8.4/10Very Good548 Reviews
Makkah|3.59km from city center
Novotel Makkah Thakher City is really not recommended, seriously.
The bus stop for its shuttle is very far from the Haram; just walking from the Haram to the shuttle stop alone can take about 30 - 40 minutes.
The shuttle takes a long time to arrive at the hotel for pick up — once we waited 30 minutes, the shuttle isn’t always on standby. Once we wanted to go for Fajr prayer, we had to take a taxi because the shuttle didn’t come for a long time.
This is from a real experience staying here for 2 nights. Because the Middle East current war, we got a flight reroute that depart 2 days earlier, so we had to add 2 nights at a nearby hotel, but the prices of the hotel close to Haram were already very expensive. We thought this Novotel’s shuttle would be like the one at Le Méridien Tower (shuttle bus stop close to haram - we stayed the on our previous trip), but this Novotel shuttle bus stop turned out to be too far, especially when we travel will elderly
On the second day, we only went to the mosque to complete our umrah — we couldn’t handle going back and forth between the hotel and the mosque multiple times.
*************, on the third day (2 days ago, when this comment was written), we moved to a nearby hotel that we had already booked long before.”
Yes, nusuk approval was fast with this hotel, but what’s the point of fast approval if you still have to wait for the shuttle for an hour close to prayer time and still miss the congregation?
Because of the long wait, we got stuck in traffic, and then walking from the bus to the mosque also took a very long time.
Hopefully this can be a consideration for those planning to book — don’t regret it like we did, since we didn’t have many options because we booked late 😆”