Karbala Rayhaan Hotel & Suites

The walk to Sayyidina Abbas is about 18 minutes. The shuttle could use some improvement, though the meals were good and the rooms decent. Hotel manager Manju provided good service.

It took half an hour to get the room I'd booked days before because their system was down. Then they handed me a key for an occupied room. Thankfully, nobody was inside, just their bags and belongings.

I had a miserable stay during Arbaeen. Hassan/Hasan at reception ignored me while promptly helping any Arab who came in. After finishing the walk, I hadn't expected such blatant racism in Iraq, especially during Arbaeen. The AC didn't work when it was 117 degrees Fahrenheit outside (47 degrees Celsius). The food was lukewarm most of the time and only okay at best. The free Wi-Fi dropped constantly, needed reconnecting every 2 minutes, and then froze. Whenever I went out, my door key stopped working, a common problem across the hotel, where the lobby was full of people needing their keys revalidated. They also demanded the full payment at check-in instead of checkout. For that quality and service, the hotel was extremely expensive. My family and I had a wonderful stay at Naeem Al-Warith hotel, a 2 min. walk from Imam Hussain (AS). The front desk was polite and helpful, the rooms were clean and nice, if a bit tiny, and the food was fresh and good. If you want somewhere fancy, Baron is cheaper and much better. I'd skip this hotel at all costs.

My room phone didn't work, and the hotel was very far from the Haram. Our support team gave us a van, but its stop was also far away. It took us 30 minutes to get there and 30 minutes to return. The Ryhan van stop also left us a long way from the Haram. I'm not happy with this.