ibis Malabo 3 stars

Booked with Ibis Malabo when I visited the country ! The check in experience was truly poor. First of all , the front desk lady called Okomo, she never smiles and seems always angry. But anyways, when we are at the part to clear the room fees, I checked with her whether I can pay in USD. She said yes. According to my confirmation from ( I booked directly via ALL app) it was shown USD$124.15. I paid her USD$125 cash. She then looked at me and said I am USD$5 short. I repointing the confirmation form saying it should be USD$124.15 and not USD$130. She called her manager, who is also not that friendly looking said it’s USD$130. If you don’t pay, I won’t give you the key card. Yes, I know, it’s only USD$5, piece of cake; but this is a matter of integrity and professionalism. You can’t just add another USD$5 if you want. Then my tour guide stepped in and paid the room fee via CFA and I gave him the USD. The room, typical Ibis room, but was smelly and moist. I had a terrible sleep that night. But only good thing was that they remembered I needed to leave early and prepared a plate of breakfast for me. Overall, my experience was bad, it was not a good stay. Share with you for your reference !

The staff were pleasant and the rooms were quiet with controllable A/C and the standard Ibis bathroom, (although the extractor didn't work). Breakfast was good although it cost extra for an omelette! Disliked · The hotel is very tired and needs a 100% renovation, that said it was covered in scaffolding all around the outside, but that doesn't mean they are going to do anything with the dated rooms. I last stayed here in 2016 and they still have the same tiny TV in a unit with no magazines and less than 50% of the TV channels working and only a "component" input! The restaurant menu is very basic with the same options for lunch & dinner, with no draft beers and bottles are 33cl. The WIFI is abysmal/slow 0.41 Mbs download and I got better speeds using a MiFi.

IBIS MALABO The hotel is of the normal IBIS Standard that you find in many cities i.e basic rooms. TV sets are very small with a lot of "non disponible:" channels. The A/C is permanently set at 18Deg C and cannot be adjusted by the room occupant which can be very uncomfortable when "on" or "off" Choice of menu in the restaurant rather poor despite the good efforts made by the staff

I stayed here twice during my visit to Equatorial Guinea. The hotel is located in the new part of Malabo between the airport and the central city. If you want to see the tourist sights in central Malabo, you need transport to get there. I was in Rooms 102 and 228, which were identical, and the same as the room I had later when I stayed in the ibis in Bata. Each had a big bed, TV, a big desk with a chair, small sofa built into the wall, closet, in-room safe, fridge, AC and full-length mirror. The bathroom has a shower but no bath. The hair dryer was slow, so I used my own. I found the liquid soap dispensers at the sink and in the shower a bit fiddly at first. The Wi-Fi here is very bad indeed, so you need a lot of patience to do anything more complicated than sending or receiving text-only messages. The staff told me that Internet quality is a problem all over town. The restaurant was decent, but not outstanding. I ate outside, as there are plenty of tables and chairs outside, which seemed to be the preferred seating option for everyone else too. (There’s indoor seating if you want that instead.) But apply your bug repellant, as there are mosquitoes. Incidentally, I didn’t notice any other female guests staying at the hotel, so it seemed to be a business crowd rather than a tourist crowd – which is hardly surprising given the small number of tourists in Equatorial Guinea. Trying to organize an airport pickup was ridiculous and has resulted in my rating this hotel with three stars instead of four. I am a woman and was traveling by myself. The travel information issued by my country’s government warned about using random taxis, as there have been knifepoint robberies, particularly of women. So I thought it best to organize an airport transfer instead of finding a taxi at the airport. I had considerable back and forth with the hotel over this, in which they kept telling me to just get a taxi at the airport, even though I explained that I was a woman traveling by myself and didn’t wish to do so for security reasons. Finally they said the driver they usually use was on vacation. I ended up getting a ride with someone I met on the plane who was going in the direction of the hotel. But, really, I am flabbergasted that an ibis couldn’t have arranged an airport transfer, especially for a woman expressing security concerns. It wasn’t a hard thing to do – even if the usual driver wasn’t available – and there was no excuse for that shabby service.

I stayed in Ibes Malabo for a week. As it was my first time in Malabo I was impressed with how I was met by the front desk staff. He promised to give me the best room. Well, the room was clean, bathroom clean though small and away from the hassle of people coming in and out. However, the best room failed me on my last night! I came back to the room with a faulty toilet flusher. I reported and their in-house “mechanic” as they call him fixed it. Around 9pm I face a different issue, water was dripping from the overhead AC unit. So much that I had to contain it with two towels. I again went downstairs again to report, hoping they change my room as they fix it but no, they called the mechanic to come fix again. Took him about 15 mins to fix. In all my last day was sour but the other days were fairly ok. Some observed cons: Lack of variety during breakfast Few staff speaking English No room service Pros: Visa card accepted Clean rooms