El Minzah Hotel

Iconic hotel with lots of history. A bit old and tired but still elegant. Good central location. Helpful staff, average breakfast, nice pool area. One of the bars was closed and the gym area is very basic. Swimming pool was full of sea gulls cleaning themselves which was a bit disgusting.

Sorry to say that we do not believe the hotel is up to its 5 star standard. It is a good hotel and the hotel does take care to look after it and make it enjoyable for people staying but if you are expecting 5 star quality it will let you down. In the room, inside the kettle, the coffee cup and the spoon were dirty (these hadn’t had a clean before us arriving), there was an awful sewage smell coming from the drain in the shower so bad that if we didn’t shut the bathroom door ah all times our room smelt revolting (this was room 336) I don’t know if it’s a general thing or just unlucky with the room. It felt like at times staff would favour people who have stayed at the hotel before (regulars) or people who had been staying there for a few days rather than welcoming new people. Finally, to top off our stay here, 5am we needed to leave for the airport, we asked the reception if he would kindly just call us a taxi, he told us this would be a charge of 250 DHR (we already knew this should have been no more than 150), we said no thank you walked into the street and got a taxi for 100 DHR. Very bad