Recently stayed at the Riad Ain for a few nights and found it disappointing.

We had emailed the Riad on four occasions before our arrival inquiring about an airport pick up, as there are photos on the internet of a van at the airport with the Riad Ain logo on the side. We never got a response despite using 2 different email addresses and the online form on their own website. We did not see the van anywhere during our stay and also doubt that emails are ever checked.

We caught a cab from the Airport into the Medina and despite having a print out of google maps and a GPS we could not find the Riad. It is actually in a different location to the google map, the bookings.com map and even the Riad’s own map sketch!

The accommodations could best be described as budget back packer style. The bed was a small double and very hard. The room was smaller than it looked on the internet. The pillow had an unpleasant odour. There was a small, thin cotton ‘cover’ that was meant to be a blanket. The ‘spare’ doona/duvet had no cover so we could not use it. The ‘spare’ pillows in the cupboard were obviously used with dirty pillow cases. The shower did not drain and within a couple of minutes you were standing in ankle deep water and had to turn off the tap to allow it to drain before resuming your shower. The condensation from the airconditioner drained into a puddle in the middle of the room. There was a small wardrobe, but they did not supply any coat hangers, so we could not even unpack our clothes.

There was ‘free wifi, but the cable to the router was broken and would fall out – we happened to see the router on the roof terrace, so made many trips up the stairs to fix it.

We did request a non smoking room, yet there was a used and half full ashtray in our room upon arrival and it remained that way for duration of our stay. In addition the other guests would smoke outside our room and the smoke drifted into the room.

The hostesses did not speak any English. Checking out became a 30 minute ordeal as they did not know how to use the credit card machine and had to call someone for assistance and at one stage went upstairs and got another guest to ‘have a go’ with the card machine.

The previous reviews of the Riad do not seem to match the current state & management of the property. The roof terrace seemed to be largely disused and was covered in washing each day. The lounges and bar dusty. We did not use the Spa or steam room, which were an additional and unknown charge.

The Riad fell well short of our expectations for simple comfortable accommodation and I would not recommend a stay here. At around 90 euros per night the Riad is overpriced.