Arabian Ranches 1 - Upgraded Three Bedroom Villa

Modern place but would not stay here again Positive: The place was modern and felt like it had been recently renovated. Beds were comfortable. As we were staying for two months, and after much persuading, we were offered one free clean. Al Reem as a location was a pleasant place with some well-established greenery. The communal swimming pool is large and there's a basketball hoop and tennis court too. Arabian Ranches is a nice place to walk / run when the sun is down. But it's a little inconveniently located at the farthest end of Ranches. It takes over 10mins in a cab just to exit Ranches. Negative: We experienced a number of issues, and our main contact was unresponsive at times. As a result, we would not recommend staying here, nor would we book this place again. - Arrival: We had to wait up to 45minutes stuck at the security gate in our taxi with two young children in the Peak August heat because our main contact hadn't sorted our security papers to enter Al Reem 1. Not a great welcome. - AC: On our first night the AC didn't work upstairs (it was 39 degrees indoors) and unsafe to sleep through with young children so we had to all pile into the downstairs area to sleep. The AC didn't get fixed till the following evening (the contractors had to break the ceiling of one of the bathrooms to do this and the ceiling was left unrepaired). We requested some sort of compensation or something complimentary given this huge health hazard but was ignored by our contact. - Bugs: There was an ant infestation downstairs in the kitchen area. Every time we sat down on the sofa we would find an ant crawling over us. We had to kill at least 5 cockroaches at different points during our stay. - Internet: The internet dropped out – twice – and it was difficult to get it back up through the owner. This was fixed after 36hrs. - Hazards: There was a shattered pane of glass outside in the garage area, not ideal with children around. - Lights: The downstairs kitchen light stopped working. We reported it to the owner but it was never repaired. - Balcony: Last, one balcony was unusable because a neighbour's overgrown tree totally blocks it. - Value for money: Overall felt like very poor value for money.