Umrah Trip with Islam Freedom

[sarah86]

Asalam o alaikum,

I returned from Saudi on Sunday, and I must say, it was Amazing and very emotional

Islam Freedom were very good... Everything was as they said in the package. The only hiccups were what people caused themselves such as turning up late when certain time was given to meet up, not giving the correct information etc...

The only thing I did not like about them was that we were not introduced to the other group members and had to introduce ourselves, which I had no problem with, but just like any other group, the brothers and sisters (uncles and aunties) all did as they wished which again I had no problem with...

The hotel in Makkah, al firdouws hotel, was not very nice but alhamduliillah it was better than nothing, and the hotel in madina, al ashrak hotel, was lovely.

I hope this information is usefull to you all inshaAllah

Jazak Allah
sarah

[Amir Seo]

Jazakallah sister, NO doubt Islam freedom is a trusted name in the hajj and urmah services industry and they provide reliable and quality umrah and hajj services. However, there are some other names who provide umrah and hajj services on relatively cheaper prices like euroafricatravel, nabilhajj and umrah and http://www.umrahpackages.co.uk

[sarah86]

Yes but everyone has their own benefits... and Islam freedom gave good benefits to customersd

I only wanted to write about them because a lot of people have had bad experience, and its like chinese whispers, however, I wanted to share my experience
not to forget that the group thoroughly enjoyed themselves aswell and said they would also travel with Islam Freedom again !!

[Laila12]

Assalaamualaikum sister, jazak'allah khair for the information. My bro booked our umrah with Islam freedom and the hotel is the same as u mentioned jawharat al firdous, how bad would u say the hotel is? Our main requirement is that it is clean, and meets the basic requirements. Could you provide a little more info on the hotel please? Jazak'allah khair

[sarah86]

Walaikum salaam, Sorry for late reply
have been so busy !!

Well the hotel... I just felt that the bathroom should have been a little more cleaned...
All I can say yes it met the basic requirements inshaAllah it should all be good...

ummm they do room service, so PLEASE use it as we were only told on the last day !!
And it is safe to keep passport and money there aswell as I did .. Alhamdulillah

The lifts ARE nightmare
Just make sure u keep pressing the button constantly to get the lift to stop otherwise it wont... this happened every single time with us but mind you i got the hang of it
if its TIME FOR PRAYER THEN USE THE STAIRS do not waste time waiting for lifts

AND ITS a very long walk to the haram... but I wouldnt complain about it ... because it was just too amazing to complain about the long walk
We always prayed upstairs because downstairs was just hard to get through... upstairs was alot more calm... (gate number 74)

and dont make the same mistake as me... SPEND AS MUCH TIME IN HARAM AS YOU CAN

if you wanna shop... just shop around after maghrib... and esha and after esha... but after fajr... forget breakfast... and perform tawaf... make dua ..
After fajr... Its such a beauty to be out there I so loved it ...

when are you going ?
oh and also ... buy a bottle of water... finish it off and then fill the bottle with zam zam and put it in the fridge... it was lovely to drink zam zam when it was boiling hot and you just get bak to the hotel .. !!

Their Ziyarath isnt so brilliant...

Also if you can, then perform another umrah whilst there.. I wish I did now !!
someone who went with us, performed umrah more than once (i think 4 times) he just took the taxi and went...
someone else from our group also did the same but he did it once more and did it during the night... he said 'I woke up, and thought what am I still doing here, i got out of bed, caught the taxi and went to Masjid Ayesha, and then made my journey'

[Umm2two]

Assalam alaykum,

JazakAllah kheir for the review sister,

Can you tell me how long it takes to walk from al firdous to the haram? I also read about a shuttle service to and from the hotel....did you use that?

Im going with islam freedom in may in sha Allah.

[sarah86]

Walaikum salaam,

Umm, well I think its good 10 mins walk, however, during prayer times at one point it took me about 30 mins ... Every day it was about 20 mins walk to and from due to the crowd
During prayer time, its best to leave about 30 mins before azaan, and atleast 30 mins to 1 hour after prayer as its so crowded...

Shuttle service, I never saw such thing...
I havnt even heard about it ...
All I saw was when it was time for prayer, no car, bus, coach were to come into the roads, as the police would be directing people to pray... and the roads were full of people ...

Please remember us in ur dua's ... and make the most of it !
Ma salam

[Laila12]

Salaams,

I have returned from umrah a few days ago. I travelled with Islam Freedom, insha'Allah over the next week or so I will write a full review when I get more time but for now I just wanted to write a few things about Islam Freedom. Firstly I really would NOT recommend them. If I had seen this site before booking I would not have booked with them but unfortunately by the time I came across this site it was too late.

The main reason I would not go with them is that they are highly disorganised, you will barely hear from them the whole time you are out there, so its basically like not being in a group. They do not provide you with much information at all, and when performing umrah they rush you so much that you don't enjoy it as much as you should as it feels like its just a task on the organisers list to get done! The other main point is although they claim the organisers can speak three languages, they cant! The group came from the UK but majority spoke and understood English and Urdu, the organiser spoke VERY poor urdu and NO ENGLISH! therefore communication was a big problem as they could not explain stuff very well. I am not writing this to be cruel or unjust, I just don't want people going with an organisation who lie and are ruining people's umrah experiences especially if you are going for the first time.
I will provide a more detailed review soon insha'Allah as there are some things about our trip that I think people should know before trusting this organisation!

[sarah86]

Walaikum Salaam...

So sorry to hear that you were disapointed..

U r correct about poor urdu and no english... however, we were contacted many times by our guides, especially the one in madinah, so its sad that they hardly contacted u.. when we performed our umrah, we had a lady in the wheel chair who had a male from the hotel who pushed her, he was lovely, hes the one that guided us and help us to recite dua's... our leader disapeared,, lol i just remembered that ...

But Alhamdulillah I am so glad that ours went well...
how was ur ziyarath? did they say the same to you, only spend 15/20 mins ?
we were told that but we took longer

[Mewxihas]

I agree with Laila, we returned last week too. Laila were you in my group? Sarah you started positive but to be honest your experience does not sound good either. We were constantly told off during Zyarat and were rushed. The tour guide was a joker! Luckily we were actually with Zam Zam travel so hotels were fine but without realising the zyarat etc was arranged with Islam Freedom group, although Zam zam told me they had nothing to do with the guy. We had literally no contact from the organiser. Had we not known the group members in our hotel we would not even have found out the time our final coach left madina for Jeddah airport!! (traveled 1 april -13th april)

[sarah86]

My experience was great Alhamdulillah !

Zam Zam have everything to do with islam freedom, because 2 families from my group were from Zam Zam

Sad that you didnt have a great experience

But I still clearly remember that I was called on my mobile, even the madinah guide called whilst we were on the way from madinah to jeddah to ask if we were ok and if we needed anything then to contact him any time. I clearly remember both the guides calling and the makkah guide knocking on our hotel door to tell us the time of Ziyarath, what time we were to leave for Madinah, and what time we had to leave for Jeddah .. !