Atlas Zayane — Hotel in Khenifra

I felt motivated to write a review for this hotel because of all the very negative reviews. We stayed here on the 7th June 2014 in order to beak up a road journey. We left Fez in the morning, visited Meknes and Ifran en-route and arrived in Khenifra in the early evening. The next day we drove to Auberge Le Festival in the Todra gorge which was a six hour drive. We were forced to stop at Khenifa for the logistics of the trip to work but arrived with some anxiety due to the reviews. Thanks to the reviewer who mentioned the club, we requested a room well away and I can report that the music from the club was inaudible in our room. This is low season of course so that might not be possible in high season,||||The lobby seemed in nice enough condition and the hotel is corporate and somewhat bland (as expected). The room was dated in decor and there were a few cracks but we were surprised to have a modern flat screen TV. The bed was large and comfortable and there was plenty of hot water. Compared to our other hotel rooms it was large. One problem is the curtains are very thin (and orange)l, we both wore eyeshades to prevent being woken early in the morning as our room was facing east.||||The pool was a great temp and was clean. We took a brief swim after arriving and went back for more in the morning. When we started to swim the next morning the attendant was scooping out the inevitable dead bugs out with a net but I stress this as a positive, the pool was clean!||||We had dinner at the restaurant. This was a set menu only, no a-la-carte possible and there were just two choices per course. In other words it was about the bare minimum and certainly not gourmet but we chose this at the end of a tiring day and accepted the compromise instead of driving into the town. There were just us and one other group of diners. It was in fact locked at 8pm but the receptionist dashed to unlock it as soon as we enquired. We were able to get a bottle of wine with dinner too. If I recall the wine was about 120 dirhams and the set menu about 170. I guess because our expectations were so low we were actually happy that the restaurant was open in low season and enjoyed the meal. Mine tasted like beef with a sauce consisting of Campbell's mushroom soup with some spice added but it was OK. ||||The bar is pretty grotty to be honest and they kicked us out at 10pm (after we bought out one and only drink at about 9.55 thanks for the warning). The wanted everyone to move to the 'club' but this had a duo playing dodgy Arabic music live and had about as much atmosphere as a school disco. We chose to retire to our room at this point. We watched some tv shows by connecting up the iPad to the hotel TV using a composite connection and everything worked fine.||||To charge more than one item at once, we unplugged the TV (hey presto 2 sockets).||||We accidentally locked ourselves out of our room when we went to the pool and the receptionist simply programmed us another key in about 30 seconds without muttering a word. ||||We didn't take the hotel's breakfast but instead bought bread and laughing cow cheese in Meknes and ate this instead en-route to Todra gorge. We ended up stopping for a coffee on the road heading south of Khenifra at a really nice place with...

Poor rooms with old furniture and cracked walls everywhere. The image on tv was distorted so it was tiring to watch. There was only one socket in the room, so it was impossible to charge all our devices, we had to choose only one to charge. The breakfast was the worst we have eaten. Among others, they brought us 2 glasses of orange juice and it was obvious that someone had drunk some juice from the one glass, you could see where the lips touched the glass. Plus, the tablecloth was too dirty and disgusting.The hotel staff was incompetent, they didn't give us any information for the breakfast etc. The swimming pool was empty, propably because it was April. There was no elevetor and we had to carry our heavy luggage to and from the 2nd floor and until the parking, as there was no bell-boy. When we wanted to leave, the corridor was full of things that the cleaners use, so we couldn't drag our suitcases. There was also a "cheap" club in the hotel with drunk people....In other words, try to avoid this hotel, unless if you don't have any...

Khenifra doesn’t offer many options for an overnight stay and for most people it is a town to pass through on the road from A to B in whatever direction they might be travelling. Recently I had the unfortunate experience to arrive late in the evening, tired after a long day and without having had the opportunity to check out accommodation availability.||||Hotel Atlas Zayane looks pleasant enough, but is just basic, functional and lacking in character. Rooms are either side of long tunnel-like corridors, with dated and utilitarian furniture and overpriced. In my room the door to the wardrobe was missing and had a powerpoint hanging from the wall, wires exposed. Breakfast was offered as an extra, for 60 Dirhams.||||On arrival I noticed that the hotel had a large club lounge and asked that my room was as far away as possible. However the nightclubbers could still be heard. ||||In the hotels favour, the bed was reasonable, the pillows comfortable and the shower pressure good with plenty of hot water. However, I would...