Jaal Riad Resort

An attractive resort with friendly, helpful staff, but the food offering could have been improved in terms of variety. The resort is beautifully presented, in the style of a riad, with internal courtyards. There is a large swimming pool, which unfortunately is not heated and was therefore freezing cold, even on a day when the temperature was in the high 30s C. All the staff were friendly and helpful, and particular thanks go to Khalid at Reception for the assistance he provided on a couple of occasions. Whilst the resort has four restaurants, there was only ever one open at a time, with the Moroccan restaurant never open during the week, which was disappointing. With the exception of a couple of days when there was a large corporate party at the resort, occupancy appeared to be quite low during the period of my stay, which may have impacted restaurant opening. The quality of the food was fine, but choices were limited, with first courses and desserts always the same at both lunch, at the Pool Bar, and dinner, at The Cat. Having said that, the patisserie provided for dessert, whilst repetitive, was excellent. It would also be helpful if dishes were labelled, as it was not always easy to tell what exactly was on offer.

Great location, so close to the airport and the city centre yet the hotel is lovely and peaceful. We had an all inclusive package and were worried at first due to reviews on here suggesting that alcohol was not included, however, we were very impressed with the selection of alcoholic drinks available. There are lots of sunbeds around the pool and the staff were so helpful and friendly. We will definitely be returning!

On arrival at the hotel, the main reception rooms are beautiful and have a very Moroccan feel. The reception staff were very helpful and friendly. The main outdoor pool area is very pretty, and the palm trees, plants and garden areas are all well maintained. Unfortunately, as we were to discover, this was a case of style over substance. The TUI website that we booked from states that there are 5 restaurants ‘to work your way around’ ‘including a fusion restaurant with a creative menu’. This is not true. There is a buffet breakfast room, a pool bar and the only restaurant in the evening was a self-service buffet in the Cat location. The choice of buffet food remained the same every night for our entire holiday. The waiters did work extremely hard here and were running around but it seemed they could do with more staff. There were never any spoons for eating deserts or breakfast. Neither were there any serving spoons for the salads. Occasionally there were tiny plastic spoons which broke when you tried to eat with them. In the evening the bar served drinks in plastic glasses. 5 Star hotel – I think not! Breakfast was very poorly managed. The waiters seemed to ration the amount of coffee we could be served. This was limited to 1 cup each – unless you were able to ‘sneak’ the coffee pot away. Pancakes were cooked fresh, but left out to go cold, with no spotlights turned on to keep them warm. I also had to ask daily for the chocolate sauce (watered down Nutella) to go with them. The cereals were limited to a choice of 3 but often no milk and again, no spoons. There ware some tiny yogurts – but again no spoons. I had to use a fork. Fresh fruit was limited to sliced orange. Used plates were left on the table for the entire meal. The hotel states that there is an outdoor pool and a heated indoor pool in the spa area. The hotel does not state that the indoor pool is chargeable at 300 MAD/ £23 per hour. This is extortionate. I have never stayed in a 5-star hotel and being charged to use the pool. No wonder we didn’t see anyone using it, despite the couple of rainy days. The gym is supposed to be air conditioned but, on each occasion, when we used the gym there was no air conditioning. It was either not switched on, broken or incorrectly described. There was a lack of working plug sockets in the bedroom. Of the 3 sockets available, we had to use 1 for everything. There was no plug socket near to a mirror to dry my hair. I had to use my iPad camera to see what I was doing. The bathroom mirror was tarnished, and I was unable to use for makeup. Insufficient clean towels were left on a regular basis. The toilet paper was so cheap, it ran out every day and needed replacing. The air conditioning did not cool the room, despite being on the lowest setting. Thankfully we were not staying in the peak of summer. The bedroom & bathroom floor were dirty and had not been washed/cleaned. The fridge in the bedroom was not cold enough to cool water and the balcony

The hotel is average and definitely not 5 star. Rooms are ok. Lunch / restaurant is horrible and massively overpriced to take advantage of you since there is not many options nearby with walking distance (the lunch buffet cost almost as much as a michelin restaurant here, quality of food was terrible and you even had to pay 20 dollars extra for some tee and water). The service of the place is 0/5 - staff not helpful or understanding at all. Location is a bit off outside the city. We stayed in a nice riad in the Medina before we came here and the hospitality was 10x better! I definitely do not recommend coming to this hotel.

The resort was lovely and clean. We stayed just after the earthquake hit and workers were quickly repairing cosmetic damage from that. All the staff were friendly and attentive and made the overall experience even better. There were spoons at the buffet (previous reviews said there weren’t) and the food did vary on some occasions. There was the choice of bbq food on some evenings and at lunch the option of steak and chips etc, not always buffet food at lunch and sometimes the chefs cooked to order (which was better). The drinks were what you would expect from an all inclusive with a good choice of cocktails and plenty of alcohol in them. The only recommendation I would add. is the option of ice cream throughout the day. Overall experience was great and would definitely stay again. Thank you to all the staff.

The hotel was beautifully appointed with comfortable modern rooms. Pleasant bar, with good service. Planes landing/taking off at very early morning woke us up every day, so that was a minus. Breakfast was quite spartan, though with good home made pastries, fresh pressed juices. The service in the breakfast hall was slow, and a little ’not with it’; staff did not understand that empty honey pots needed refilling, preferably within 10 minutes…etc. The pool area was clean, sometimes had to wait for sunbed-towels. A nice touch was that the monitor removed towels from unused sunbeds after a time - so no point in ‘reserving’ a sunbed. Rooms were super well cleaned! Bonus to the cleaners. Bellboys were a little over-enthusiastic and were obviously waiting for tips - felt uncomfortable. I ended-up having to go to ATM next to reception to pay my bill, get a 35dirham charge for that, and receiving dirham that I didn’t want, as change, because the hotel’s network wasn’t working. All seemed very ‘not with it’ again. It was an enjoyable stay despite the shortfalls. It would be a really good resort, if they sharpened their efforts!

Stayed here recently. The hotel gives the impression of no proper management. Staff are not directed and therefore service is slow and poor. Buffet dinner was served not in the main restaurant but up several flights of stairs in the disco area. No atmosphere and poor quality tepid hot dishes. No identification as to what the dishes were and most were not good. Booked a spa session and kept waiting an hour with no apology or explanation. Receptionist in spa spoke no English. Would not recommend this hotel though if we’ll run would be amazing as the design and decor is beautiful

A lovely property. I've stayed at plenty of 5 star properties worldwide and this one can compete with some of the best. It's a charming unique property in a great location. The staff is friendly and helpful. The only downside is when exchanging currency I think the guy purposefully overcharged me, he even sort of ran away after the transaction and pretended to be busy. But one bad apple doesn't ruin the whole bunch so I'd still say it's a very nice property. If you're looking for a hotel in Marrakech with a riad feel this one is worth considering.