Hotel Farah Marrakech

Friendly staff. The inside bar. The barman. The nice waiter who attends the Italian and Moroccan themed restaurants. Great pool area. Excellent location close to the city centre. The hotel gardens and suurounding area. We had a special celebration party for my Uncle's 80th birthday on 3rd October. We were 62 people I believe. This was a great success, especially after our bad dining experience on our first night; see below. My only criticism was that the amount of food was far too much. Hopefully it wasn't wasted.

The rooms / bathrooms are seriously in need of refurbishment. The safe didn't work (most people in the group said the same). No hooks or shelving in the bathroom. Several of our group complained that the A/C wasn't working in their rooms. The beds were hard. The pillows too thick. The carpets in the corridors were scruffy and appeared water damaged in places (we were on the top floor). Over four days breakfast was bad in the sense that there always seemed to be shortages, fruit in particular, or the food was barely warm. The bains maries didn't work too well in addition I think. We didn't eat dinner in the buffet, but several of our group did and they were not at all happy. The first night we decided to try the Italian restaurant. The staff arranged for us to eat on the patio (we were a group of 22), which was fine, but the food was mediocre at best and several people said that theirs was cold. Some dishes had obviously sat for a long time under heat lamps eg my lasagne to the extent that the top pasta sheets had crisped. The kitchen was unprepared, I believe, for a large group.There was only one waiter and the poor man did his best. We stayed in the hotel two years previously, again as a group, and were satisfied. There has been a marked deterioration since then in the rooms and food quality.