Eden Meknes — Hotel in Meknes

I will try to explain the situation as best I can, though it’s so appalling that I can scarcely believe that it happened. ||||I spent a year planning a visit to Morocco because I work as a concierge at a hotel in Denver, Colorado and each year I select a different place to visit so I can see other hotels and riads to recommend to our guests who travel internationally. I was very intrigued by the suite pictured on the Eden Meknes pale... the large tiled room that always appears when one searches for information on this property. It looked exquisite and, even though Meknes was not included in my original plan, I thought it would be worth going there from Fez to stay in that particular room, so it was booked for that specific reason. ||||I arrived in Meknes in the mid afternoon and attempted to take a taxi from the train station, but none of the drivers knew the location. We poured over maps and addresses, that no avail. One driver took me all over the city for about 45 minutes before giving up. I got in another taxi and the same thing happened. Then a third taxi dropped me off near the town square saying that it was 200 meters into the Medina from there. It was not... not even remotely close. I finally had to hire a local who grabbed my luggage and walked about 1 kilometer through the labyrinth of the Medina and, with the help of numerous people in the neighborhood, he found it. Fair enough. It’s Morocco. Taxi drivers take advantage of people and the Medina’s are more often than not a mystery even to people who live there. I accept this as a part of the narrative, but here’s where it becomes very interesting...||||Having finally arrived there some 400 Dirhams poorer than I was at the train station, I knocked and rang and rang and knocked on the Eden’s door. No answer. An elderly woman came from the neighboring house to see what the commotion was about and then went and retrieved an equally elderly man from somewhere who appeared to have a key to the hotel. He finally got the door open an immediately tried to direct me to a small room on the ground floor, stating that he didn’t have a key to open the suite I had booked. I asked if there was any staff member available and there wasn’t. No one to be found anywhere. The man disappeared and emerged a few minutes later with a cellphone. There was a woman on the line who identified herself as an employee of the riad, but she started that she was in Rabat, some two hours away by train. She told me that the room I had reserved had some plumbing issues and wasn’t available, that there were no employees there because it was Sunday (!), and that there would be no one coming in. She apologized and said that she would arrange to have the elderly man prepare breakfast at 6:30 AM, send a taxi driver to collect me at 7:00 AM (complementary, of course because she was so sorry).||||I realized that I was sort of trapped. It was dark, I was deep in the Medina with no assistance, no food, no possibility of any help from the hotel. The elderly man took me to a room that appeared to be used as a storage space for discarded accoutrements from the hotel, piles of dirty clothing, someone’s wardrobe, feces in the toilet, a bathroom with no soap, no towels, and some underwear hanging in the shower. Okay. I did not know what to do except to to sleep at that point. ||||In the morning, I awoke as planned. By 6:15 it’s pitch dark in the lobby and there didn’t appear to have been any staff member. 6:30... dark. Nobody. No breakfast. No coffee. No towels or soap in the bathroom. 7:00... no taxi. Nothing. I was coming dangerously close to missing my train and the door was locked and I couldn’t open it. I looked in through a curtain in the lobby and found the old man sound asleep in one of the guest rooms. I couldn’t believe it. How insulting could this possibly be? I assume he was the one who was to have coffee and a taxi by 6:30 and there he was asleep. Needless to say, no staff member ever appeared and I had to run, and I do mean RUN to try to find my way out of that grotesque prison to find a taxi. I made it to the station with minutes to spare and a burning disgust for what had just happened. I have been traveling around the world for 30 years now and have never seen anything remotely resembling the negligence of the Eden. My intention is to write and post as many cautionary warnings as I can when I arrive home next month, as nobody should have to deal with such insulting debasement. It is a disgrace to Morocco and a disgrace to the good name of people in the...

Very low quality mattress and the bathroom was just very very very dirty. We did not even take a shower there. No idea why the price is so high if this does not meet any quality standards. Tye breakfast was surprisingly ok. Payment only with cash. No english speakers. Doors to the room is traditional and beautifully pained but works just as a curtain. Your every word is heard in the...

Rooms were noisy and also outdated which made them look dirty. Moreover it smelled like an old moldy attic. Owners are very kind and compensated a lot...