Ibis is Ibis is Ibis. This is the standard international formula (but expect only 3-star standard) business hotel. Zero charm, but zero surprises either and who likes those? Functional, clean, good-size rooms, free Internet, boring international breakfast. Don’t expect to eat there. No more to be said. What we hadn’t expected was that it had so much conveniently nearby. First, it’s handily north of the city centre if you are using it as a base for northern or western Jordan, Jerash etc. Second, it is across the street from a reasonable-size Western (= US style) mall which has a large supermarket for essentials like water and fruit. Third, it is walkably (under five minutes) close to a number of good eating options (or even the grim fast-food ‘court’ in the mall if KFC/MacD’s your thing).

Tawaheen (aka Don Quixote) is a popular choice for a genuine (and enormous) restaurant clearly very popular with the locals, families, young people, and informal business. See its TA entry, with its high rating for Jordanian specialities, basic mezes and silly-low prices. About 200m from the hotel, tho you have to dice with death to cross the dual carriageway. The newer ‘cosmopolitan’ Harmony complex has three restaurants, but we only tried the Arab one, Ward, also excellent, also huge: slightly up-market from Tawaheen, and maybe more for local special occasions, outings, date-nights etc. Third was Reem, almost next door, which we didn’t try but again it looked nice.

Otherwise a nice safe classy neighbourhood to walk around a bit people-watching. This is slightly trendy Amman, lots of big 4X4s and German cars. There’s a cavernous standard tourist bazaar selling everything back on the main street nearby, next to the big Turkish Baths complex and a quite extraordinary cake and dessert emporium well worth a window-shop on a post-dinner stroll.

The hotel itself was fairly small but was ok to stay for 1 night any longer I wouldn't advise it especially as the location wasn’t so great.

Being a smoker I always look for a hotel with a balcony or at least a window that I can open as I hate smoking inside. Given this was my only cheap option at a rate of 90JD per night which includes breakfast I definitely think you can find something better.

The reception desk was very unprofessional and did not have any knowledge of Amman or even gave us any advice of what to do. He would speak to his colleagues and answer the phone (twice) and speak to the other guest who spoke to him in Arabic and made us wait for 15/20 minutes even thou we were there first.

- as usual, slightly small rooms (but comfortable)
- clean
- no noise from outside, but u can hear some from adjacent rooms (my room had an interconnecting door)
- free wifi
- friendly staff
- no support for arranging sightseeing

My friends and I stayed here two separate nights while traveling in Jordan, and both times we checked in and out we had bad experiences with the front desk staff. We were never greeted warmly by the employees (ignored really), and I am almost positive one of the staff members was on something -- he was so out of it and took way too long to check us in and check us out. The other issue we had was that we had reserved non-smoking rooms, but they could not accommodate this upon arrival one night, which was very frustrating. They instead put us in smoking rooms that "smelled the least" that they had available. I feel we should have been compensated in some way for that issue.

Other than the poor service at the front desk, the hotel was fine. The rooms were a little small, but they were functional and clean. The breakfast buffet (which was an additional cost) was pretty good, and the restaurant staff was much more friendly to my fellow travelers and me. We stayed at Ibis because the price was reasonable, and we got what we paid for.