International Palestine Hotel — Hotel in Baghdad

This place was one of the worst nightmares of a hotel I've ever experienced. From check-in to check out, nothing good happened at all.

We were traveling to Iraq and reached the International Palestine Hotel upon arrival. The lobby may look amazing, but don't be fooled by it. The bellman came out and assisted us with the luggage; they (along with our driver) carried the luggage to the room, upon which they asked for a tip directly, 10k Iraqi dinar each, which I gave them. When we were at the front desk for check-in, nobody spoke any English - or at least, they pretesnded not to know it. Issuing the keys took a full hour.

The hotel is extremely old - it's a dead-standing building. All of the internal AC units were broken and outdoor AC units had been installed. All floors were old and smelly. The carpet was ancient and reeked, too. We found some bugs (see the video). The ceilings were leaking and the rooms were swarming with mosquitoes.

The funniest part of the powder room was the fact that they had no faucet bidets. Our party had three rooms in total and there was no tissue paper in any of them. The bidets were like some outdated French model with no vessel to clean until we asked for it.

Most of the phones weren't working, and there was no true non-smoking area of the entire hotel - even the agent behind the desk was smoking as well as snoring on the job. The manager was treating the hotel as his personal residence, sitting in random places, smoking and gossiping with other staff. The good part was the F&B. The breakfast was good and the F&B manager was competent as well as polite and versed in English.

I'd give this hotel a 1-star rating because there were no calls for assistance answered and any request took at least 30 minutes to complete. Overall, the hotel requires good and skilled management to run it, and it badly needs renovations. Please don't book here at all because it cost over 300 USD in my case per room (one 2-bed suit and two single rooms) ... wholly not worth it.

I never thought in a million years I'd experience something like this, especially in a 21st century hotel industry, but I guess there is a first for everything. I hope it...

Bad management, non experience reservations staff I was asking them to show me how the room looking like they told me go check the pictures online and they refused to show me the room before reservations I told them the pictures looking bad for 5 stars hotel then I asked them about documents for reservations they told me needs marriage certificate I told him yes I have it in my phone I can email it to you you can print it he told me go outside the hotel print the papers and bring them back we don't have printer then I complaint to the manager the one was there about the bad reservations staff I surprised he is worst than the staff then I understood why the staff are bad because they don't have really experience and respect manager, then I just visited Bahdad international hotel I found everything I needed very helpful staff even they showed me the room they answered me all questions as experience staff and they asked me to send them the documents I have it in my phone they printed for me and they finished the reservation for me easy, fast and very helpful then I understood the difference between bad experience from Palestine hotes staff and manager then the good experience at Baghdad international hotel and they are jut close by hotels but difference...

Not one staff member tried to assist me when I went to book a room and look at the room first based on having stayed there when it was bustling with journalists. I told the manager and the receptionist I'd stayed there and wanted the same view from an upper floor looking over Firdos Square to compare with photos I took there years before. A reluctant staffer took me to a nondescript room and refused to show me other options. I was not welcome as a professional female business traveller looking for a secure room alone.||Everything looked jaded, the elevators, the hallways, the renovated restaurant that once had decor to resemble a reed hut and was more in keeping with the culture and heritage. The pool was gone,everything attractive was gone.||I took photographs nonetheless and could not get away fast enough. The riverside restaurants out front that once served fresh fish are few and far between with the security challenges and it is not an environment for...