Opening July 2027

Mandarin Oriental

Mandarin Oriental Winter Palace, Luxor

Name: Mandarin Oriental Winter Palace, Luxor
Address: Luxor, Egypt

Full restoration of Luxor's historic Winter Palace into a Mandarin Oriental

Luxor, Egypt

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The day it opens + our first honest verdict. No paid placements. Joins the Fat Voyage list — leave any time.

First look

The Winter Palace in Luxor is closing in early 2026 for a full restoration and is set to reopen as a Mandarin Oriental in July 2027, announced in February 2026. This is a restoration project rather than a new build, taking one of Luxor's most recognizable historic hotels and bringing it under Mandarin Oriental.

Not yet scored. We publish a Fat Score only once a hotel is open and real guests have stayed and written about it — this is a first look, not a verdict.

What we'll be watching

We haven't stayed yet — here's what will decide whether it lands when we do.

Whether six dining venues is ambition or noise. The Winter Palace under Sofitel ran five restaurants already — the question is whether Mandarin Oriental rethinks them as destinations in their own right or just repaints the signage. In a city where most guests eat where they sleep by default, it's an easy win to squander.
Whether the room count survives the renovation intact. The historic Palace wing held 86 rooms and 6 suites; a separate annex added another 116. How Mandarin Oriental carves that up — and whether it shrinks the count to lift the quality — will tell you a lot about how serious the restoration is.
Whether the July 2027 date holds. This is a complete top-to-bottom restoration of a 1907 building in Upper Egypt, and the announcement gave roughly 18 months from closure to reopening. Heritage restorations in this part of the world rarely land exactly on schedule. We'll be watching.
Whether this becomes a genuine Egypt play or just a flag on a famous address. Mandarin Oriental is simultaneously restoring the Old Cataract in Aswan and launching a Nile cruise between the two — a bold three-piece move for a market they haven't operated in before. The whole package rises or falls together.

First look · gallery

Renderings & press imagery, courtesy of the hotel — details may change before opening.

Sofie, who runs the Fat Voyage booking desk with Nicolas

Want us to get you in when it opens?

Nothing to book yet — rates usually load a few months out. We're Sofie and Nicolas; tell us roughly what you're after and we'll come back the moment Mandarin Oriental Winter Palace, Luxor is bookable, with rates, what the rooms are actually like, and whether we'd go in the first season.

You'll be dealing with the two of us the whole way through, which is why we only take on a handful of trips at a time — if we're full, we'll say so. We reply by email, usually within one working day. The hotel pays us, not you: your rate is the same as booking direct, and the perks come on top.

Before it opens

When does Mandarin Oriental Winter Palace, Luxor open?

The property is expected to reopen in July 2027 after a complete restoration. It closed in early 2026 to begin the work, with the management formally transferring from Accor to Mandarin Oriental in May 2026. As with any heritage restoration of this scale, treat July 2027 as the target rather than a guarantee.

Where is Mandarin Oriental Winter Palace, Luxor located?

It sits on the banks of the Nile in Luxor, Egypt, a short walk from Luxor Temple. The building itself dates to 1907 and is one of the most recognizable hotels along the upper Nile — the kind of address where Howard Carter stayed during the Tutankhamun excavation years.

Is this Mandarin Oriental's first hotel in Luxor?

Yes. The brand is entirely new to Luxor and to Egypt more broadly. It's taking on two properties simultaneously — the Winter Palace here and the Old Cataract in Aswan — plus a luxury Nile cruise between them, all expected by 2027. The partnership is with TMG Holding, a major Egyptian development group.

How many rooms will it have?

No post-renovation room count has been announced. The historic Palace wing held 86 rooms and 6 suites before closure, with a larger modern annex alongside it. Whether Mandarin Oriental trims the count to raise the average quality — which the brand sometimes does on heritage restorations — hasn't been confirmed.

What restaurants and facilities are planned?

Mandarin Oriental has confirmed six dining venues, The Spa at Mandarin Oriental, and event spaces set within the hotel's gardens. No specific restaurant names, concepts, or a designer have been announced yet — those details typically come closer to opening.

Will Fat Voyage score Mandarin Oriental Winter Palace, Luxor?

We publish a Fat Score only once a hotel is open and real guests have stayed and written about it — drawn from luxury travel communities, editorial publications, and verified guests, never paid placements. This is a first look, not a verdict; we'll score it once there's enough independent signal to be fair.

Open now

What you can book today

Mandarin Oriental Winter Palace, Luxor is still under wraps. Here's what's already open and scored in our collection — more from Mandarin Oriental, and nearby in Egypt.

Fat Legend

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Mandarin Oriental, Bangkok

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Almost everyone who writes about the Mandarin Oriental Bangkok lands on the same thing: the staff remember you. One guest found a bookmark placed exactly where she'd left off in her book. Another was recognized by a therapist she hadn't seen in a decade. A butler named Maria found extra boxes to protect a couple's souvenirs at packing time, after four nights of what they called the most attentive service they'd had anywhere. One regular says new staff greeted her by name on a return visit, purely from training, since none of them had met her before. That's the reason people keep coming back instead of trying Capella or the newer Aman down the river. The catch is space, and it's a fair one. A Deluxe Premier Room in the River Wing runs around $500 a night in low season for about 42 square meters, comfortable but noticeably tighter than what Four Seasons or Capella gives you at similar money, and several guests have said so without any bitterness about it. The rooms show the building's age in the standard categories, even with the 150th-anniversary refresh and the new gym (ice plunge, sauna, genuinely well liked) landing well. Breakfast and the common areas can turn chaotic during a wedding or a corporate event, and the riverside setting that makes the evening views so good also means real traffic time if Sukhumvit is where you actually need to be. Book it for the service and for a hotel that's been doing this for nearly 150 years and still means it, not for square footage. If a bigger, more modern standard room matters more to you than history, Four Seasons is the name people keep raising. If you want to feel looked after in a way that seems to run deeper than a training manual, this is still the one.

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Mandarin Oriental Bodrum

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Mandarin Oriental Bodrum earns its keep on the hillside, not just the brochure line about it. Rooms cascade down toward Paradise Bay, several with their own pools, and the grounds are genuinely green rather than landscaped for a photo. The spa is the other reason people come back: one guest's contact lens emergency got solved by a therapist who tracked down a lens case and saline mid-treatment, and the hammam gets called out on its own terms often enough that it's clearly not a fluke. Families do well here too, with a kids' club that parents actually praise rather than tolerate, and an ambassador system that handles the small stuff: one guest's lost phone got traced through a taxi driver and returned before checkout. The gap opens at the waterline. Beach and pool service lags well behind the rest of the property, particularly by September, when one guest gave up after asking three times for a beer that never came. Food and drink pricing is a real sore point too: a chicken wrap near €50, cocktails around €28, and quality that regularly doesn't back it up, including a flat night at the on-site Ferdi Baba. Visit in October and you'll find restaurants and shops closing early for the season, which thins out what the rate is meant to cover once August ends. Book it from May through September for the setting, the spa team, and a beach scene that still has energy, and go in knowing the beach bars are where the wheels come off. Outside peak summer, or on the outer beach service specifically, price your expectations down accordingly. For the hillside, the hammam, and the way the team on the ground treats you, it's worth booking.

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Mandarin Oriental, Lake Como

Lake Como, Italy

The reason to book is the villa and that pool, and both hold up. Guests who've stayed on multiple lakes call the floating pool the best they've experienced anywhere, and it's the kind of thing you can't get elsewhere on Como: it sways when boats pass, and it sits right on the water in front of a 19th-century building with gardens people are still talking about years later. The upgrades and small gestures come up constantly too: a phone charger cord wrapped in velcro, a birthday treat waiting in the room, a golden retriever treated like a guest in its own right. The staff culture is the other real reason to go — Alicia at the spa desk and Isabella in guest relations get thanked by name, and the tone across most stays is warm rather than stiff or performative. Where the money doesn't stretch as far: check-in has run past an hour more than once this year, sometimes worse at night, and small requests (a hard pillow, a toothbrush, extra water) have been fumbled or taken two hours to show up. That points to being understaffed rather than uncaring, but it's still not what you expect at this rate. The food is the clearest letdown — breakfast draws repeated complaints about being thin for a five-star property, and L'Aria gets flagged for confusing portions and 30-euro cocktails that leave you hungry. The recommended transfers also run well above what a taxi or Uber costs locally, which is worth knowing before you book one rather than after. Book this for the villa, the gardens, and that pool, with a staff that genuinely seems to enjoy the work. Treat the restaurants as optional and use the Como town shuttle for dinner when you want more choice, which plenty of guests already do.

Fat Approved

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Mandarin Oriental, London (Hyde Park)

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Door attendants Joaquin and Graham, receptionists Hugo, Ruby and Georgi, breakfast servers Mark and Sherif, bartender Claire: these names show up because people keep singling them out, not because we're padding a list. One couple's card got declined at check-in and a receptionist talked them through it so smoothly the awkwardness never landed. The people running this hotel are the reason to book it, ahead of the building or the rate. Room quality swings hard depending on where you land. This is a converted, listed Victorian building, and the turret rooms and park-facing Deluxes read as genuinely special, but some guests end up in interior rooms with no real window and thin connecting doors. One guest paying around £1,000 a night got moved after a noisy night into a smaller room with no view, and was offered a drink at the bar as the fix. Another was told at 1am that a couple next door were audible through the connecting wall. Push for a Hyde Park-facing Deluxe and stay away from anything near a connecting door or a lift — the gap between a good room and a bad one here is wider than the rate should allow. Dinner by Heston Blumenthal (two Michelin stars, built on old English dishes rather than anything experimental) and The Rosebery's park-view breakfast and afternoon tea both come up as the standout meals of a London trip, and guests doing the old-world comparison keep landing here over Claridge's or the Lanesborough. Those chasing round-the-clock anticipation from day one tend to end up at the Connaught instead. Book this one for the staff, the view and the food, go in ready to fight for room category, and it earns the stay.

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