ORRA - Orra Harbour Tower (Hotel Apartments) — Hotel in Dubai

I stayed at Orra for 2.5 years, and here’s my honest review.

• Great luxurious building. • Very well maintained. • Brand-new apartments. • Stylish, tasteful interior design. • Reasonably priced for the location (though you should know that rents can jump at any point as the apartments are not rent-controlled. As a serviced apartment, Orra is listed under DMCC (free zone), and that means your rent can jump by anywhere from 5% to 100% at any point in time. It also means it can go down again - depends on the market.) • Fully furnished, which is convenient if you don't have your own furniture. • You’ll have a TV, Netflix, a safe, a microwave, and plenty of storage room under the bed. • Balconies. • Great views. • Perfect location close to the metro, the Marina Mall, Pier 7, JBR beach, Careem bike stations, gyms, restaurants, and more. • Excellent amenities (gym, pool, sauna). • Cleaning service available upon request. • FREE maintenance. • Super friendly staff both at reception and at the gym. • They're available on WhatsApp 24/7 and wil come and feed your pet or take out your laundry to dry for a small fee, which is very convenient on a busy workday. • Monthly and all-inclusive payments, which is super convenient if you don't want to tie yourself with a yearly rental contract. • Monthly payments in cash. • If you don't mess up the apartment, you'll get your full deposit back. They'll only charge you what you break or lose, which is fair. I've had experiences in Dubai and elsewhere where the landlord takes your deposit without explanation! • Beautiful reception area. • Very comfortable beds • Very quiet, and the friendly security guards will deal with any noise should you complain, which you can do over WhatsApp.

Overall, a perfect solution for tourists and young professionals not looking to tie themselves up with yearly contracts or buying a bunch of furniture to furnish an apartment. The agent, Aleem, is also a great guy.

Would recommend...

DO NOT FALL FOR IT. Got a 2 bedroom-Feels very unsafe- doors always open downstairs so anyone can walk in. Not to mention the Asian and Indian workers LIVING in the basement (B1) no wonder no one showed us this when we looked round. Very unsettling and they eat their dinner down there and even have birds locked up in cages as pets? Feel scammed- got told work on the building would be finished in 3 weeks. Definitely not! Get woken up every morning. Also get rubbish all over the balcony from the unfinished building work they are still doing- a worker fell asleep in the lobby on the sofa the other day and had to be removed by security- not nice at all and actually very sad!! Please look elsewhere. You also need to book to use your own pool for a max time of 2 hours ???(which was closed for a month btw) Weird they don’t tell you this before. However it is a nicely furnished room. Cons- 1.workers living/showering/eating in basement 2.constant drilling noise wakes you up at 8am every morning- unfinished building Cannot use pool for more than 2 hours or if not booked in.. Basement smells of fumes Pros- 1.kind staff Nice...

BEWARE: They will try and keep your deposit. I lived here for 12 months. Once the 12 months was up, they hiked my rent by AED 30K! So I moved out. When it came time to return my deposit (2 weeks return date as stated in the contract), they didn’t refund me. They didn’t respond to any of my emails. I had to go into the building and pester the front office for an update. They kept telling me “it’s delayed and they are working on it this week”. 7 weeks pass by and I heard nothing. I had to go in person multiple times to push for my deposit refund. I finally got it almost 8 weeks later. Another person I know who left was only refunded 50% with no reasoning. They are scammers! Assuming they do this knowing most people have to leave the country. I would not...