Al Bandar Arjaan - Creek — Hotel in Dubai

In all fairness I should have done more research before booking. If you are looking for a leisure hotel to lie around by the pool then this Hotel is not the one. It's definitely more of a business hotel which does make the location really good to get around the city. |1) The pool and surrounding area is small. I can see that they have tried to supply enough sunbeds so people don't go without, but because of limited space they are all very close to each other. The view from the pool area would be incredible if the glass around the pool was kept clean. We ended up spending money on day passes and taxis to go to other hotels and use their pools and beaches to have a more relaxing holiday. |2) All inclusive doesn't mean all inclusive throughout the hotel! They have 2 al la carte restaurants Gusto & Morgans. In Gusto you get 100AED per person towards 1 meal during your stay. 100AED wont even buy a bowl of Pasta here, also they wont serve you the all inclusive wine here. The cheapest bottle of wine was approx. £45 . In Morgans the food and service is pretty good and it is all inclusive. However the wine is definitely watered down. You never see them poor it from a bottle, its poured from a glass jug! When I challenged the bar manager about this he seemed very uncomfortable and said he didn't understand. You can drink glass after glass and wake up as fresh as a daisy! The Starbucks cafe in the hotel ground floor isn't included and you cant get an iced coffee by the pool on you all inclusive! |3) Hotel security definitely falls short of what I would expect for Dubai. Security only man the main entrance. During the course of our stay we encountered a man accessing the hotel pool area on several separate occasions over a period of 5 days. My husband and I witnessed him talking to children, taking photos of them on his phone and the worst thing was he was taking their towels from the used towel bin and wiping his face & body with them. We alerted security to this each time we saw him and he left when he realised they were onto him however he kept coming back into the hotel. I witnessed him come into the hotel via the Morgans entrance one evening. I don't feel that this matter was taken seriously enough. If my children with with us I would have been calling the police myself. I've never felt like this when staying in other hotels in Dubai & the UAE. |4) Salt N Pepper buffet restaurant is fantastic, especially on a sunday. Loads of choice and all seems very good quality. The service in there is also very good.|5) Housekeeping isn't consistent which is not what you expect from a big brand like Rotana. Little things like face clothes, hand towels & shower caps weren't replaced after use they were just taken removed. Same with water. The water we used wasn't replenished each day we had to call reception to ask for some to be brought up.|6) Overall it's not a bad hotel just not what we expected especially after staying at the Beach Rotana in Abu Dhabi several times before. Where all inclusive means access to all of the al la carte restaurants as much as you want without any charge. Being able to choose wine from a list and having iced coffee at the pool! The management at Al Bandar Rotana tried to appease us by giving us lounge access for our stay which was very nice. The staff there are fantastic. They also gave us use one way of the hotels car and driver for one of...

We have recently returned to Al Bandar Rotana following an unforgettable stay in 2023, and once again, every aspect of our experience was flawless. From the moment we arrived, the entire team – from reception to concierge, to the restaurant staff – welcomed us with warmth, professionalism, and genuine care.||The reception team made check-in effortless and felt like old friends greeting us home. Friendly, polite and offering us a fantastic upgrade on our stay. Concierge and general staff have gone above and beyond, genuinlty making us feel so welcome and so well looked after. The restaurant staff are exceptional, attentive, and friendly, anticipating our needs and ensuring every meal is a delight. The food tastes amazing!!||We've visited Gusto a lot in our stay in 23, which provided fantastic service. It is no longer included in all inclusive meaning we have visited Morgans a lot more, and wow - I am astounded at the amazing service they have given so far. They are kept busy by customer, but cater to everyone and every need you could want, so polite and friendly and a lovely smile. If I could name all the staff I would, as they all do such a great job. To mention a few would be Garry, such a bubbly, attentive and lovely attitude, Hazel who is so attentive and polite, and Limbu - so welcoming polite and attentive truly going above and beyond to make sure we are attended to. Also the young male in a white shirt who does a great job, as well as the male who I believe is the manager of the restaurant. All provide such an amazing experience, also every other staff member of whom I haven't managed to catch they're names. They're honestly such a assett to the team here. ||What sets this hotel apart is not just the luxurious surroundings, but the extraordinary people who bring it to life. Every member of the team consistently delivers impeccable service with warmth and sincerity, turning an already beautiful stay into something personal and memorable.||We've also stayed at the deck pool a lot, recieving excellent service from the staff their to. As well as salt & pepper providing such a tasty breakfast every morning. I cannot fault this hotel. ||Our heartfelt thanks go to every single staff member – reception, housekeeping, restaurant, concierge and beyond – for your dedication, attentiveness, and kindness. You create an atmosphere of comfort and care that makes returning here an absolute joy. We cannot recommend Al Bandar Rotana highly enough and are already looking forward to our next visit. I focus a lot on the staff here because they are the the main reason we returned to this hotel for our holiday this year, and if this is what is making customers return - then you know that you are doing something very right.||May I mention we still have 8 days left, so I look forward to the amazing experience we have left here! ||You should be very proud of the team you have here and the excellent hotel service that you provide. ||Thankyou again for providing such an excellent...

I've stayed in many 4/5-stars hotels during the pandemic and this one was one of the worst yet.

The bads:

The reception staff clearly doesn't appreciate younger clientele nor the "average" joe clientele. I was traveling for business, but didn't use my business attire for the check in and the check in staff were cold and even a bit rude. I booked non-smoking room (directly from Rotana) and still they insisted to give me the smoking room (hotels operate in max. 70% capacity in Dubai, so there should be more than enough free rooms). Only after threatening to cancel the booking, they magically found a free non-smoking room but... Once we got to the room it was a smoking room... Felt like they were joking with us.

And the room... Definitely not proper 5 star: dirty carpet under the bed (check the photo) and really basic furniture. Also the room was really dark, even with all the lights on. The bathroom was nice, but the amenities were low quality, you get much better ones in many 3-5 star hotels. Cheap Nescafe (not even the gold) instant coffee in the room, c'mon. Proper mugs and glassed replaced with the plastic ones. No bathrobe in the room.

Noise cancelling in between the rooms is close to zero: you can hear when your neighbor goes to toilet or brushes their teeth. You can also hear all the noise from the Atrium (i'm still hearing the bling noise from the elevator when I close my eyes) and if someone is talking loud in the Atrium (we stayed in the seventh floor and totally opposite to the elevators, so the noise is even more clear closer to the elevator and lower floors). Most of the rooms have connecting doors, and according to the management they are even more noisy... If you are a light sleeper, don't stay here.

The cleaning was REALLY slow and bad. Many times you could spend the day somewhere and the room still would not have been cleaned at 4 P.M. (even with the clean up the light sign on). And the cleaning was more like a "make a bed and take out the trash", which is unacceptable during the current pandemic. The hotel takes pride of strictly endorsing the proper covid-protocols, but the reality is totally different. For them, covid is just a way to cut costs.

The goods:

Duty manager Marilyn, All the staff in the pool area, especially at the pool bar/restaurant, the pool & gym are nice (even though half of the gym equipment is "sealed" to enforce social distancing), the coffee shop downstairs was great and they serve somewhat decent coffee (which is not so easy to find in Dubai).

Other info: we stayed in mid March and the Executive lounge and beach transfer were not operating at that time because of Covid (or cost cutting).

There are so many good hotels in Dubai (I've stayed in over 20 different hotels there) and this is not...