Helat hotel

The rooms are nicely furnished, and it’s a nice hotel, though it often gets busy when the Egyptian embassy visits the Eastern Province, usually about once a month.

It’s a quiet hotel, with good service and reception staff. The food, though, is very, very bad.

Al-baik is right across from the hotel, and there are lots of local restaurants and great, inexpensive shops nearby. I stayed two nights last week and really enjoyed them. The hotel was so clean and elegant, and I was very impressed by how large the rooms were. The bathroom had everything you might need: shampoo, shower gel, conditioner, body lotion, loofah, shaving kit, vanity kit, comb, and toothbrush. The one thing I didn’t like was that housekeeping never came to clean my room, even after I called reception. Still, I enjoyed my stay and would recommend it if, like me, it’s your first time in Saudi Arabia.

It was okay for a one night stay, but there was black mold in the bathroom. The coffee shop also doesn’t open until 11am, which is much too late.