I woke up early the next morning in time for the buffet breakfast at the hotel. There was a lot more room than my hotel in Makkah although it would still fill up really quickly. There was also a wider selection of breakfast items which included roughly 5 hot meals, a bakery section, drinks and salad. The coffee and tea area consisted of instant coffee pouches that you’d have to mix in yourself, so it wasn’t ground coffee. The first morning I went down I had to queue up so that they could kind of check me in to make sure that I was entitled to the buffet breakfast. This was at a small desk right besides the lift which takes you down.
I was really looking forward to the breakfast but my sugar levels were still all over the place so I therefore avoided carbs as much as possible. No breads or bakery items like croissants or pastries. I didn’t really mind as I don’t really get hungry too often anyway.
As mentioned after about 6:30AM the area began to fill up really quickly with a long line of guests filling the area from the desk to the lifts. As it got busier it got a lot more difficult to pick what you wanted from the buffet which although inconvenient, it was unavoidable.
The tables were kept clean by the housekeepers and with white table cloth used the area looked bright and fresh which is a-nice to have early morning for breakfast. I think the only key difference with this hotel buffet breakfast compared to Emaar hotel is that the whole time I was there, I didn’t really make any conversation with other guests. I was mainly at breakfast by myself whereas previously there were brothers from Russia/Eastern Europe who would go to the effort of striking up a conversation despite both of us not speaking the same language.
I went to Masjid-an-Nabawi after breakfast for a small nafl prayer. Whilst there I took the time to just walk around the prayer hall and I came to find a section where there were some free books in different languages. There were about two sets of cases with 5-6 shelves each, each shelf dedicated to one language. I picked up a du’a (supplication) book that was written in English and had Arabic verses as well as the transliteration. I ended up taking this to give to my eldest nephew but stupidly I didn’t take 2 more regretfully. When I returned the next day. They were all gone. I had initially taken the book for myself which is why I never thought to take more but it was only later when I thought about passing these on to my nephews that I came back and failed to collect anymore.
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