Who's Going
Moroccan Royalty, Hedge Funders, Brit Elite
Reason to Stay
All-Villa Hotel, Celebrity Chef, Designer Interiors
Hotel Type
Luxury Design Resort
While some Marrakech resorts can boast of having hosted the Sex and the City girls or Jennifer Aniston, far fewer one can say Morocco's King Mohammed VI owns them. Royal Mansour is a rare new hotel built within the old walled city of Marrakech, located on nearly nine acres nestled behind an additional fortified wall and gate that forms its own private medina of riads, dinning rooms and grand reception that may make La Mamounia loyalists rethink their allegiances. Visitors arrive to a humbling entrance of hand painted Moroccan tiles with courtyard lined in swags of heavy velvet drapery illuminated by silver lanterns and trickling fountains truly befitting a king.
Large without ever feeling overwhelming, the reception, lounge and dining rooms are connected through a series of open-air walkways shadowed in reflection pools surrounded by opulent hand carved relief ceilings and dramatic chandeliers that never side with the kitschy. A massive spa facility with indoor pool includes wellness center and hamam before hitting the outdoor pool surrounded in traditional loungers and buttoned-up butler service. The lead dining room and its romantic prix-fix feast is headed by 3-star Michelin chef Yannick Alléno of Le Maurice in Paris and Hotel Cheval Blanc who counts LVMH's Bernard Arnault as a fan.
The Room
The Royal Mansour experience begins at the airport where arriving guests are met by chauffeur and ushered to a idling black Mercedes that zips them through the outlying town and into the main medina. A car so shiny sticks out in Marrakech, offering a rockstar style arrival complete with peering eyes of passing scooters as the first sight of the hotel comes along a city wall almost dwarfed by the main entry gate that weighs nearly 10,000-pounds of pounded bronze. 53 riad-style rooms are located along a series of water-lined pathways trickling in orchid-lined fountains that create a Middle Eastern sense of Zen in the middle of the often-hectic medina. Guest spaces border on humbling, sophisticated design and opulent materials arranged in architectural spaces of towering open-air ceilings and private courtyard with occasional footsteps of passing staff that outnumber guests 10-1. Floors of ceramic tile, boudoir-inspired furnishings covered in exquisite and walls of smooth plaster adorned with dramatic drapery create what is simply the best hotel experience in Marrakech to date.
Preferred Room
1-Bedroom Riad
Special Features
Celeb Owners, Upscale Clientele, Top Design
Amenities
Restaurant, Lounge, Bar, Pool, Spa, Concierge
