Habitas AlUla

A place for a refreshing retreat. We stayed in a celestial villa for 7 nights. We were picked up at the airport on time. Was given a warm welcome by Fatima who explained the activities and facilities well and was toured around the resort before getting dropped off at our villa. The whole set up in the resort is amazing and peaceful. Having to ride e-bikes or golf cart to go around the place is a plus. Never had issues with Wifi. Tama restaurant by the pool serves good food but given that we were there for 1 week, we felt that the options are quite limited. Not to mention, the lunch menu is the same as dinner. The staff are friendly and attentive, Riza served us most of the time and was such a lovely person. Pool had the right temperature for a hot summer day. The lifeguard was very attentive to our needs in terms of umbrella adjustment and watching over when the winds were quite rough. The villa was spacious, and it was serviced a few times during the day which was nice. Had enough sockets in the right places. There's also a moon telescope in the room. We had a small issue when it was a very windy night. However, it was fixed immediately in the morning and the manager reached out to us as well to make sure everything is alright. There are a few points which can be improved especially it being a luxury resort. - more food options at the restaurant - improve the moonshell cafe as the service we got there was not great - more/adjust the lighting as we kept missing the turn to our villa when riding by ebike at night - when there was a stargazing activity that we joined, we were informed prior that there will be someone hosting it. However when we went, it was nothing, basically just lay and look at the stars by yourself which is okay but we were expecting something else. Overall our experience and time there was amazing. Giving it one less star due to room rates.

When we arrived they immediately came to the car as we drove up to the lobby and asked for the keys and told us to go inside to check in. We received a nice welcome drink and cool towel in the lobby. We were not told that we had to call ahead to get our car to leave the property. On the way to our room we were given a quick tour of the grounds. The pool is the highlight of the hotel. Our second day was horrible. As we were getting dressed for dinner a male housekeeper burst into our room without knocking and saw my friend completely exposed and me half dressed. When asked what he wanted he said he wanted to put cotton swabs in the bathroom. I found that hard to believe bc he didn’t have anything in his hands and when I checked there were cotton swabs in the bathroom. We immediately called management to file a complaint. It gets worse, as we continued getting dressed my friend found a dirty cleaning cloth in her luggage on top of her clean clothes which was obviously left behind by housekeeping. When the manager arrived we showed the dirty cloth to him and he couldn’t believe it. This was beyond unacceptable. He offered us lunch and a room upgrade. We declined the upgrade. We’ve never experienced anything like this before at a hotel. We stayed at Habitas AlUla for two nights and asked for a refund for one night only for this horrible experience. We were promised a refund and still have not received it 3 weeks later. For $1,200 our villa was very basic, there’s no TV in the room, limited toiletries, no Bluetooth connectivity.

It has potential, but it's not there yet. I will split this review into two parts to explain why I think this property still has work to do to get to the 5-star luxury level. 1) Facilities and location: Great. Beautiful spot, very nice villas, however basic toiletries / amenity kits missing. Beautiful infinity pool. Very nice breakfast. 2) Service: Unfortunately, service was very inconsistent. While personnel in the breakfast & restaurant area were great, we had a poor check-in experience (for example, we did not get information about breakfast, or how to get to our villa, or activities, etc.), very slow response to some basic asks and overall not much attention to detail. Then depending on the shift, some other front-desk employees were more proactive and assertive. So, again, lack of consistency in service. I'm being picky as it is a 700/900-euro a night property, promoting themselves as a highly luxurious stay. The service was not at this level. Amenities in the bathroom are poor (just a soap and then tubes of shower gel and shampoo like a Holiday Inn), you pay 10 euro for a water by the pool, and the list continues. As a wrap-up example of the lack of attention to detail, we got an email asking for feedback, mentioning 'please click on the link below to submit it' and... There was no link ☺️

We only spent one night, service was excellent, people friendly and the surrounding area is like none other I've seen. Fun electric bike to ride, good spot to stay to see the AlUla tombs area.

This place has my whole heart ??? So serene ???????? plus the e-bike facility. The views are spectacular. Our villa was near Restaurant. Restaurant food can be better.