Review of Jumeirah Zabeel Saray

3 years ago

Positives -

Positives -
*Welcoming & Friendly Staff
*Nicely Decorated & well kept hotel externally & internally
*Feedback for particular staff members - Ibrahim & Omar (front office
managers), Fadi (food operations manager), Adam (manager of the Plaj
restaurant), Simbu & Shruthi (on hand staff in the Plaj restaurant).
*BBQ on the beach courtesy of the Plaj
* Free access to Wild Wadi Waterpark

Negatives -
*Broken glass found amongst the breakfast glasses where juices & waters are kept. I picked the glass up & noticed it, looks for the chunk missing & notified the staff member cutting the fruit nearby. Glass taken away but nothing checked to see if any of the others were the same or if the broken part was amongst the other glasses.
*Apparently the hotel has a policy for not allowing any food from the breakfast buffet to be taken, in the Imperium restaurant. This was not communicated to us during our stay. After one day of being able to do this, the next day we were treated like criminals for taking something...in the middle of the restaurant by one of the staff. This issue was brought up with the front office manager & food operations manager. We felt like we couldn't stay in the hotel after this but gave them a chance based on the conversation & proposal that was laid out by the management for the rest of our stay.
*Glass shard found in my drink whilst I was having breakfast. Shard entered my mouth & the object felt weird, thank god I took it out of my mouth or things would have been worse. Notified the restaurant manager about it who was very apologetic. Said he would investigate as to why this happened & get back to me on a resolution.....never heard anything back from anyone.
*Most evenings whilst heading back to our rooms we would get asked if we were hotel guests...even by the same security guard stationed by the elevators. This got tedious after the 3rd time.
*We made an enquiry with the reception. One of the ladies took our details & said they would get back to us as the marketing team would have to approve. I called before arrival about this & staff over the phone never mentioned needing approval. Waited for 4 plus days & nothing from anyone about our enquiry. Spoke to the front office manager about it, he asked me to fill in a simple form with some details, which would then be sent to the management of the hotel & we would get clearance within 48 hours......again nothing from anyone within the hotel.
*Chistmas Day......the hotel thought it would be good to have Santa come down from the roof....he nearly fell halfway down the building whilst trying to rappel to the shock & horror of children & adults watching the poorly organised & mis-managed stunt. To make things worse, this Santa had a voiceover from someone telling kids Santa is stuck whilst falling....wrapping their presents.
*Upon checkout, the hotel tried to charge us for an item purchased on the beach (fresh coconut). We were given resort credit of 250 AED for free at check in & told we could use this anywhere within the resort including the spa. Didn't utilise the full credit & this was the only item purchased within that but they still tried to say we had to pay for it. Refreshing their memories on how the credit works is not really our job, let alone the other mistakes on the bill (charges for calling the front office manager within the hotel).

Overall a nice hotel. Stayed based on a recommendation but severely disappointed with my stay. Some staff need to be trained on customer service & whilst others need to have the ability to come back to guests when an enquiry is made.