Where we stayed
11:08 PMI had few people asking me where/which hotel did we stayed during our Umrah trip so I decided to dedicate a post on the hotel topic alone with pictures. Me myself, if going for any trip, I would always and always looked at the travelers's photo first because the professional photo sometimes doesn't really presented the real situation of the rooms.
Hopefully this post could helps giving rough idea to those who are planning a trip to Mecca and Madinah soon.
In Mecca, we stayed at Fairmont Hotel and in Madinah, we opted for Shaza Al-Madinah. Both hotels have one similarity which is the super short distance to both Masjidil Haram and Masjidil Nabawi. When doing our booking we specifically requested a hotel that is near to the mosque because we had planned to leave the girls in the room during prayer time once in a while or when they're tired so the location of the hotel is essential. We did our booking under Mashaer Hajj and Umrah travel agent, a kuwaiti owned company. It so happened, we had 2 fellow Malaysian working there so we made our booking through them and Alhamdullilah, we got a very good discounted price. Much much cheaper than the published rate. Rezeki anak anak!
Another thing to consider is bed for Alis since she is big already and needed her own bed so we had to pay additional extra bed. After doing some research and comparison, we come to a conclusion that extra bed charges of hotels in Mecca was ridiculously high! Some hotel charged around 100 +/- riyals per night. After being advised by a friend, we bought hand pump air bed and masya allah, it is indeed a good investment. Not only it is very easy to assemble, the weight and size is also practical.
FAIRMONT HOTEL
:: Our hotel complex. There's 4-5 hotels in this complex alone. De' Saji located on another side of this complex ::
:: Personalized phone setting. Acik jakunnnnnnn ! ::
:: Comfortable and convenience airbed. We could save like a lot because of this and good news is, we can use it again and again and again ::
:: The hand pump ::
:: Our room. Not too big and not too small. Comfortable enough for us 4. A must have feature in both hotels I stayed is the over the head reading light. Very helpful when I need to read Al-Quran at night but the kids were asleep ::
:: Sink area ::
:: Separated toilet from shower ::
:: Shower area. The best shower I ever experienced. There's two shower head provided. The water pressure was superb you'll felt like taking shower under the waterfalls, seriously! Another must have feature in hotels here is the bench installed inside the shower. I believed this feature is meant for the elders so they can have their shower comfortably while seated and not worrying about the slippery floor ::
:: I love their shower, I heart their toiletries range but this feature is the winner! It had massage function. Masya allah, after coming back from a long day at mosque where your feet is swollen from too much walking and your body aching everywhere, having a warm shower, and getting free massages as long as you desire is much much better than food! ::
:: Love at the first sniff. I wonder where can I get this product range. I never see it in Kuwait. By far, the best shower gel I ever used! ::
:: This soap smells soooo nice, in a non food way ::
:: View from our room. We requested for Kaabah view room. Alhamdullilah .. ::
:: Erin and Alis' favorite spot, a window overlooking Kaabah and Masjidil Haram. Smudges of palm print on the glass window and errrrr maybe cheek and nose prints too, as a prove ::
:: Nice packaging eh ::
In term of foods, I personally feel Mecca has much more varieties compared to Madinah. For example, underneath our hotel complex there is 2 level food court consists of so many type of foods you'll definitely spoiled with choices. There's KFC, Baskin Robbins, Hardees, several arab cuisine outlet that offered Beriyani, Mandy rice, and grilled stuff. I also saw one Malaysian restaurant but it was closed during our stays. Well obviously, this food courts's price was pretty high compared to outside restaurant. Still, if you're too lazy to go outside, this food courts is perfect. However, we normally bought our food outside. Beside our hotel complex there's a shopping mall that offered souvenirs, attar, abaya, sajadah with much more competitive price but I always go to this building for it's food court . There's one shop selling grill stuff that fast becoming one of my favourite and staple food in Mecca. My day in Mecca is never complete without their Grilled Spicy Shrimp, I had this everyday and sometimes, every meal time kah kah kah. I had big appetites while I was there and it really worried my husband because I kept asking for rice! rice ! and rice!..
I'm sure you've had heard of De' Saji, the famous Malaysian restaurant owned by Felda. We had lunch there once and decided not to go again. It's quite a distance from our hotel, although not that far. Just next door complex. The food court was quite tired looking, stuffy and packed with people, mostly Malaysian. I heard of good reputations they held for serving nice Malaysian food but I believed it was only during Hajj season because Felda brought Malaysian chef to cook there during Hajj season. During our time, the food was so-so, not too bad and not too nice either. It's edible but honestly, not worth money spent. They had Ikan Bakar but we didn't bought it although we were tempted to. For 35 riyals, you'll get 1 medium size fish with air asam, cili kicap and budu. Although it's a rare stuff, we decided to passed. I may sounded biased because I tried their food just once so should you happened to be in Mecca, do give their food a try yeah :).
In Madinah anyhow, the choices of food is limited to my opinion. There's Hardees beside my hotel but it's always full. We opted for easier way out, buying nasi campur, Arab style at an open food court infront Masjidil Haram. They provided open eating area but as expected, it's always full with pilgrims and quite dirty so we normally tapau and eat in our room. Do try their ayam bakar! It's out of this world.
SHAZA AL-MADINAH
:: The concierge ::
:: A very nice head board, Notice the reading lamp again? ::
:: I love this lamp so much. Uniqueness. Wait till you switch on the light! ::
:: Taraaaaa... okayyyyy my picture didn't do justice to the beauty but it is really pretty. I would buy this if they sell it, however I've checked and only bathrobe were up for sale :( ::
:: Simple and nice touch. Since we came under Mashaer, we were given free extra bed for Alis to which we declined nicely and opted to use our air mattress instead. The room was not very spacious so I think air mattress doesn't took up much space, compared to bulky extra bed. We also gotten compliments of mini bar condiments so everything inside the minibar is free. Thank you Mashaer :) ::
:: Told you, their shower comes with marble stool ::
:: Our favorite breakfast spot. Why? Take a look at next picture for an answer ::
:: Enjoying your breakfast with this view, speechless! You don't get to see this view everyday. Masjidil Nabawi from our breakfast table ::
:: My husband took this while I was looking at the mosque during breakfast ::
:: Jalan jalan around Bazar on our last night in Madinah ::
GOING HOME
We begin our journey home after Friday prayer. It took almost 10 hours to reach Kuwait, of course toilet, dinner and solat break included. Compared to route from Kuwait-Mecca, route from Madinah-Kuwait has better facilities. They have pretty big and complete rest area in every 5-10 km apart. Some were decent, some were so-so and some were beyond dirty.
We stopped at one rest area for Maghrib prayer and dinner. We had Dujjaj mandy secara berjemaah that night. It's so fun and cheerful evening maybe because we were relieved that we had done our Umrah, everyone is well and healthy, Allah s.w.t made it easy for us and we were blessed with smooth journey in overall.
:: Mady's clan ::
:: Mr Yuzly's clan. 5 of the kids were missing in the picture. Most of them were outside playing ::
:: Mr Mohi's clan ::
Reached Kuwait safely after surviving massive sand storm on our way. Masya Allah I am used to sand storm considering the fact that I am living in the dessert and sand storm was just something you can't avoid but my sand storm experience was from inside home, never from outside because we normally stay inside. Since this time we were in a fast moving car, mengharung sandstorm is indeed a new albeit scary experience for us. The car was shaking so hard we can felt the motion of the sand dust that hits the body of the car. And the wind and the sound! Masya Allah it's very scary. I kept istighfar and pray so that nothing bad would happen. We're in the middle of nowhere with very limited visual view and even our driver have no clue of where we are when the sandstorm hit us.
Alhamdullilah, we arrived Kuwait around 4 am on 3rd March, safe and sound. We had a very smooth custom check at both Saudi border and Kuwait's side.
Syukran Ya Allah for everything.
This Umrah trip was indeed the best trip I've ever experienced, mentally, physically and spiritually and I prayed to be invited again to Baitullah soon.
Ma'assalama..
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