club lounge. Again, in the evening there is a beautiful beach bar which is empty as you cannot have all-inclusive drinks in there. Again, same drinks available at the Horizon Bar or Nama restaurant, just didn’t make sense, it would be used more if all-inclusive guests could use it till 10pm like the Horizon bar. One evening there was 3 bar tenders on duty at the beach bar, all on their phones as no-one in there to serve. Such a shame to see it not being used.
Another thing to note is that the all-inclusive ends at 10pm. Horizon bar will still serve till 10.30pm, but you must pay (50% discount for all-inclusive guests). After 10.30 there is nowhere to get a drink. This didn’t bother us, as quite happy to go back to the room. Some nights though it would have been nice to be able sit and have a coffee or tea before bed after 10.30.
All in all it was a perfect, relaxing holiday in beautiful surroundings with staff that couldn’t do enough for you.