فندق هدب الصحافة HDB Sahafa — Hotel in Municipality of Al Shamal

HDB Sahafa is by no means a 4-star hotel in the traditional sense in the rating but does maintain about 4 stars on Google and other sites. The hotel, despite quite glamorous aesthetics, provides a basic experience which is okay for a business trip.

During our stay both me and my colleague experienced the hot water in the room failing, weak to no internet connection both on our floors and in communal areas, the hotel failing to prepare a takeaway breakfast for us, and daily confusion regarding whether or not our dinner was included with our stay.

Combine this with the service elevators not being in use, thus each time you enter or exit the hotel you may be waiting several minutes or forced to squeeze into an elevator with a clearly agitated member of hotel staff trying to provide timely room service.

The gym in the hotel is unacceptable, the majority of the equipment is faulty and the mismatched dumb bells and cheap bike meant it was unusable.

Breakfast was varied and a the option for fresh omelettes was good. Dinner was similarly quite basic but far worse in the options. What is presented on the QR code menu as steak was definitely not as was pictured, and despite having dinner included in our stay, by the third night I opted to eat out and use the 'dinner credit' to just get a hot drink or a snack.

Despite this, the hotel is not poorly located but definitely not a good choice for a luxury stay.

The rooms have a glamorous looking facade but upon closer inspection you can see signs of wear-and-tear that you would not expect from a relatively new building.

Combine this with the noise of construction that can be heard into the evening even on the upper floors and the inconsistent internet strength, this is a challenging place to stay especially in comparison to how it is advertised.

I cannot recommend this hotel for anything other than...

Came here for few days to see our loved ones in Riyadh before we went to Mecca. The hotel has sophisticated elegance to it, beautiful interior although its not to extravagant, you can feel the royal Arab touches in the interior throughout the hotel. We were fortunate to be upgraded to a larger room, the room was beautiful and clean. Had a mini seating area with a huge TV, it gave the vibes of small studio apartment which we loved. For this, would give it full marks. The bed was super comfortable and both my husband and I slept very well, was very peaceful. The negative was the lift, it would take so long and was very slow. Didn't make sense due to the theme of the hotel.

We opted to have breakfast, the buffet was quite simple for Riyadh. Although, I would say it was decent Arabic breakfast, that was it. If you're not a fan of Arabic breakfast, than you'll be very disappointed as there isn't really any other choice. Even the fruit salad was basically just variety of apples and few grapes. So this was quite disappointing and didn't encourage us to get other meals at the restaurant. We opted to either eat out or order in, which was very easily done.

Staff, I felt the staff weren't that helpful or even welcoming. I asked the female receptionist about something and she didn't even look at me! This was rude and quite frankly not hospitable, however the cleaning staff were excellent. I think the hostess at the reception should be held to a high regard of hospitality.

Location, was north of Riyadh so it was quite far from central. However, it's close to many restaurants and malls. And it was easy to get an uber to come, which was helpful.

Overall, it was a decent place to stay; as anywhere that has a comfortable bed will always win my heart. I may opt out of the breakfast if I did decide to stay again. Therefore my overall score...

I have no doubt whatsoever that this was the worst hotel I have ever booked in my entire life. This is the worst experience.

As i got in, the room was clean but unexpectedly small, the bathroom was not small and it was clean, everything was as expected until I wanted to get “comfortable”.

For starters, there was a huge TV that had no channels working whatsoever, no way to connect to Wifi to stream YT or Netflix, it was completely useless. The bed is hard and the sheets are not comfy and it was the winter kind. What actually drove me crazy and made me frustrated for the whole stay is that the AC doesn’t not seem to be working. It’s summer! The temperature outside is 50c and in the room we don’t have a functioning AC. They provided a phone (which was disconnected until we fixed it ourselves) and they provided a sheet for all the numbers of services to call, which was completely WRONG! the numbers on the paper for reception and others are wrong, means we weren’t been able to call reception for the AC issue or the restaurant to order food. We contacted some number through whatsapp whom gave us the correct numbers to call and provided us with the menu for the restaurant (which was not available in the room), we called for someone to come and fix the AC, but it was never fixed.

In all of my life, I have never been to a worse hotel in my life. I suggest you look for something else, the price was not even that good...