The St. Regis Red Sea Resort, Saudi Arabia

Why book?

Although The St. Regis Red Sea Resort is the second hotel to open in Saudi Arabia’s ambitious The Red Sea tourism giga-project (Six Senses Southern Dunes launched in November 2023), this is the first resort to launch on the actual shores of the Red Sea – which, for many travellers, is the point of the destination.

The resort is a game-changer for Saudi Arabia. Ten years ago, even the most prescient travel forecaster would have been unlikely to envisage a property like this in the Kingdom, where overwater villas pop up out of pristine turquoise waters like their counterparts in Bora Bora, shorts and swimwear are de rigeur daytime wear for men and women, and a beach club serves mocktails and zero-proof beers.

But it’s the pristine underwater world here, with its wealth of marine life, that’s likely to be the main draw and The St. Regis is perfectly positioned for those who want to get out and explore it.

Set the scene

Comparing the destination to the Maldives feels overly simplistic, yet it was still the first thing that popped into my mind when I saw the string of overwater villas perched above the shimmering Al Wajh Lagoon. While the sand may not have the same powdery quality as the Maldivian islands, the waters here compete with the clearest in the world – limpid turquoise in the shallows and hypnotic blue in the depths.

The St. Regis sits 22 kilometres offshore from the Saudi mainland on one of the Ummahat islands, and is reached by a 25-minute amphibious seaplane from Red Sea International Airport, or a 45-minute speedboat transfer. The island is 2.7 kilometres end-to-end, or five kilometres if you walk from the tip of one of the overwater villa boardwalks to the other. Look back to the mainland in the east and you’ll see mountains silhouetted against the sky, along with the occasional barge working on one of the other resorts under development. Look to the west and all you’ll see is the Red Sea stretching far into the distance.

The Kengo Kuma-designed resort’s 90 villas are divided between Dune Villas on the beach and Coral Villas that sit on stilts above the water. At the centre of the resort are restaurants, the spa, the water sports centre and the main pool and beach. Lounge on a sun bed here and you’ll see the soon-to-open Nujuma, A Ritz-Carlton Reserve, on another of the Ummahat islands, just across the water.

It’s worth pointing out that The St. Regis Red Sea Resort is located more than 1,500 kilometres north of Bab-el-Mandeb, the flashpoint in the current Red Sea shipping crisis.

The backstory

The first island resort to open in the 28,000-square-kilometre destination of The Red Sea, the St. Regis is paving the way for those that will follow. The destination will be home to 16 resorts by the end of 2025, and a total of 50 by 2030, as well as residential properties, luxury marinas, golf courses and entertainment. Put like that, it doesn’t feel like a particularly small footprint but this is a large tract of land and sea the size of Hawaii. Red Sea Global, the destination’s developer, insists that responsible development is at the heart of the project, that 75 per cent of the destination’s islands will remain untouched, and that it will run 100 per cent on renewables and achieve net zero operations from 2030. It’s likely to become a case study for other developments in Saudi Arabia and around the world. The goals are lofty; whether they’re ultimately achievable or not, time – and technology – will tell.

As a frontrunner in Saudi Arabia’s new era of tourism, The Red Sea aims to create 120,000 jobs, with a large proportion of employees coming from the surrounding areas. Speak to the Saudi employees already here at the St. Regis, and they’re clearly thrilled to be part of this new future for the Kingdom.

The rooms

Around half of the resort’s 90 villas are on the beach and the others are perched over the water. Dune Villas start at a generous 75 square metres, facing east or west, with large outdoor living and dining areas, plunge pools, sun beds, and mesmerising views of palms, sand and sea. Interiors are light and airy with high ceilings, textures of wood, paper, macramé, metal, rope and mosaics, tones of sand and aquamarine befitting the setting, and generously sized bathrooms with soaking tubs.

For those who like to be close to resort amenities, the Dune Villas are the practical choice. But it’s in the Coral Villas where things get really exciting and if you want to feel the magic of being surrounded by the Red Sea, there’s no better option. I stayed in both, but it was the view of the lagoon from the bed in my Coral Villa that blew me away. The curtains open at the push of a button, parting to reveal unobstructed views of sea and sky from floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides of the room. I found myself blinking in disbelief each morning.

Shaped like spiralling seashells, these villas start from 79 square metres of indoor space, with a further 99-square-metre sundeck featuring sun beds, parasols, a dining table and an overwater plunge pool. On a chilly afternoon, mine was warm enough for a soak and a gaze at the hypnotic sea views. I even saw a flash of teal as a kingfisher shot into the water in search of the little fish that were hiding – unsuccessfully – in the shade of the villa.

Food and drink

Mornings start at Arabian restaurant Nesma with freshly baked fatayer and manakish, shareable mezze served table side, and eggs, pancakes and French toast to order. Arabic flavours continue throughout the day, and it’s worth stopping by to try the local favourite sayadieh, made here with black cod, calamari and onion rice.

The Beach Club offers salads, burgers, shawarma and grilled items, along with mocktails designed to “awaken the senses” and “reinvigorate the weary”. As at all St. Regis hotels, the St. Regis Bar has its own signature Bloody Mary – the Coral Mary – a tangy non-alcoholic twist on the classic with saffron, dried black lime and sea algae. This is also the place to lounge with a shisha in the evening and gaze up at skies filled with stars.

Dinner is an elegant affair at overwater restaurant Tilina, featuring three tasting menus designed around land, sea or local produce. I dined on the Shades of Sand menu, the first shade of which – red – was a delicate mix of smoky sour beetroot and sour cream, inspired by the chef’s time spent in Russia, topped with Saudi coffee crumble. Other highlights were grilled lobster tail with fennel risotto and caviar, and stuffed dover sole with burnt leek, yuzu gel and clam emulsion.

But it was dinner on my last night at Gishiki 45 that spoke to my soul. Having lived in Japan for eight years, I can be fussy about the quality of Japanese food. But Japanese-Filipino chef John Mark Gayramara dazzled me with his omakase menu, perfectly tailored to a surprisingly cold evening. Every course took me back to winter in Japan, with buri daikon, a home-style dish of fatty hamachi cheek simmered in a delicate broth, followed by a silky chawanmushi egg custard with scallop and a fried fish katsudon rice bowl topped with Japanese curry sauce that transported me back to mid-ski lunches in Niseko. It was authentic, comforting and a delight from start to finish.

The spa

The St. Regis Spa is a calming retreat that takes treatments beyond the realms of a regular massage. The three-hour Celebration Ritual includes a stone body polish and a choreographed massage inspired by ballet, and other treatments on the extensive menu include gold and platinum-plated hot stone massages, body scrubs with crushed meteorites and volcanic rock, as well as sound healing, olfactory meditation and chakra-balancing.

The neighbourhood

Being located on an offshore island, the Red Sea itself is your neighbourhood here, and also your playground. The resort’s water sports centre offers diving, snorkelling and a wide range of non motorised activities. All of the equipment – from snorkels and masks to kayaks, SUPs and eFoils – is of the highest possible quality, and I was especially grateful for the brand-new five-millimetre wetsuit I was provided with for snorkelling, as well as the hot Saudi coffee and fluffy hooded windbreakers to wrap up in afterwards.

The sea is the main raison d’être for the whole destination, and as I snorkelled a small stretch of the 22-kilometre Al Jadeer reef, I realised with a sense of amazement – and a touch of trepidation – that other than our boat, there was no one else out here, at all. It was just us, the perfectly clear waters, thriving corals, thousands of colourful fish, and the three white-tipped reef sharks we saw 15 metres below us. Even when other resorts do open, this is such a vast area that it’s unlikely the waters will ever feel crowded.

The service

Friendly, eager and proud to be part of the future of tourism in Saudi Arabia. This being St. Regis, all villas come with round-the-clock butler service. My butler, Allam, popped up whenever I needed him – and, in many cases, before I realised I did – with a buggy at the ready to take me to lunch, for a kayak, or for a ride around the resort taking photos. The butlers are available on WhatsApp should you need something urgently, as well as for packing, unpacking, pressing, and pretty much anything else you could need during your stay.

For families

While this may feel like a grown-up resort, families are very welcome. The kids’ club offers indoor and outdoor games and activities, and child-friendly water sports and diving lessons are available, as well as easy hikes in the dunes on the mainland and stargazing at the resort.

Eco effort

The St. Regis has an on-property, single-use plastic ban and is about to start bottling its own drinking water at an onsite plant. There is also a project to regenerate mangroves, which guests can get involved with, and water sports are limited to non-motorised options to avoid disturbance to marine life. In addition to these efforts, the resort runs in tandem with the overall sustainability goals of The Red Sea and aims to run fully on renewable energy by the end of the year.

When you see the construction on other islands, the speedboats on the water and the seaplanes taking off into the sky, it’s hard to reconcile the ultimate sustainability goals with the current reality. But this is a destination being built from scratch and many of the sustainability goals are exactly that – goals – that don’t yet have the necessary technology to support them. Red Sea Global still has another six years to find ways to reach its goal of running fully on renewables and achieving net-zero operations.

Accessibility for those with mobility impairments

Both the resort and Red Sea Global are placing major efforts on ensuring accessibility for travellers with mobility impairments. The resort has one fully accessible Dune Villa with an accessible pool chair but the spacious layout of these villas means that they can be accessible to guests with varying degrees of disability. Coral Villas present more of a challenge due to interior steps and changes of level.

Most public areas are accessible on wide-wheel mobility chairs provided by the onsite medical clinic. There are also two wheelchair-accessible buggies available.

The resort currently has one RS Venture boat adapted to enable wheelchair-users to go sailing with trained team members, and there are plans to roll out more accessible experiences throughout 2024, including SUP, wakeboarding, water-skiing and kayaking, as well as multi-terrain vehicles for desert activities, electric mountain biking for wheelchair-users, and off-road mobility solutions that can be moved along hiking routes. PADI is also currently running an accessibility assessment to provide recommendations and training to the water sports team to enable the resort to become a PADI adaptive service facility.