A good hotel but with guest issues. (Movenpick Resort Hotel (Taba, Egypt))

Member Name: garymarsh6

Product:	Movenpick Resort Hotel (Taba, Egypt)
Date:	28/09/09 (136 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Rooms are of a high standard and roomy.

Disadvantages: Poor standard of food and disgraceful behaviour of some guests.

The Mövenpick resort hotel, Taba.

The Mövenpick resort hotel Taba is in a premium position on the beach on the Red Sea. Taba looks quite a miserable place although we did not go out very much while we were there it was only a whistle stop stay thankfully.

The hotel is a beautiful hotel with a grand avenue approach to the hotel but it is currently marred by the influx of some all inclusive stay holiday makers who are quite rude and behave disgracefully towards the staff. This is quite a shame otherwise the hotel would have been an ideal stay for us.

Arriving at the hotel was quite pleasant driving around a massive ornamental rock the entrance and at the end of a long drive leading up to the hotel. There is heightened security at all the hotels due to previous acts of terrorism which could wreck havoc on tourism for the Egyptian economy.

On arrival you have to pass through a scanner at a security point and all your hand bags are X-rayed and yet daft as it may seem the suitcases then come trundling in with no security check at all??? It does seem to be a little odd for maintaining security as you could have put anything in your suitcase!

The reception area is open airy and bright. The reception staff are very friendly and efficient and give you your room passes quite swiftly. There is a large communal sitting area here with nice comfortable chairs and sofas. It has an atrium kind of feel to it. There is a little shop in the corner and a largish bar near the reception area with masses of queues as the people wanting drinks had to queue to be served by the lone barman. I guess that's one way of controlling peoples drinking. The fun is about to begin for some people in our group because there is no rhyme nor reasoning in the way the hotels rooms are numbered. Fortunately for us we were in a room on the same level as the reception area but for others it took up to an hour and a half to find their rooms just what you need after an 11 hour drive across the Sinai desert.

The room.

There are 424 rooms in the hotel including standard, superior, deluxe, bungalows and executive rooms.

The room we had was a deluxe room and as already mentioned was on the main floor which was two floors up from the grounds and beach area. It appeared to be very spacious and brightly decorated. On the left hand side as you walked into the room were wardrobes containing a safe and then a bar area with a fridge underneath. There were no items in the mini bar though but glasses and a kettle for making tea or coffee.
There were two beds in the room, one was king sized bed and the other was a single bed. The bed was very comfortable and the pillows were good.

The bathroom was very big with a good sized bath and a nice shower with good water pressure that was hot at all times of the day and reasonable toiletries.

The sitting area there was a couple of arm chairs a table and chairs, a writing desk and a flat screen television on the wall. There was a massive patio door leading out to the balcony with black out curtains and nets. The balcony was one of the biggest balconies I have seen especially bigger than those in European hotels. There were a couple of plastic patio chairs and a table.

The view from the room overlooked the gardens swimming pool and the small river and lake that ran through the grounds down towards some bungalow type accommodation. The red sea was just in front of us. As night fell you could see the brightly lit Sharme El Sheikh area of Israel and across the Red Sea the lights of Jordan. The Egyptian side was much poorer looking and dimly lit.


The restaurants.

There are four restaurants at this hotel.

There was a buffet restaurant which we had to pay about £23 British pounds for and quite frankly it was not even worth £3-4. The food was of the poorest quality I have ever come across in a hotel and in fact a lot of it looked inedible. Some guests were piling their plates as high as was possible. I looked at the hot food to see meatballs in congealed gravy, nasty noodles swimming in grease, the rest of it looked disgusting too. So over to the salad bar I went. The salad looked fairly fresh and clean but when I saw the cheese platter I was absolutely disgusted and pointed it out to the restaurant manager and told him that it was an absolute disgrace. Someone was dispatched to the kitchen to muster up some fresh cheeses, ham and beef. The dessert station was very poor too with lots of jelly type desserts and fruit which all looked quite poor quality.

For breakfast this was served in the same restaurant and to be fair the selection was brilliant plenty of fresh breads, pastries, donuts (won over me here) cereals, yoghurts, fruit juices and coffee on tap. There was an egg station where they would cook your eggs anyway you liked and would make fresh pancakes. There was a good selection of preserves. The toaster was absolutely a joke I had put my toast through the toaster three times and yet it was still not brown. I gave up in the end. It was delightful to sit out on the patio having breakfast of coffee pastries and bread. One of the things that really spoilt it was the behaviour of the some of the guests. They spoke to the hotel staff with such terrible contempt, they were rude, greedy and down right disgusting.


Chopsticks Chinese restaurant.

The second night we were here we thought we would try and book a table here. They made a lot of fuss humming and harring as to whether they could fit a table of 8 and agreed that we would have dinner at 7PM. However the restaurant did not fill the whole time we were there and in fact there was only about another ten tables booked completely. The restaurant is set in the middle of a pool and you reach it by walking over little Chinese designed bridges. There are little tea lights lit along the pathway to the restaurant and our table was on the veranda. We ordered gin and tonics to drink while we read the menus. When the waiter brought us the drinks they tasted ghastly and certainly not like Gin at all. In fact they tasted more like rum. We asked the waiter to get us anther drink which he did and this time it was really Gin. I think that they had served us with the local variation of Gin which tasted nothing like it at all.

When we were ready to place our order the waiter came and told us he would tell us what we should eat. I told him sorry but I wont be told by anyone what to eat and this is what I would like Fried Noodles, (sorry no noodles I do you spaghetti) I asked if this was a Chinese restaurant and I had never heard of a Chinese restaurant running out of noodles. I asked if it were possible to get noodles from the main kitchen as it seemed there was a plentiful supply there. He said no we make you spaghetti. OK fine I will have fried rice instead. (Sorry No fried rice you have boiled rice) I said no I will have fried rice. (NO we make boiled.)
Unfortunately the standard of the meal they did serve was just acceptable nothing special but certainly very expensive.

Seashells restaurant.

This was down near the beach and we did not get to eat here. I understand that it is fairly good and serves fresh seafood meat and chicken dishes but it is supposedly quite expensive.

Sharazadh restaurant.

This restaurant served Lebanese and Egyptian foods and was supposedly the most expensive restaurant in the resort. We did not eat hear anyway and were lucky to be moving on the day after. We would have been better of probably going next door to the Hilton hotel but then I have heard bad reports of the food served over there.


The Grounds.

The grounds are absolutely stunning leading down to the Red sea in the bay of Aqaba. They were very well maintained and picturesque. In the evening they came around with a big machine spraying near the water and surrounding areas a smoke machine to kill off the mosquitoes although we never saw any I must admit. There were lots of birds around the hotel grounds and some would come onto the patio. There were butterflies flying around which was quite nice. At night the pathways were lit up with small lights which made it look inviting and quite safe to walk around the resort grounds. There are a couple of bars around the pool area and near the beach there is also a snack bar down near the beach too. There seemed to be plenty of sun beds around the pool and people lying toasting chestnut brown in the hot sun.

Facilities.

There are two outdoor swimming pools and one indoor plus two out door and one in door children's pools. A fitness centre and spa offering Jacuzzis steam rooms and saunas. Volley ball football diving school and daily fitness exercises which looked far to intensive when being on holiday. There seemed to be lots of joggers as the grounds were quite large. There was an activity programme throughout the day if guests wished to join in and some dreadful entertainment in the evenings near the inside pool and bar area involving Karaoke type activities but most of the people we saw sitting in there as we passed looked bored out of their heads.



The staff.

The staff were very helpful and friendly and really tried to make a concerted effort to please the guests and I could not understand the way some of the guests spoke to them in such an appalling manner showing them absolutely no respect and this was from both men and women.

Overall summary.

This is a beautiful hotel although supposedly a 5 Star hotel I am afraid I would not have rated it higher than 3 stars based on them turning it into an all inclusive hotel for some guests. The food standards I would have rated at 2 stars because it was absolutely awful apart from the breakfast which was 4 star standard, These overseas fully inclusive guests were really are quite ghastly and these people seem to have dragged the hotel down by their anti social behaviour. This hotel is not up to the usual standard Mövenpick are usually renowned for. You will find further reviews about this on sites such as tripadvisor.

Hotel official rating 5*
Actual rating by me 3*
Food rating 2*
Staff rating 4-5*
Grounds 4*
Room 5*
Activities 3*

I am only rating this hotel 3 stars because of the food and because of the type of clientele they are currently entertaining.

If you do stay here good luck.


This review may be publshed on other web sites.

Summary: I would not recommend this hotel to stay.