I have been visiting this hotel since it opened, I have usually stayed for four weeks. In the beginning when the hotel was new I would have considered it five star plus. It was also the second hotel on the Jordanian side. The other being mainly used by Jordanians.

In the mean time I have got the basket of fruit, and sometimes a bottle of wine as a re-visitor.

The down part is that the rooms need upgrading: I have stayed in the village and in the main house.
TV is the CRT type with snowy picture on most channels.
Wi-Fi - this is slow and expensive. In Europe we are spoiled with free hots-spots, even McDonald's is free.
Rooms immaculate and clean, the staff work very hard and are well managed and the response to requests excellent - little things like dripping taps. In a land where water is more precious than "Gold" this is heart breaking.

Food: Now we are near and dear to my heart,
The main restaurant: Self service, 10 years ago this was excellent, In a land where they were trading while we Europeans were still in caves, time (while I am on holiday) uses a calendar, not a clock. In the old days the cooks in the self service would be happy to fulfill (just about) any outrageous culinary request. I believe that the Swiss have got their tentacles into the control mechanism. Little things, like the waffles are precooked and stacked. The difference between a waffle fresh off the iron and cooked half an hour ago, what can I say! Service in the restaurant is excellent, no sooner is your head tilted than there is a waiter at your shoulder. Being self service you can eat as much of whatever you wish. On the other hand it can get rather crowded. There are other banqueting rooms, perhaps at weekends and holiday times they could see how many people are staying and split the diner time visitors from the weekend-ers and the longer stay <Residents>. There are quite often 40 plus people who stay for 3 or more weeks.

The other restaurants: They are expensive and my advice is that if you wish to have an Italian meal, then this is not the place.

Gym: Fitness is not given a high priority in this part of the world.

Spa: Empty and desolate. The sauna was way tooo hot, the saline pools were not of a dead sea concentration. Shame really, about 10% instead of 30%.

Ramadan: part of our stay was during Ramadan, the taste of the food went down. I understand that the devout cooks are not allowed to taste (eat) during the daylight hours and so the food is prepared with a mixture of recipe, smell and memory.

Some things need fixing with investment.

I would probably categorize this hotel as Indian "Havelli"- ol'time palaces. It's was so unique and mystic, amazingly sized rooms, huge courtyards, and beautiful massive pool! Right on the dead sea ...could float on the sea water! Clear view of Israel! I could never forget the decor of this place. Though I was disappointed with the spa offerings, it had a wait period of 2 days and we stayed only for two days! Highly recommended!!!

I like this hotel very much. The Spa is great and staff friendly and wanting to please. My only negative is that there were only two dining choices open in February, either Luigi's(Italian) or the buffet inside the hotel. One more would have been nice!

I particularly loved the arabic village style of the resort. The poolside rooms were a dream - great decor, spacious and opening straight on to a lovely large pool - hard to tear yourself away from to sample the other hotel pools. In the evenings the seaside bar and pool were a lovely place to chill out. Very nice spa too.