Helnan Palestine Hotel

The sea is sandy and calm, and the pool is small but adequate. Views are spectacular throughout the hotel, and every room faces the sea. The rooms are spacious and well kept, with room service ready to bring what you need. Staff around the property are very friendly and serve you with a smile. Breakfast has a second restaurant available on busy days. The main restaurant is satisfactory for both variety and taste. The gym is enough to keep up your routine on holiday, though its three treadmills, elliptical and stair machines need maintenance and aren't working properly. WiFi works well in the rooms, with good internet speed. There is one downside: weddings at the hotel make weekends noisy.

Walking through the gardens was breathtaking, and the view of Elmontazah palace was lovely. I enjoyed the open buffet breakfast with its many choices, plus the beach and heated pool during early November. The free shuttle bus also made it easy to get back and forth to the main gate of Montazah.

Food was ok, and there was saxophone music. But this didn't feel like a five-star hotel. The room was old, and smoking in the hallway kept us awake all night. The fitness center wasn't functional, with three broken treadmills, and it wasn't clean.

We stayed in room 125 for a weekend in October, and the management seemed to have a serious problem. There was no sense of hospitality, and the service felt about as unwelcoming as it could be. I got the impression they hired acquaintances without much regard for professionalism. At breakfast, the woman serving eggs seemed to hide so people wouldn't order, and her facial expressions were extremely rude. Staff wouldn't let anyone refill a bottle from the dispenser or take leftover food, even for a child. Toothbrushes weren't supplied unless requested. The cleaning crew arrived very late, worked slowly, and kept asking whether they could skip cleaning.