Sol Oasis Marrakech

Visited for the fourth time this time for my 50th birthday with the wife, as usual the hotel is hotel is great, good selection of food, the staff are fantastic, hotel is exceptionally clean and his a great gym.

We are still here. Family holiday with two children aged 7 and 3. We love Marrakech and came last year (different hotel though).

We are staying in a family room. Overall, it’s fine, but not a 5 star experience by any means.

Room Pros:

• Huge comfortable bed.
• Good layout for families (sofa bed is round a corner so you’re moderately separated from the children. Balcony door is next to adult bed).
• Beautiful decor and nice bathroom.
• Coffee machine with pods.
• Bottled water refreshed daily.
• Dark curtains.

Cons:

• Family room was upstairs. Hard for pushchairs.
• Sofa bed is very short. Either the children have to lie sideways and potentially roll off the bed (it tapers downwards) or you have to have quite short children.
• Not enough wardrobe space. Only four drawers and very high up shelves.
• Wish there was better lighting on the balcony so we could play cards!

Facilities Pros:

• Hotel is beautiful. A good site layout. Not too big or small. Walkways are lovely.
• Gym is good and air conditioned
• Multiple sports courts with good equipment
• Shuttle to Marrakech is convenient
• Always sun beds available
• Pool towels don’t need a deposit
• Animation staff are lovely. Shout out to Aziz and Mo.

Cons:

• The pools are FREEZING! Children’s shallow pool is absolutely Baltic. Unless you’re doing lengths, both are really unenjoyable to be in. They should be heated in October.
• The large pool has no shallow end, so for anyone hoping to have their young child learning to swim, it’s not ideal.
• If you want to use the heated pool, you have to pay (it’s part of the spa. This is not made obvious on websites etc.)
• Kids club isn’t very visible. They seem to stay in the building at all times. I’ve seen kids’ clubs done very well at other resorts where they take the children out and about, and that makes it very inviting for new children to join.
• There is sometime a wait of hours and hours for fresh pool towels to be available.
• This hotel is determined to block access to steps (stage area in front of the pool steps and tea service in front of the restaurant steps). It’s a minor inconvenience but feels thoughtless.

Food and Bar Pros:

• Beer is nice.
• Lunch pizza is really good! Never a huge queue.
• Cocktails are fairly nice.

Cons:

• Always a long queue for the pool bar.
• Pool bar lunch food other than pizza sits out for hours and is dry and horrible.
• Never enough mugs or glasses for coffee particularly at breakfast.
• Staff not very present in the buffet restaurant: if you need a clean table or cutlery, sort it out yourself or you’ll be waiting ages.
• It’s hard to eat outside in the evenings as the lighting is so dim.
• Food is very repetitive and not very nice. Roast chicken meat is inexplicably mushy and beef from the grill is as tough as leather.
• Hygiene not great! Grill chef uses the same tongs for raw and cooked chicken. Seemed annoyed when this was pointed out to him.
• If you want to eat in the à la carte restaurant, book before you arrive. We were given no instructions about how to book on the first day, and when we tried to book it on day 2, both were fully booked for the whole week.
• Never saw ice cream the whole time we were there. You have to buy it from the shop and it’s not particularly cheap.

Overall, it was a disappointing experience but fine. We won’t come again to this hotel.

Overall we really enjoyed Sol Oasis.

Pros

• they focus heavily on cleanliness. Our room was excellent and all areas were spotless
• the sports facilities were a hit particularly the padel.
• all the staff were super friendly.
• the food was good.
• beds around the pool were always plentiful.
• fresh pizza at lunch was good. Additional toppings and perhaps some chips would be better.

Cons / opportunities

• the pool was FREEZING. This is why you rarely saw anyone in it. Also, why is it all one depth?? I really negative for us as we normally like to play in the pool with our son
• the cocktails outside tasted so different to the inside bar. We discovered if you want them making properly go inside. This shouldn’t have to be the case.
• we were looking forward to some good coffee. The coffee was AWFUL. Al, the machines lacked milk. Cappuccino poured as a mocha. Horrible !
• the ‘entertainment’ wasn’t good. Bingo was just one line and lasted 10 mins. (It did make us laugh though on how short it was). Karaoke / music was just the same 3 families. It felt like the end of a wedding.