Gran Melia Arusha — Hotel in Arusha

UPDATE:

After my initial one star review of service / overall I must commend management for an excellent and quick turnaround.

The very next morning we were approached by the hotel’s director, new executive chef, and head of restaurant services. They were all attentive to feedback and professionally listened and expressed their regret for the events that led to my initial review.

After comping yesterday’s meal, expeditiously fixing any room related issues, and kindly greatly extending out check-out time. We were invited to the rooftop for lunch before our departure.

Our experience this time was like night and day and speaks volumes of the quick growth and adaptability of management. Thank you to Guilherme Freitas (director) and Gaston (new executive chef for 10 days). Not only was the food and dessert excellent, the service was attentive and kind at a high level as one would expect from a 5 star hotel. While this review says 4 stars, clearly this team is taking the hotel in the direction of a fantastic 5 star hotel that we’d like to return to.

Kudos to the Spa staff as well!

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THE ABSOLUTE WORST SERVICE - god knows who is the manager that allowed this, shame on them. At the rooftop bar/restaurant (and calling it that is generous) they will not give you cutlery or napkins for all guests (when they do they will basically throw it on the table which in this case knocked all my sleeping pills on the ground which, surprise surprise, was littered in dust and tiny food leftovers). They will get your order wrong, they will bring you appetizers and entrees simultaneously (the wrong ones at that), disrespectful staff that insists when being wrong (tried to tell us a tuna tataki was a tuna tartar). The fennel salad had no fennel. The rare tuna steak was overcooked. The cocktails were the kicker, tasted like juice, ordered a shot to fix it and it was so tiny it still was basically juice. Want some water instead? Better get up to the bar to ask for it unless you enjoy being thirsty for over an hour

Want to know approximate wait times?

1+ hour for the first appetizer. 30 minutes for a glass of wine. Go out to smoke while waiting? Ask for an ashtray and in a short 5 min they will bring you one full of cigarette butts.

Waiters will ignore you throughout the service, leave empty plates, glasses and more until you had to slough through dinner with an overcrowded and dirty table.

I’d blame whoever is the manager. Rude, lazy, careless staff (not all, some truly belonged as 5 star workers). Had already spent 10 days in Tanzania and literally all other four hotels had accountability and hospitality that were utterly professional. Dudes picking off their noses while glasses piled up. Disgusting. As I’m typing this sitting outside one of our waiters came to remove the little lamp at my table. I wasn’t surprised, as I had just seen a waitress nonchalantly do the same to a lovely local couple still drinking coffee to their faces of disbelief.

Want more? Got the room bookings wrong, there was no hot water in the room, and the toilet hoses could possibly cause you anal lesions from how faulty they are.

I’m embarrassed that the only terrible experience in this beautiful, wonderful country came from a Spanish chain hotel being Spanish myself. If I were in charge if this place I’d change my name and leave the country from the absolute embarrassment of this dinner service.

The pool is nice, I guess, it’s never been so hard to find something nice to say. If you hate yourself and want to suffer and burn money come here, jf you have some self-respect then go just about anywhere else.

TLDR; if you want to enjoy Tanzania and not be willfully mistreated do everything except book this hotel, much less decide to have dinner at the rooftop. The few decent, attentive, polite staff working here dont make up for the disastrous management and majority of the thoroughly incompetent staff. I hope the ones who do their job well can actually overtake the rest or this placed is doomed to be a black hole of joy for...

Gran Melia, Gran Melia, Gran Melia – oh, how you’ve changed! We’ve visited this place countless times, and it was always fine—no weirdness, no drama. But then came December 17th, 2024, and suddenly, we were met by a hostess with a face that could melt steel, one who looked at us like we were the last thing she wanted to see that day. She basically told us, in a tone you could cut with a knife, that we couldn’t sit on the balcony unless we could fork out 45k Tshs per person, after we already told her we were just there for dinner. She reluctantly seated us on the balcony, like it was a burden, and then vanished into thin air.

We ordered the steak (which, by the way, was chef’s kiss), but then... it started raining. The waiter dashed to help the couple behind us get inside, but my sister and I were left out there to fend for ourselves in the downpour. So, like any reasonable people would, we went inside to find a dry spot. But surprise—every table had a "reserved" sign, and no one seemed to care that we were standing there, drenched and holding our plates like confused penguins. Eventually, we made the bold decision to sit at one of the "reserved" tables, and finally a waiter came to find us a proper seat. At least we finished our meal… and left.

I thought, "Maybe it was just a fluke, a one-off disaster." But no—on February 23rd, 2024, after nearly two months of reflection on that traumatic experience, my sister, my brother, and I decided to give you another shot. Guess what? The same hostess (with glasses, of course) greeted us again, this time giggling with a friend. She gave us the same judgmental look and smirked when we walked in. She asked if we had a reservation, and when we said no, she asked if we were there to eat or drink. We came to eat, duh. She finally seated us, handed us menus, and disappeared like magic.

When the waitress came to take our order, everything seemed fine until my brother asked for the Wi-Fi password. She nodded robotically, recited the order, and walked off. Then came the steak debacle. We ordered two medium-rare steaks, but they brought us one medium and one medium-rare. My sister politely pointed out the mistake, but the waiter deadpanned that, actually, one was medium, and one was medium-rare. I had to chime in and remind him what we actually ordered, only for him to repeat the same thing like a broken record. Are your staff members part robot? Because if they’re hearing impaired, I’m starting to understand why the service feels like an awkward social experiment.

As for the steak itself, it was good but not as good as last time. So, Gran Melia, here’s a tip: You might want to train your staff in basic service skills, because that was not it. We also noticed that people came in, walked right past the hostess, and sat wherever they liked, so... is being stopped by the hostess a special privilege? Are we being profiled? Because that’s just a little too weird.

All in all, I think this relationship has run its course. It’s not...

We pre-booked a $30 airport pick-up service with the hotel in advance and provided our flight information. The hotel confirmed that someone would be waiting at the airport holding a sign with our name. However, upon arrival, we were unable to find the pick-up person at the arrival hall. After waiting for more than half an hour, no one appeared, and we did not receive any email notification from the hotel. We tried calling the number provided on the official website, but it was unreachable, and we did not receive a response to our inquiry email. After waiting for about 40 to 50 minutes, the airport taxi dispatcher received a call confirming our names and arranged a shabby vehicle to take us to the hotel, telling us we didn’t need to pay for the taxi fare.

The hotel’s response was that our flight was delayed, and the pick-up staff had gone to pick up other guests, yet they still insisted on charging the $30 pick-up fee. We believe that the purpose of paying the $30 fee was to ensure someone would be waiting for us at the airport. If the pick-up person had other arrangements, they should have informed us by email as soon as possible so we could adjust our expectations. Moreover, all the hotel’s contact methods were unreachable, preventing us from having timely communication. The vehicle arranged by the airport was in poor condition and did not meet the standard we had reserved, wasting our time and significantly affecting our travel experience.

In summary, we cannot understand why the hotel insists on charging the $30 pick-up fee despite such poor service. We received no apology or explanation upon arrival at the hotel, which left us very dissatisfied. —————— 2025/1/31 20:59:56 Let's talk about the follow-up: The next morning, the hotel called to apologize and informed us that the airport transfer fee would be waived. We accepted the apology.

However, a new issue arose in the evening: We had planned to have a simple dinner at the rooftop restaurant, but upon reaching the top floor, a staff member coldly informed us that we could not dine there that evening because it had been reserved for a group. The two restaurants on the first floor, one a grill and the other a buffet, did not meet our dinner needs, so we had to cancel our dinner plans. Once again, the hotel failed to communicate properly with the guests in advance. If we had been informed at check-in that the rooftop restaurant would be unavailable on Friday evening, we could have adjusted our dinner plans. As hotel guests, we felt ignored and disrespected, and this experience was very...