It was a really hot day yesterday. I don’t think the husband was very pleased with my fabulous family plan to head towards Ras al Khaimah (again) in the sweltering 40 degrees summer heat and 80 percent humidity. The Ritz Carlton Al Hamra was the destination I told him – “A stunning beach resort, ‘complimentary’ for a day trip using our Privilee pass, which would otherwise cost us 3k to stay overnight” was my excuse 🙂
We arrived to the jetty after an 70 minute drive from the marina, and was welcomed with big smiles from the team (waves at Liza and Daniel) – macarons, refreshing towels and ice-cold tea. The welcome lounge was what it is – a VIP experience indeed reminisce of when we had our Sir Bani Yas excursion.
We were escorted onto the boat ; the girls were so excited. But, even that 3-minute cruise and 1 minute stroll into the resort’s sole restaurant Shore House resulted with all of us in sweat and a still not-very-happy-husband. He had the “we should have stayed home and do nothing” look. O dear.
As we settled down on our tables in the restaurant, things got marginally better. We sat by the air-condition vents -the girls were standing on it while their dresses filled up “Look mummy, we’re like balloons!”. They were happy 🙂 The husband was cooling down. I think he was feeling a bit better now, as we admired the view from the restaurant.
We decided on the slow-cooked beef cheeks, and spaghetti agio olio for the grown-ups. We were told food was complimentary for under 6s, which was a surprising bonus (Please check with them when you are there, no idea if that was a mistake or not, haha)! Things were getting better. The kid’s meals came – their portions extremely generous – steamed cod with butter rice and vegetables, grilled chicken breast with tomato sauce and rice. This just meant more food for the grown ups as no way our 1 year old and 3 year old was going eat all that.
With the mains – the beef cheeks was tender and juicy. Spaghetti was cooked al dente, and well – a little too bland for my liking but I knew this was good for my waistline. Let’s lay off all that cream for awhile – we have had lots of that this holiday 😉 With the Marriott Bonvoy 30% discount which came to save the day, the bill came to 207.80AED for 2 mains, 2 kid’s dishes, 1 large bottle of sparkling water. Very well-priced – awesome to have discounts, isn’t it?
Off to the pool next.
As the photos had shown, we knew there would be unshaded. There were shrubs alongside so little portions of it was shaded where we kinda stayed with our oversized hats. The water was really warm, it felt like a hot bath. Would have been great if it could be temperature controlled 😉 They had a giant swan float and a bed float should you wish to chill. We swam and played with the little ones for a little bit, until the 1-year old decided she has had enough of the heat and went indoors to the kid’s play area with our nanny for her afternoon naptime. Note : The kid’s room is literally attached to the restaurant, by the pool – which I thought was great as you didn’t have to walk too far to get from one place to another. Another thing to highlight : There are bathroom and showers next to the pool (next to the Kid’s Room), however from what I could see – there are no air-condition vents. It was really hot when we were there. Not sure what they can do about it but it would be great if air-condition could somehow be installed.
We spent sometime in the kid’s room cooling down (at the point, it was literally just us in this room), before it was 5pm and time for our picnic cruise date 😉 I’ll do a separate for this.
The buggy took us back to the carpark around 7:30pm or so. He literally took us right to our car. VIP treatment! It was such good service that we forgot all about our Privilee cards so please – remember to pick them up from the Welcome Lounge before you leave.
All in all? Another great day-trip with the family to Ritz Carlton Al Hamra at Ras in Khaimah. If you or the kids are quite sensitive to the heat, I would suggest to head to the Ritz later on in the afternoon so that you can use the pool when it’s slightly shaded. There isn’t a lot to do for the little ones other than lunch in Shore House, playing in the Kid’s Room (note that it is unsupervised, just TV with cartoons and a few toys around), pool and beach. So the focus is more so on the pool and beach aspect. (Ps- There are numerous excursions you could pay and do like the picnic cruise – will do a review on that :))
We were there from around 1pm till 7:30pm. If you’ve got friends who are Privilee members, I would suggest you do a playdate trip so that the kids have company as it was literally us the entire afternoon in the pool and Kid’s Room. I would go so far to say that I felt the Al Hamra property would be more suitable for a grown-ups only trip in comparison with the Al Wadi property. Nonetheless, we had a good time with the family 😉
Note : This is not a sponsored post. I paid 1499AED, based on the Summer Deal with Privilee (great deal!) Hopefully I’ll see you around in the next three months? 🙂