Braira Al Nakheel Hotel

The restaurant staff, the people cleaning the room, and the reception staff were all nice and tried to help. I had no problems with them, and Mohammed in the restaurant was especially kind and helpful. The main problem was that the hotel had no peace and quiet. I arrived tired on Friday evening, hoping to sleep, but a wedding played loud music until 3 a.m. The staff couldn’t do anything, and it felt disrespectful. Other places separate events so one guest’s celebration doesn’t disturb everyone else, but here it seemed you had to put up with it or leave. The AC units were extremely noisy too, so I turned them off. Luckily it wasn’t hot outside and the room didn’t warm up. The sliding windows were poorly sealed, letting in a howling draft as well as constant road noise. I was shown two other rooms, but they had the same problem. Pressing on the windows made the noise quieter, then it came back when I let go. Eventually they offered a room at the end of the building, away from the road. It faced the neighboring building’s wall, which wasn’t great, but at least it was quieter. Noise is a serious problem here. I’d been thinking of not posting this because it could hurt the hotel, but the last evening changed my mind. I told the Egyptian chef and European manager that I was tired of the buffet, served morning and evening, because it was monotonous and not very tasty. There were also always unripe tomatoes and fruit. They said it was out of season, which may be true, but I wondered why they served it in the restaurant. The next morning, as I was leaving, the chef offered to prepare a lunch box. I declined at first, expecting the usual low-quality sandwich, but he promised something great. We agreed on plenty of chicken, an egg, cheese, and dark toasted bread. He also offered fruit, nuts, and coffee to go, and I accepted. We smiled, exchanged pleasantries, shook hands, and parted. But when I reached reception in the morning, there was nothing at all, not even coffee or a standard lunch box. It felt like a sign of how the people in charge treat customers, their work, and themselves: lots of talk and little action. Maybe the night cooks fell asleep or something else went wrong, but to me that points to how the senior staff run things.

We had a great time at the seafood buffet on Thursday night. There was plenty of variety, and the seafood was fresh. They could grill it for us on site, which we really enjoyed. The servers were polite and very accommodating, especially Nazeer, Melanie, Nico, Sabbir, Nilo, Milar, Herman, Rajab, and the rest of the team. Great food and service. We’d definitely come back.

The hotel was lovely, and the staff were warm and accommodating, so the atmosphere was pleasant. But the Friday seafood buffet didn’t live up to its reputation. Most of the seafood tasted bland and didn’t seem fresh. The fried fish was the one item I enjoyed. I expected much more, and wouldn’t recommend this venue for a seafood buffet unless the food improves.

We booked the iftar buffet through Cobone for 6:00 to 8:30 p.m. We arrived at 6:15 and had only just started eating when Braira restaurant staff told us, about 10 minutes before 7, that we had only one hour and needed to leave in 10 minutes. We showed our booking, but they still insisted we leave. It seemed they weren’t saying this to other customers, only us. If the restaurant takes bookings through other sites, it should clearly state the rules. We paid for two and a half hours but were made to leave after 45 minutes, which wasn’t fair.