Banyan Tree AlUla

Overall it's a great hotel. Food can be improved (both restaurants and breakfast). At check in we were not asked to leave some money on the room for charges. So at dinner when I asked to leave the dinner charges on the room, we were told its not possible and one of the staff members went back to the room with us so we can settle the bill with a credit card. This was quite strange, never experienced that in a 5 star hotel before.

The location is wonderful. The tents are spacious and well spaced to give you privacy, the rooms are well furnished, and everyone who works there is courteous and do their best to serve. I would give it a 10 if it were not for the breakfast. First of all they could use a bigger hall, expand the buffet area and create more space between the tables. But most importantly is the quality of the food. This is a property managed by Accor, a French company, and yet the croissants are dry, and the pastries are uninteresting. The cheese selection is very limited. The jelly/jam/honey selection is also small. They may think of having the coffee and the juice stations outside instead of having to order them from the servers. Coffee at the rock pool is expensive, 115 riyals for two cups of coffee (50 each + 15% VAT) is ridiculous. It should be complimentary especially since they use the same coffee machine and coffee pods provided free in the room.

Aesthetically pleasing. Every inch of this place is beyond beautiful. Much quieter and much nicer than its counterparts. Privacy here is great with your own in-villa pool. However, keep in mind that you’ll be heavily reliant on buggies throughout your stay at the hotel. Request buggies 10-15 mins before you need to be out the door. The restaurants here are decent but would not recommend if you’re not staying at Banyan.

Absolutely amazing hotel, and highly recommended staying there. why only 4 stars - the main pool is broken since october last year with no indication of when it will be fixed. and the pool clearly is a feature that one would like to use. and no notice about that online. they let you use the pool of another hotel, but still. we didn’t mind that much, since we had our own pool villa, but still - 60USD for a burger… i mean burger was good, but was it that good? and i think it was one of the cheapest items in the menu - for the price of the hotel, i would expect to have dinner included as well. but overall, amazing location, amazing rooms, very highly recommended.

We chose Banyan Tree for our Honeymoon, and were happy to hear we got upgraded to a Villa with Pool. This should be a 5* experience and everything builds up to it. The landscape is breathtaking. The curation of the environment is done at the sand grain level. The food is worth a Michelin star, it is so fresh. The Spa is heavenly, its products of highest quality, taking you way back to Asian. The shisha salon is the perfect spot to enjoy sunset. The pool in our villa is with fresh water and slightly heated. The outdoor shower is cooling on the hot afternoon and the bed is soft and extremely comfortable. The 3 nights we spent there felt like a dream. We went to see Hegra in a private vintage land rover, went to Old Town and Somewhere and Pink Camel for dinning. We enjoyed a sunset at the Elephant Rock, another one horse-riding and spent a full morning doing a Via Ferrara with Diva. We ate so many dates and drank delicious juices and nojitos. The one thing that casted a shadow on this beautiful experience was that the Banyan Tree site is so wide, it requires a buggy to go back to reception. The team in charge of that is utterly incompetent and we often had to wait for 20mins to get a buggy. Other guests were literally waiting outside of their villa and hitchhiking a ride on other people’s buggy. Same thing with ordering a car to take us places, they were often late or sometimes forgotten. It took us an hour to go to Maraya Social when only 15mins by foot but they wouldn’t let you walk for security reasons. It is such a shame for a hotel of such standing to be failing such an important part of the experience, as every movement became a massive planning exercise, something we would have liked to avoid on our honeymoon. I would still recommend the Banyan Tree Al’Ula but would say, do make sure to book a villa that is near the South Reception so you can walk. And get your own car from the airport so you don’t rely on the hotel’s car. Having said that, Hassan, the driver was spectacular. Nanim, at the spa, had god’s hands and Niko, at the breakfast restaurant was the most gentle start of our days. We wish we could say we’ll be back but these sorts of places are truly once a lifetime experience, so very grateful we got to experience it!