First, I have to stay this was the third Riad we visited in our trip to Morocco, second one in Marrakech. We booked it for the second part of our trip when we returned to Marrakech and, being the most expensive and the best rated that we had chosen, we had high expectations. The other Riads we stayed at had been fabulous.
The Riad is perfectly clean and tidy - impecable. Nevertheless, it is much smaller than it looks like in the pictures and it lacks the Moroccan "magic". The decoration is neither traditional nor modern, the environment is sterile. Hard to explain if you haven't been there.
The pool is not heated, so no way to try it as our trip was in the winter. The small patio is covered with a plastic roof which is really detrimental to the space, specially as our room was located above it in the terrace and we lost any relation to the rest of the building. As it was fully booked, we got a standard room for the first two days and a superior one for the other two. It was tiny! You could barely get through the door into the bathroom. Spent there one night thinking - let's get through with this, maybe the superior room we'll get at the end will be better.
We went for breakfast the next morning and the crepes were hard and cold. Everything was so disappointing we didn't even want to complain about it! We couldn't believe we had chosen this over the paradise we had been to at the beginning of the trip.
We went for another rough and great day in the Medina (it's a beautifully crazy place, you always end up exhausted) only to arrive to a nightmare. They had a terrible leak, power was cut off in one of the floors and there was this hammering noise that got to your bones.
Staff apologised and apologised over and over again. Evidently this is not something you expect and we totally understand accidents happen. We went into our room to find that the hammering was next door and it was even louder there. Totally drained and terribly disappointed we had to do something about this. Called our previous Riad - they had one room available! We came out, talked to the manager and cut our stay at this place short, only to go back to paradise. Nightmare was over.
Marrakech is a very crazy city, and you certainly need to have a piece of heaven to retreat and relax for a while. I don't think this one works for that. I feel sorry for the owner and the staff who were always very attentive and are always trying to do their best, but it is not working out.
We won't be coming back here. I don't understand why it is so highly rated.
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC.
January 20, 2013
Dear Sir,
What a shock this morning reading your review. The city of Marrakech, like lots of cities in the world do some maintenance of the public equipment. We had this last month works in the street, they are finalizing a full program of refurbishment of underground pipes. This creates unavoidably some nuisance to the environment. The riad suffered as all buildings in the area, we had 1 air conditioning system that did not afford the works, we changed it on the spot, and some vibrations probably created a break in a pipe of hot water in the wall of the Riad. This leak started by 8.30pm, which is very unfortunate and as you recognize it, it unfortunately can happen. We needed to take action on the spot and had to find where this leak was coming from and repair it. What we did in 2 hours, at 10.30pm all was sorted out, cleaned and packed. There again, as you said Riad Al Badia was full, absolutely every single guests, who had probably once in their life experienced such inconvenience, fully understood, went out for dinner and found back the Riad quiet again coming back. You came and told me that you understood what was going on, that this was your job works in building, but you expressed the wish of leaving in order not to have to support this. I was that upset with this inconvenience, I even did not argue or say a word a part from, no problem at all. You gave me the address of Riad Clementine where you wanted to go. We did organize our own driver complementary to drive you there, we cancel with no discussion 3 nights of stay with no charge at all for a 2 hours nuisance for technical reason, we did “apology over and over” which were true apologies, having guests that are not comfortable, just drive us sick and we would do anything to make sure that our guests are well, what we did, I honestly do not see what else we could have done.
It is very hard to hear on top of this tolerance in front of technical matter that once again can happen and has probably already happened to you also, that pancakes were cold when we do make absolutely everything home and at time of serving… It is quite hard to believe that when we do suffer that much, you do not mention it. I will not discuss décor, style… taste is very personal and I can accept that we like or we do not like, this should not create a nightmare and I think we are always available and very open minded in case something does not go right, the standard room is the smallest category, it is clearly mentioned, you did book this small room and got it on arrival. The riad was full at time you made your reservation, no larger room was available, there again, we did deliver what you paid for. Service, the experience we wish to provide our guests is certainly not for everybody, I accept that we cannot suit everybody, it is a matter of sensibility, expectations, education, taste… we do provide a service focused at 400% on guests, this cannot suit everybody, this does not mean that this is good or bad, this is what you are looking for or not. Finally we feel happy that you enjoyed the end of your stay in Marrakech and we thank you for having appreciated all our reactivity and extreme commercial gesture we did to you as we truly were concerned by this situation and your comfort
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This response is the subjective opinion of the management representative and not of TripAdvisor LLC.
