Не едьте сюда! Don't go here!

Completely ruined holiday, if you can call it a holiday.

I'll tell you in order.

Arrived in Dubai late at night with a child. 40 minutes waiting for a group transfer to the hotel. It turns out they were waiting for the Russians from our own flight, who apparently celebrated the arrival in duty free. After I started swearing at Teztour and the guide, specifically, who stole us at the airport, he managed to send us to the hotel.

In the yawning shimmer of the Dubai skyscrapers that we saw on the way to the palm tree, I drove away the thought "are we done right that we saved $ 1200 by choosing Sofitel, and not Atlantis on the palm tree? ". Turns out we made a big mistake.

They met us without champagne and traditional sweets, as is the case in hotels of this level, but with unpleasant surprises...

The girl at the reception once again confirmed that there is Internet in the Deluxe Palm View room we booked.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the Internet simply does not connect on any of our 4 gadgets. After I started explaining to the Pakistani who brought us to the room that we paid crazy money for a tour with a room with internet (180 thousand rubles for 7 nights), he called an engineer. An engineer came and could do nothing. I gave an ultimatum, I need the Internet right now, otherwise your Pakistani mugs will not work here. The engineer left, ostensibly to contact someone who can solve this problem, but he did not fulfill his promise to return. Well, okay, the Internet appeared by itself. It turns out that their Wi-Fi routers need time to automatically reconfigure the IP of our devices to local ones.

I thought I would finally rest the next day, but it was not there. Leaving the building in the morning, I simply could not orient myself and went in the opposite direction from the main building.
I wandered around the territory for about 20 minutes until I came across a map of the hotel. After such wanderings in the heat, the child who was with me just threw a tantrum. The hysteria continued in the restaurant, raising not only the staff, but also other vacationers. By the way, we hardly found a free table and it was not cleaned and there were no appliances. After we put the food on the plates, another unpleasant surprise awaited us, drinks in the restaurant were paid, despite our paid half board type of food. And the prices for 3 glasses of juice, I will say, are not frail 100 dirhams (900 rubles).

Of course, we read reviews about the hotel, which said that there are a lot of sour and spicy dishes. It turned out even worse, our child of all the variety, ate only fruit. Saved by instant oatmeal, which we prudently bought in St. Petersburg. Of course, you are interested in the question about a la carte restaurants.
We booked dinner at one of them, the Steakhouse is called. It must be great to spend 2 hours at dinner, waiting for the waiters to bring it all, but not for us. The child obviously did not like being in one place. Our backbiter, who is 3.5 years old, put on his pants and, as befits in such cases, threw a tantrum. The actions of the waiters, who allegedly tried to flirt with the child, looked more like extorting tips from us than a manifestation of the goodwill and high standards of the Sofitel hotel chain.

By the way, dinner cost us, mind you, 8100 rubles! ! ! And this despite the fact that we did not wait for dessert.


Well, okay, well, I’m all about the sad, I’ll tell you about the number. This is the strength of the hotel - they said, modern style - they repeated. It's hard not to agree, it's a style! French Polynesia is called. But where there is too much design, there is a shortage of comfort.
So in our room, stylish tiles were a source of endless dirt that crawled out of all the cracks, and which could be clearly seen on the corners in the form of stains. Asceticism and luxury - everything is mixed in the deluxe room style dance. in the room there are already 2 LCD TVs and satellite TV, but there is not a single Russian channel. What for, you need it - you say - you came there to watch TV or relax! And you will be absolutely right. But the poor child had to watch cartoons from the iPad. There is a Bosf audio system, who knows what a cool sound oozes out of it, delivering an ear orgasm to the listener. We just couldn't enjoy the sound to the fullest. When you turn on the light in the toilet, one of the speakers whiled away, and it looks like everything will flash and a piece of French Polynesia in distant Dubai will light up with a blue flame. To avoid this, we informed the hotel employee.
Tom, either did not have enough English proficiency to understand my request, or simply forgot. In general, no one fixed the short column for us. So we went to the toilet without light. After the toilet, they washed their hands by turning on the tap, from which water flowed, the temperature of which was slightly lower than the temperature of the lava. Of course, there is no temperature control on the mixer, otherwise it is no longer a style. Saved the second mixer, in which everything is set up as it should. A few words about sockets: they are local here (3 plugs), and a 3-plug socket from a MacBook (USA) is not suitable. Saved by a multi-socket in the center of the living room. This place has 1 outlet of each type: US socket, USB, Euro socket. This is how all our gadgets were charged at night. As a result, in the morning it turns out that we won’t have a camera on the tour, because there simply wasn’t enough space in the sockets for it. Speaking of excursions. Do not buy excursions from a tour operator, they are 1.5-2 times more expensive than in the city.
And the representative of the same Teztour, who holds a mandatory meeting with every tourist from Russia, can only sell these excursions, she (the representative) knows little about the hotel.


Swimming pool. He really is and not alone. But the largest central pool is so small that sometimes you start to wonder where you are: in a St. Petersburg sauna or in a luxury hotel. There is nothing to say about the bay, which is more like a backwater. It’s just that no one swims there: it’s dirty and jellyfish swim.

Sofitel on his website speaks about the care for each guest, which is expressed in the smallest details. Indeed, everything is so. They decided to mock the guests in the smallest detail and with great cynicism by drawing a monstrous plan of the hotel territory and turning these ideas into reality. There is not a single straight path here, winding paths are everywhere.
Sometimes, to get to the neighboring building, you need to make a circle of 100 meters in the heat. Useful for the figure - you say, and you will be right. Walking in circles with a child in your arms is cooler than any fitness. By the way, the stroller for the child had to be taken from home, the hotel does not provide them. There is an option to ride around the territory on minigolf machines, only in 90% of cases these machines are not available and you have to go through these 300-400 meters along the scorched, but stylish desert yourself. Near one of the buildings not far from the central pool, exactly in a straight line to our building, the gate is closed, and around the fence and the inscription "private". Looks like there is a supervip room on the ground floor with a hotel pool and its own private area. Because of this, you have to make a typical circle, bypassing the stupidity of the hotel. Sofitel, mock me, mock me completely!

Entertainment. What entertainment? And, you are talking about these 2 pipes, which are nominally called a water park.
It would be better not to do them at all, what a disgrace?


I've been here 3 nights out of 7 and have already experienced the full power of the advantages of this hotel. Come and you, Sofitel needs your money, and they can rip it off, in an oriental way, on a grand scale!