Raffles The Red Sea opens on Shura Island with butler-served pool villas

Raffles Hotels & Resorts has announced the debut of Raffles The Red Sea, an island resort on the northwestern shore of Shura Island in Saudi Arabia, between a lagoon and the open sea. The resort is opening in phases. Its rooms, suites and villas can be booked now, and every one of them has a butler. The spa, the adults’ pool and several of the restaurants will open later.

There are 121 guestrooms, 14 suites and 33 private pool villas. Raffles Butler Service covers every room, suite and villa, so a guest in an entry-level room gets the same attentive service as one in a villa. For travellers who want more privacy, the private pool villas are the main draw. They are a small part of the resort, which suits couples and families who plan to spend much of the stay on their own terrace.

The resort is part of Coral Bloom, the masterplan Foster + Partners drew up for Shura Island. The design is built around a close relationship with the water and views across the Red Sea. Because the resort sits between a lagoon and the open sea, it has calm water on one side and the wider horizon on the other.

Five restaurants and lounges open first: Ni’ma, Siparaja, El Nay, Anbara and the Pool Bar. Together they draw on Asian cuisine, the shared-table traditions of the Eastern Mediterranean and the culinary heritage of the Arabian Peninsula. That gives a guest staying several nights plenty of range without leaving the resort. The specialty restaurants and the bar will open later. Anyone who chooses a hotel partly for one particular dining room should check what is open before setting dates.

Wellness is also being phased in. Raffles Spa & Wellness will have seven treatment rooms, a hammam, sauna, steam room, vitality pool and outdoor lap pool. It will be unveiled in a future phase, along with the adults’ pool. For now, guests have the gym, padel courts and water sports. Early guests should think of this as an active stay: time on the water and the courts, with the full spa programme to come on a later visit.

Cultural life at the resort is in the hands of a dedicated Raffles Curator, who leads programming on local art, literature, storytelling and craftsmanship. This gives a stay some grounding in the region beyond the beach and the pool. The Curator’s Room will open later, as will the children’s and teens’ centres. Families planning around supervised activities for younger travellers should keep that in mind.

There is more to do on Shura Island itself. Shura Links is Saudi Arabia’s first 18-hole island golf course. The island also has a marina and Marina Village, WAMA water sports and Galaxea diving. A golfer can play a round in the morning and spend the afternoon on or under the water, all without leaving the island.

Getting there is simple. Guests arrive at Red Sea International Airport and travel by electric vehicle across the 3.3-kilometre Shura crossing to the island. The wider destination follows a regenerative tourism approach, and the island runs entirely on renewable energy. That matters to the growing number of travellers who weigh how a resort is run as well as how it looks.

Travellers who want to be among the first to stay can book a butler-served room or pool villa now, with golf, diving and water sports already on offer. Those who see a Raffles stay as incomplete without the spa may prefer to wait for the next phase. Either way, Raffles The Red Sea is now a real option on the Red Sea coast, with more to open in the months ahead.

The island resort joins Raffles’ city address on the same coast, Raffles Jeddah on the Red Sea Corniche.

Source: Accor