Fairmont Makkah Clock Royal Tower 5 sterren

Although the elevators were quite painful and took a lot of time to come to the floors requested and with all the new construction it took at minimum 20 minutes to reach the haram from the hotel, the staff was amazing and very sweet and hospitable. Specifically Abdulmajeed and Mohammad Mohiuddin were the best staff. They made sure our stay was comfortable and we’re always ready to help and answer questions. Also, the hotel beds and bathroom are def worth 7 stars. Very comfortable and clean.

The hotel is nice and clean but the staff is some of the most rude and unhelpful people I have ever met. In specific the bellman on the bottom floor (B2) whose name was something like Abeouy, was so rude. When we asked where our luggage was he preceded to yell at my mother who was sick. Never in my life have I seen such terrible customer service or lack of human decency from someone working at a hotel. Because of this man I will never stay at this hotel again, he should never work in hospitality. Regarding the other staff they were nice but extremely unhelpful. I would ask for something such as towels or laundry and they would “no problem” but nothing would be done until you call multiple times. The only staff that did a very good job and was helpful was the housekeeping on the 24th and 5th floor. One other note for pilgrims thinking about staying at those hotel be wary of the elevators. They are very confusing and take forever to use. It will take you at least 30 mins to simply use the elevators to get to ground floor of the clock tower mall and start walking towards haram. Include this in you expected travel time to haram. It’s safe to say this hotel is not equipped with the appropriate number of elevators for the amount of people that stay here. If you have a large group with multiple rooms make sure in advance you are on the same floor or at minimum have the same elevator, this will save you a lot of time. In summary the accommodation itself is nice, clean, and worthy of 5 stars. The staff is worthy of 0 stars and the elevator nightmare makes it that I will never stay at this hotel again.

I have always chosen this hotel for their fabulous 2 bedroom suite for all my Umrah trips since 2015 - 2018 and again now in Jan 2023 after the pandemic. However, the service seems to have been less than par on this trip during my stay from 25-29 Jan. Out of 6 lifts serving our floor, 4 did not seem to be working during our stay and taking us between 15-20 min waiting for the lifts each time (which were almost always also full as our room was on first floor, and the lifts having already taken guests from the upper floors to the lobby floor to go to the Haram). We were consequently frequently late for the prayers. Housekeeping missed to make our room on the first day of stay. When I called the operator at Zero to complain, he told me that I need to call them when I want the housekeeping to be done ! The telephone operator you call at zero was not very helpful either. When we called to ask for additional water bottles, we were shocked when he said we were only entitled to 1 bottle of water per guest per day! And here we are paying 4,000 SAR per night for a 2 bedroom suite. We bought additional water bottles from Bin Dawood at the mall to avoid getting dehydrated in our 2 bedroom suite. I can only hope that the telephone operator was an inexperienced intern doing a part time job at the Fairmont Hotel. Prior to arriving, I received an email from the reservations team that my booking will be released in 30 min as the hotel only accepts Visa or Mastercard and cannot validate my Amex card used for the booking. This was very surprising coming from a 5 star hotel which has always accepted my Amex card (which I assume remains a card of international standing) in all my previous stays and caused a fair deal of anxiety receiving such an email when we were already on the road from Madinah to Makkah to check in the evening before doing our Umrah. All attempts to call the hotel and reach them by email for clarification was unsuccessful and the email remains unanswered. When we checked into the hotel, the reception readily accepted my Amex card and was able to charge the full cost of the stay to my Amex card without any questions. Again, I assume the reservations agent who emailed me to inform my reservations will be cancelled due to me using an Amex card was an inexperienced intern at the wheels at best. Nevertheless it caused a fair bit of anxiety causing me to search for alternative hotels while travelling via road to Makkah from Madinah. This could have been avoided again with better training, education and supervision of their reservations staff. Sadly, I don’t think I will be returning to the Fairmont for my next Umrah booking after a series of bad encounters during this stay .

The staff at the restaurant were amazing. Riyas Hussain was very welcoming and always showed us to our table. He made sure we were comfortable and had enough to eat. Every morning he would bring us fresh parathas and karak chai.

Het hotel is een geweldige keuze. Met name bij het boeken van gold kamers/suites zorgt men ervoor dat je als unieke gast behandeld wordt. Dat geldt voor de checki en chek uit, de service, de kamerfaciliteiten en het geweldige ontbijt! Kortom telkens voor herhaling vatbaar.