Herbert Samuel Royal Shangri-La Eilat

Terrible. Dusty, service completely absent, the list would be too long. As an example when you arrive not even a hello at the frontdesk. Then the driver of the golf car that takes us to the room tells us that our room doesn’t exist. We ordered and paid in advance dor a plate of fruits at arrival. Of course not there. When you call the room service they barely answer. We were at least reimbursed for the fruits. Took one day for them to treat our demand as they said when asked. The room was dirty -very- and with almost no view on the sea but on the swimming pool when we paid for a room with a view. No lightproof curtain so sun wakes you up in the morning. When they cleaned our room they forgot the towels. We called and one hour after nothing, 2 hours nothing. To make it short what an ugly place to stay, with every employee looking sad exhausted and miss managed. Everyone but the charming and reliable Amit, a young golf car driver who kept caring for everyone. Thank you Amit, you should manage the whole resort.

We stayed one night, having booked for 4. In the past I stayed in the old Orchid hotel, which is still part of the same complex as the ShangriLa, and had enjoyed it. Basically, the ShangriLa is an ugly cluster of mini-villas built uphill from the Orchid Hotel, and for some reason priced more highly, though it's inconvenient in every way. Firstly, parking; there's barely adequate parking for the Orchid, and only about 6 spaces at the far end of the car park for the ShangriLa. That's if you can find it at all; the signage is terrible. Transport around the very steep hill it's built on is by golf buggy, and the drivers refused to take our luggage from our car, though one of us was walking with a stick, and clearly had mobility problems. In fact, transport round the resort was a major issue: during the one night we were there, we encountered endless clusters of people struggling with luggage, babies in buggies and shopping, queuing (often aggressively) for the seemingly chaotic and inadequate buggy system. Our room was filthy, and I took many pictures to share with management. One shows an abandoned razor blade on our balcony. We met another couple in the bar who were also trying to escape, due to the dirty state of their room. We stayed the one night as we were too tired to move, but I emailed the manager that evening to tell him we were leaving the following morning, and explained why. No-one bothered to reply. The following morning, I did eventually manage to find the manager, after much insistence on my part. He refused to look at my photographs, but accepted my reasons for cancellation and (via booking dot com) agreed that I would not be charged for the nights we didn't spend there. The whole place is grubby, with an air of disorganisation and poor management; the staff seemed half-trained and pretty much demoralised. In fairness, the bar staff were kind and friendly, and the buffet supper was excellent in every way. My last sight of the ShangriLa as we drove away was of the manager breaking up a fight between a male customer and a buggy driver. Summed it all up for me, really.

I was stunned by the beauty of this hotel and the view of the red see . I am a traveler and visited many hotels around the world, that one is one of the top by far. The food, the service, the big rooms. Everything was perfect. The team was going out of their way to make sure we are happy. For sure coming back.