Palais Aziza & Spa — Hotel in Marrakesh Prefecture

We wanted to escape the horrid UK Winter for a bit, but didn't want to be too long on a plane. Marrakech offered a solution. Ten days at this hotel with its spa seemed the best option and we made a very good choice. We had a very good stay. A few things stopped it being 'excellent' and I'll list those in due course, but first, the positives - of which there are many:||||- The hotel is quite small and set in very lush gardens. The pools are central to the communal areas. While we were there one was heated (apart from the final two days for some reason), the other - bigger pool - was not. A very charming and efficient chap is on hand to ensure that you have a lounger where you want it with plentiful supply of fresh towels - and drinks delivered to you as required (charged to your account)||- The gardens are worthy of mention in themselves. Beautiful lush greenery with peacocks strutting round and of course, wild cats (it is Marrakech after all - the staff insist that you do not feed them as they claim to do so. They seemed to be well fed and in reasonable health).||- We had one of the villas. A big double bed, two basin bathroom, big bath tub, walk in shower...all good. Very quiet. You might be woken by the peacocks running across your roof in the morning but isn't that rather special? And the peacocks and cats do come into your private little garden. Again, I appreciated that.||- Tea and coffee facilities, mini bar and bottled water are provided in the villa. Lots of storage space, towels changed daily (if required). Housekeeping were excellent.||- The on-site restaurant offers a broad menu of local and international dishes and will prepare meals off menu too. The quality was consistently excellent. Breakfast is buffet style with eggs cooked to order (and excellent omelettes). The orange juice is genuinely freshly squeezed.||- We visited the spa for a massage. It's beautifully designed. I would suggest that you need to be very clear what it is you want. It is an advantage to speak French (or Arabic) as English was difficult for the lady I spoke to.||||A few niggles:||- I suspect that at no time was the hotel more than a quarter full while we were there. perhaps this meant they operated on less than full staff. We observed, therefore, that s erratic. We arrived and reception desk was not staffed. We walked around for 5 minutes and eventually someone spotted us and came to greet us. He apologised, saying he was helping someone at the pool. ||- The decor of the villa is authentic, not designer. If you're looking for 'high end chic' you need to look elsewhere. A few maintenance issues showed some greater care is needed: a door to the wardrobe couldn't close properly because of a broken handle, a tile on the sunken bath was loose, the mattress felt a bit saggy.||- Eating in the restaurant is a very good option (you're a good taxi ride from the city itself). However, service can be slow to the point of farce. It can easily take three hours to eat a three course meal! Fine if you're not in a rush but it's a commitment to give your entire evening just to sitting there waiting for food to arrive. Wine is readily available but eye wateringly expensive for modest labels (nothing below £40 a bottle).||- There's a rather curt message in your room when you arrive saying that the first two coffee pods are free but anything after that has to be paid for. Two tea sachets. A bit on the mean side for a so-called five star establishment!||- The pool that had been heated for the first days of our stay was suddenly stone cold for the final two. Not one person got in as a result. Deliberate policy? Maintenance issue? Who knows. Nobody communicated anything to us and nobody seemed to know.||- There was maintenance work going on inside the main hotel which caused serious irritation while we were trying to relax by the pool. One day it was to change all the pictures in the dining area - drilling and banging for the best part of a whole day. The second day there was hammering and what sounded like bricks being knocked out which started shortly after we sat down at the pool. I complained and was assured it would stop. When it didn't, I spoke to the manager. It did stop but it started again on our final day. That's not good enough. No apology was received, nor any explanation. That's not good enough.||- The final insult was on the last night one of the waiters asked if we had enjoyed our stay and then asked if we wanted to make an additional payment for service. Answer? Not really - especially when we have been told that there is a service charge on all transactions and anyway, the food taking three hours when the restaurant never had more than a few tables occupied seemed a bit of a cheek! ||- wifi was fine in the villa but worse than useless in the communal areas and by the pool.||||In conclusion, this is probably a 4* rather than a 5* hotel. I make allowances for it being Morocco rather than Europe, but even so - it needs to up its game if it is truly to claim...

We Spent 1 Week at Palais Aziza at the Palmeraie of Marrakesh. The location is quiet but the Shuttle by the Hotel drives to the city twices a day for free (and on request for a fee). ||The Hotel is very beautyful in a Morocan Palais Style centered around two pools.|The Food in the Restaurant was good, a Bit pricey and on a high european Level. Most of the staff in General is friendly and helpful (especially the drivers and the waiters), some are indifferent.||BUT: It does Not have a 5-Star Level. This is in our opinion due 4 to things. |1. The absolutely incompetent, untrained and slowly (but friendly) front Desk/ reception. Some examples: ordered breakfast Box was not prepared, safety deposit on Credit card (600€) would have nearly been forgotten to annulate and was only found By luck several hours After Final payment and minutes before our departure to the Airport.|2. The Homepage does Not reflect the actual offers. E.g. Vip tickets for the jardín Majorelle are no longer available through the Hotel and Would have Been aranged if possible just in the Morning of the Visit (no Planing ahead). The Front desk reacted with nothing but a smile, no apologies.|3. The room equipment was to some extent the worst we had ever. There is a major misplacement of power outlets in the Superior Room we Stayed in. The sockets were not easily accessible and the only possibilty to plug in the hair dryer near to a mirror was to crawl under the sink approximatley 1 meter. Believe me you don’t Want to have a look under the sink. All this resulted in the Hair dryer cable beeing very Short and imposible to dry your Hair if you are taller than 1,6m. Reaction from the front Desk: a smile. The whole light in the room was steerable By only one side of the bed. The light was too dark, reading impossible. Telefon calls to the reception were blocked- reaction By the Front Desk: a smile.|4. We do Love animals but please don’t allow cats and free flying birds in a restaurant. This is a Bad combination and both at some Point sat (literally) on the breakfast chairs, tables and bread on the buffet. |All in all we expect more from a...

We were a group of 9 people and booked 3 of their Pavillons in the garden (we stayed 7 nights over New Year’s Eve 2019/2020)|When we arrived at around 4.30pm one of the Pavillons was not cleaned yet and we had to wait for another hour. |2 of the Pavillons had no WiFi even though we told them several times to fix the WiFi but during the whole stay of 7 days they were not able to fix it. |Even at the pool and in the main areas the WiFi is really bad. |We wanted to check out the gym but the told us that the equipment is not there yet and the gym not open (see pictures)||On the first evening when we wanted to get ready for the evening there was no hot water in the room. The same was on the following morning. |Also the rooms and especially the bathroom was really cold and we had to order an additional heater for the bathroom (see pictures) which is unbelievable for a 5 star hotel. |We went to dinner at 7.30 in the hotel as we had childrens with us (age 8-10). We had to wait 1 1/2 hours until the kids were served with some french fries. and a burger. Again horrible service! ||Then we had dinner on New Years evening in the hotel which was priced at 2500dhs (250€) per person without drinks. The food was ok but nothing great. The desert was served 5 minutes before midnight!!! How is that possible when dinner started at 7.30pm??? |Also we ordered white wine for the evening and after the first bottle the wine was empty. We then chose a different white wine which was also empty after the first bottle. ||On a Saturday evening we went out for dinner and drinks and came back with a taxi to the hotel. We had to wait 20 minutes at around 1am in the morning before the gate because there was no security on duty and we rang the hotel 10 times to open the gate. ||To summarise, the hotel looks good on photos but the service is the worst you can get and everything is a bit worn down. If you can chose a different hotel as also the prices for drinks und and the dinner are high. |DO NOT GO TO THE...