Rixos Al Mairid Ras Al Khaimah

There are many positives about this hotel which was a Hilton resort until May 2024. The resort is beautiful with lovely grounds and with direct access to a private beach. There are many things to do including schedules of activities and an entertainment programme. Great if you have children. It is also clean and well manicured. We went during the kids half term holiday, the hotel was fully booked and finding a sun lounger was not a problem given the number available and the hotels policy of not being able to reserve them. The resort staff were helpful in finding loungers, chairs at the dance shows etc. A few stray cats around the resort but harmless. The service with the exception of one interaction is fantastic. From checking in, to housekeeping to restaurant and bar staff, everyone was so friendly. A particular shout out to Dilip from the Turquoise Restaurant who made sure we had vegan and vegetarian food to eat at every occasion we were there (which was a lot). There was plenty of variety at the breakfast, lunch and dinner buffet, and a special kids buffet. However as vegetarians it is not easy to navigate. Whilst allergens are displayed on the food labels you cannot assume the food is vegetarian. For example, the Mexican bean soup with gluten listed as the only allergen was made with some sort of meat stock. This means you need a chef who speaks your language to take you through which items are vegetarian at every buffet. A simple change to mark items with a V as other hotels do would be so much better and a quick fix. For vegans it is more difficult but the restaurant was more than happy to make special meals if you told them what you wanted to eat in advance. The salad bar and fruit bar were always there for fall back. The a la carte restaurants had little vegetarian/vegan choice on the menus. I wish I could tell you they accommodated food alterations however in our 5 night stay we were not able to eat anywhere other than the buffet. This is where the Rixos lets itself down as a 5 star hotel. You can only book a restaurant in person at 9am at a special desk in the lobby. The queues at start at 8:30am. I’ve never seen anything like it. Actually, I have - it’s the budget airline model where you have to queue for everything. But definitely not in a 5 star hotel. Sadly Cecilia who was responsible for making the bookings the day we tried was unfriendly and unapproachable. I guess she is the face of managements poor process, so in the firing line for customers unhappiness in this regard. You will see from multiple reviews that others have complained about this for months yet there have been no changes to let guests have at least one experience in a proper restaurant during their stay. Some suggestions for management to fix this long standing issue. 1. Limit the number of times guests can visit restaurants during their stay so everyone can have at least one opportunity to visit. 2. Open the restaurants earlier to accommodate one extra sitting which would work for those with small children. 3. Open the restaurants at lunch time. 4. Open more restaurants. 5. Create an online booking system. 6. Move the grumpy staff member to a back office role if she cannot even pretend to be helpful. The indoor and outdoor gyms were good but the spa facilities need updating. The communal changing rooms, sauna and spa is unusual in the Middle East and stopped us from using them. The ladies hairdresser (Jack) is excellent and the rest of the team were also very friendly. The rooms are standard and can do with sprucing up. We had a nice view of the beach away from the pool area so it was very peaceful. Unfortunately our room had an issue with the noise from the air conditioning system. The first person we complained to in guest relations didn’t do anything so we reported it again to Prakash at reception. He was so empathetic and sent someone to look at it straight away. Eventually he found us an alternative room as they needed time to fix the issue. Unfortunately that room was very near the stage which is a noisy area so we opted to stay in the room with the noisy AC (the lesser of 2 evils). The noise was apparently connected to water sounds from people upstairs flushing the toilet. Prakash found another option the next day but that room was smaller than ours so again we opted to put up with the cracky water sounds! The lifts may also need some attention. We passed by someone shouting there 15 people including kids stuck in one of the lifts. Glad that was not us! The ultra all inclusive package is good if you like to drink with a full set of alcoholic and non alcoholic drinks included. You really don’t need to spend any more money whilst you are here. Food is available most of the day with the exception of 11:00-12:30 and 16:00-18:30. There is even a midnight feast buffet between midnight and 2am!! We loved the fruit bar where there was someone on hand to cut fresh fruit and juice fruit and vegetables in the afternoon. Baskin Robins ice cream available on site too. No poolside drink service available for those who may like that. The hotel mini bar was also included in the package (soft drinks only) and there were a couple of snack options there. Food was in plentiful supply so we did not need to use room service which did have a couple of clearly labelled vegan options and easy to identify vegetarian options unlike the buffet. Overall good value for money and in my opinion sits comfortably as a 4 star experience with the potential for 5 stars with a few tweaks. would I go again? YES.

Our family holiday was fantastic, we loved the convenience of rooms very close to the beach, housekeeping cleaned our room frequently. From the moment we arrived, the receptionist escorted us until the room explaining to us all amazing activities and entertainment is available. The guest relation manager took care of all our needs. We spent the evening near the stage enjoying the live show, we had dinner at the Turkish restaurant - overall food was all fine dining - good quality. We value these special moments, we will definitely come back!

The resort was nice, very clean. Staff were great and the buggy service was excellent. The restaurants really let the resort down, the buggy had a great selection however could be extremely busy, the a la carte menus were poor and you were lucky if you managed to get in to one due to the system used, unlike rixos on the palm that has fantastic menus and never an issue getting a table. The lunch choices at Sol weee poor compared to other hotels of this level.

We believe you have only just taken this Hotel over as it is not quite up to the usual Rixos standards gardens not clean and tidy although they were being done whilst we were there outside paths need repairing the five days we were there. The bricks were untouched at the back of the beach villas. The gardens were very scruffy inside the hotel was clean but breakfast was very disappointing. Sometimes having a hard job to get plates and places to sit, the hotel was not full on our arrival so we are thinking in the summer you will struggle if you do not open another food area for breakfast Disappointing there was only one bar that we could have alcoholic drinks in at night time this was a smokers room and we do not smoke so only choice was to go outside where the evenings were quite chilly. Entertainment was very much of the same each night so that was disappointing. We did note that some sunbeds were new somewhat old. The pool bar was not open so again this was disappointing. Staff were very friendly. Some could do with some more training. We wish you all the luck in the future to bring this hotel up to Rixos standards as at the moment we only see this is a three star hotel.