Dar El Salam Travel

You have been warned. We paid $ 20,000+ for 2 people.
We didn’t get what we paid for:
The days advertised & stayed at each hotel do not match up. We left the good hotels before standard checkout time, but realized that Dar El Salam (DES) counted that as a day when selling us the package.
Also, we were told we would be staying at the Apartment Hotel (the least desirable place to stay because it moves one so far away from the Haram, one has to drive there) for 4 days, but we stayed there for 6+. We could not go to the Haram as promised because the Apartment Hotel is too far away and buses stop running there every year when Hajj approaches. Thus no salat in the Haram… DES knows this (b/​c in the biz for 25+ years) & yet still promises that it can take people to the Haram from these Apartment Hotels. The Apartment Hotel for the least expensive packages are a dorm-​like complex where 4 ladies/​men share each room w/​bathroom regardless of what package you paid for.
We paid for our package after researching the hotels & then all of our hotels changed without our approval.
We were told the LA Office would be handling our information & then the NY Office started handling our information. We are based in the Bay Area. Trying to reach anyone in NY was very diff. because no one answered the phone & there was no way to leave a voice message.
The accommodations at the Movenpick Hotel, Madinah were not 5-​star as advertised. We stayed in the Haram tower, not the main/​nice tower, but were never told this. There was no clock, no tea kettle, no extra blankets or hangers, no water waiting for us when we got there. We called the concierge and could not get these things. 3-​star hotels have at least this much. You may be thinking well this is Hajj, but DES promises & charges you for a 5-​star hotel, but does not deliver.
We also saw the $ 11,000 dollar a night suite our luggage was housed in the day we were leaving for Makkah & felt completely cheated because we learned that DES people were staying in that suite; why did they stay in such an expensive suite while their paying customers had such mediocre accommodations?
The «leaders» for DES are unpaid volunteers, thus some were careless or could not help during emergencies:
Upon arrival we had no phone numbers for our Group Leaders/​Medic when we were in Madinah. We were not even introduced until we had an emergency.
Sister Naz & Qari Saab, Group Leaders for sisters Bus #7 & brothers Bus #8 Program 1M, played favorites. Sister Naz w/​extended family she knew from NY (a young sister w/​2 of her friends and their husbands). She called them her «children» & they knew where we needed to be, when to get food & all the best bathrooms were etc., before anyone else. Qari Saab played favorites w/​those who are part of his mosque back in NJ. This was entirely unfair, obvious to all & above all not how group leaders should be behaving as they are supposed to be helping others on their most imp. journey of their life.
For ex. for the sisters who weren’t her «children», Sister Naz did not walk with them to the mosque at the Miqat point. She did her wudu & left some sisters to fend on their own. I missed salat, & so did other sisters, because we could not find the mosque as there is no signage to follow once exiting the wudu station & it was our first time doing Hajj. In addition, Qari Saab left us to fend for ourselves once we returned from a DES sanctioned trip to visit our parents, the most scariest moment of our trip…
During Hajj:
Food in the Mena camps was often in the direct sunlight & ran out by the time it was our turn to eat. We were told there was nothing that could be done about this. The coolers around the Mena camps had plenty of soda, but water became scarce.
A fight arouse over a bathroom situation. We are told that the DES bathrooms in the Mena camps were exclusive to us by Sister Naz, when in fact they were not. They were public restrooms (the most expensive packages get better, more private bathrooms). A DES pilgrim & one from Caravan got into a physical altercation because of this information. DES leaders should not be spreading misinformation.
We had to plan & pay for our Eid Tawaf on our own. Qari Saab was against it, but could not offer us a date & time where DES would take us & we wanted to follow the Hajj rites as they were meant to be performed. We had no religious excuse to do both the Eid Tawaf and the final Tawaf together.
Program 1M left too late for Muzzdalifah & as a result by the time we got to the camp site, there was no space to sleep. People from our group slept on the roads and we were forced to leave at 2:00 am as opposed to right after Fajr.
The final Tawaf and bus leaving for the airport were not executed as per the DES posted written and unchanged schedule. After being told DES would not take us, DES did, but we paid for a taxi back.
DES ended our trip by making us wait 11 hours at the airport for our flight back home, blaming KSA.

I would not recommend this travel agency to any one,
The amount of false advertising, discrimination, racism, lies, disrespect for women, inhuman treatment to women, old and sick people was beyond tolerance
.The camp in Mina was so crowded (double booked), we stayed 4 days with no AC (temperature was 40″ c)
After many complaints we got an old fan we used instead of fixing the AC, which all of a sudden just after inspection from the Ministry of health, the AC started working and the camp was freezing.
The path rooms were so dirty, smelly and the water smelled like sewage.
In Arafah, our tent had no AC, the fans were not enough and we were not allowed to join group 4 or 5 who had AC, chairs and Coffee.
During the classes in US, We were promised to have a group leader to guide us step by step specially it is our first time to perform Hajj, once we got there, we were told that we are on our own.
After coming back safely to US, it took me almost a month to recover from the cough and 5 days of 104 temperature, I called the KSA embassy in DC, after many attempted I was finally able to talk to someone who really did not provide any help other than asking me to GOOGLE the ministry of Hajj in KSA and to write about my unfortunate experience during my Hajj.
. I sent an Email a month ago. …guess what. no reply.
Now I know why this agency still in business, and why that challenging and careless smile on hajj Mustaffa (the owner) face .
I would give them ZERO, but it is not provided on the scale.
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Amazing! First time to do hajj and I loved it! I’m only 25 and I thought it would be to rough for me, but they made it very comfortable. I don’t speak Arabic very well but I was surprised to see all group leaders helping me. Amazingly clean, organized, great people. I must say that they hired the best team

We just returned from Hajj and traveled with Dar El Salam. In general, we did receive everything that we had been promised — but we had paid for one of their highest priced packages and there were some major areas where they fell short of expectations:
* Pre-​trip planning: Sessions limited to a few cities, poor video recordings of sessions online, no written documents sent on what to pack, what not to, etc.
* Communication: Emails and requests went unanswered. Lots of missing details in the travel documents.
* Group leaders: They had said we would have a group leader with us at all times — in reality we saw our group leader only the first day. Never saw him again.
* Transportation: They assigned us to a specific bus number — but in reality they had too many people for the number of busses so there was a mad fight to get a seat on their busses. This was a major problem through the whole trip.
* Luggage: They had promised handling the luggage (important for our elderly companions) but in fact, most pilgrims had to handle their own luggage the whole time.
* Organization: Things were highly disorganized. Lots of «volunteers» who were leaders but they changed very frequently and didn’t know any of the details enough to help with problems or questions. Our last night in Jeddah rooms weren’t ready in the hotel — many people waited hours for just a room; several people found that their rooms were double-​booked.
Hotel rooms were fine and the food was great and in abundance. We understand that there are limitations to the services offered due to the mass number of people in the region during the Hajj season. However, there were several areas which could have been improved with some better communication and coordination. I don’t know if there are better agencies that operate in the US. But I can tell you that we were not entirely happy with Dar El Salam and will not recommend them without a significant warning to our friends.