It's the words no traveller ever wants to hear. To arrive at your hotel quite late in the evening to be told: "We have no record of your booking." I was amazed as I'd made the reservation through the booking agency, Agoda, several weeks previously and had received a written confirmation. What made things a lot worse though was the attitude and demeanour of the two rather rough-and-ready youths on reception who hadn't the first clue about customer service. They made no apology and were extremely unhelpful. When I insisted on speaking to the manager, they said he wasn't in the hotel so I demanded that they phone him. They did and then astonishingly turned to me and said the manager didn't want to speak to me. And put the phone down. All but speechless, I insisted they phone him again. This time I did speak to the manager who seemed unable to provide a credible explanation as to why they had no room for me. The hotel clearly had received confirmation from Agoda. What I suspect is because I arrived late in the evening, they thought I wasn't turning up and so sold my room to someone else. The manager promised to come to the hotel and meet me - and then failed to show. Somehow or other the reception youths found a free room for me but its facilities in total comprised two single beds, a bedside table and a sink with a cold water tap. Nothing else. No towels, no soap, no cupboard, no heat. The hotel completely misrepresents itself. It's not a quality property at all. It's a dump. Cold, dirty, noisy, unfriendly, unhelpful and intimidating. In short, a disgrace. And Agoda has not exactly covered itself in glory. I made an official complaint to them the following day after I'd checked out of the hotel as soon as I possibly could. It's been ten days now and they still haven't come back to me with an explanation, an apology and a refund of the money I pre-paid. That's not impressive. The single attraction of the hotel is that it's just two or three minutes' walk from Marrakech's famous "Big Square", Jemaa el Fna, and it's for that reason that I chose to stay there. A big, big mistake which I hope other travellers can learn from. The best advice I can give about the Hotel El Kennaria is to avoid it at all costs.
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