Golden Oasis

Stayed at this hotel in April 07 mainly because it looked ok at a reasonable price and they advertised a family suite. What a joke. When we arrived at almost midnight there was a porter polishing a lovely luggage trolley who then just stared at us as we lugged our own bags up the stairs and sat reading a paper while we brought our own bags to the room. The family suite consisted of a large room with a king bed that they merely brought two foam mattresses into and placed on the floor. There was originally no sheets or covers for any of these beds and only one bath towel for all four of us. Repeated requests got us one more towel so I had to send my son down to reception to get a couple more. There was also no toilet paper and over the next three days we would only ever get rolls of paper with about 10 sheets of paper on them. The hot water system needs to be turned on with the switch fiendishly hidden behind the TV. It was so rusted out that the hot water was bright orange. After I drained it and refilled it about 6 times it was only a dull orange. The thermostat was also broken so that when first used it was steam, not water. It stopped working after two days although they fixed it quickly. The room is advertised as having a pantry. It was a tiny room that had a sink but no water at all, no cupboards and not even a toaster or kettle. Im not sure what it was for. They did not service the room while we were there - on the third day I had to ask reception again quite strongly to get the room serviced. We did not eat at the hotel because the dining room is used for other activities at night - the smell of smoke was appalling. We looked at the breakfast oone morning and just walked away. We had confirmed the room rate for the 4 of us before we arrived by phone and email. The manager tried to charge us for an extra 'bed' for my daughter. Lucky I had the email where they had confirmed the rate. We are very experienced independent travellers but this one - terrible hotel, and given there is nothing near it, stay away.

Unique Quality: We were woken each morning at sunrise by a lone construction worker using a hammer on a piece of wood for the construction of the swimming pool. It will take him 2000 years to finish it at the rate we saw.

Directions: Al Wadi - but no where near anything