I have just returned from a one-week business trip where the client booked me into this hotel. It is a very pleasant hotel and the layout, about 10 linked blocks, each with half a dozen rooms, makes a pleasant change from the usual high rise, high flash, high boredom factor of luxury hotels. Most of the individual blocks have a small splash pool on the upper floor and there is also a somewhat larger public pool in the adjacent dining/entertainment area known as The Village - of which more later. We got a very good corporate rate, which included full board. The only downside was that we were limited to eating in one of the several restaurants on-site and to the local style buffet served in that restaurant. I don't want to criticise the buffet because it was actually quite nice, but eating it seven days in a row got very boring and in the end we persuaded the management to give us an allowance against eating in one of the other restaurants. We have suggested that this would be a much better approach for future guests in our position.

It is a little bit off the beaten track and essentially surrounded by wasteland or building sites on three sides, but a taxi into the heart of the city will only cost you about two pounds. Every single member of staff was extremely helpful and congenial and I can only offer praise to all of them. On arrival, the receptionist looked at me (I'm 6' 4" and somewhat overweight) commented "our standard rooms have only got a single bed" and instantly upgraded me to a superior double room. This room was excellent. A king-size bed with high quality linen, a couple of chairs and sidetable and a very useful work area (see photograph); nibbles and minibar were expensive as usual and I was unable to get the air conditioning to warm the room up-perhaps it was designed purely to cool the room in this particular climate? The large bathroom, designed as a wet room, had a six-foot shower area that one end and all the usual facilities that you would expect.

Breakfast in the designated restaurant (they have five!) Resto!, comprised of a wider range of local and international dishes, pastries, cereals, fruit, hot items, cold buffets etc then we could sample even in a week and is thoroughly recommended. As I said above our dinner was supposed to be in The Village which is a very nice large and partly covered area clearly extensively used by locals the vast majority of whom were smoking shishas and playing cards, backgammon, chess or whatever with equipment provided by the hotel. A very informal atmosphere in this 300 seat area was supported by perfectly adequate entertainment each evening and if you really wanted you could watch football on the two massive screens at either end of the covered area. The local buffet, which as I said above, was unchanging from night to night, was a range of salad items and local dips, a selection of good breads, baked potatoes, assorted local and international vegetables and meats consisting of chicken kebabs, mutton kebabs, frankfurter style sausages, roast chicken, salmon, veal ribs and a couple of other items. Desserts were the usual range of sweet and sticky items that you expect in a hotel with the one delightful addition (my nightly favourite) of Middle Eastern bread pudding known as Umm Ali. The buffet is actually quite good but night after night it became boring.

I can thoroughly recommend this hotel as a change from the usual big chains that leave you waking up one wondering where on earth you are this morning.