Opening October 2026

Raffles

Raffles The Red Sea

Name: Raffles The Red Sea
Address: Shura Island, Saudi Arabia

Raffles plants a flag inside Saudi Arabia's Red Sea destination, on the dolphin-shaped Shura Island.

Shura Island, Saudi Arabia

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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

Raffles is opening on Shura Island, the dolphin-shaped centerpiece of Saudi Arabia's Red Sea destination. The plan on paper is 121 rooms, 14 suites and 33 pool villas. Accor has it down for Q1 2026, while the destination's grand opening has been reported for October 2026, so the exact timing is still moving.

It already has a dedicated official-site page and sits on the brand's Opening Soon list, which is more substance than most announced projects carry this early. What we will be watching for is how a brand built around colonial-era grand hotels translates to a brand-new island resort, and whether the villa-heavy layout reads as a proper Raffles or just another Red Sea opening.

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 Sijaraja works away from Singapore. Raffles built its reputation in a 19th-century colonial hotel on a busy city street; transposing a Singapore-tribute restaurant to a remote Saudi island resort is a genuine stretch. We'll be watching whether the brand's heritage travels or just gets cited on a menu.
Whether 168 keys is too many for the brand to run tightly. At 121 rooms, 14 suites and 33 pool villas, this is a large-footprint resort — Raffles properties that feel most like Raffles tend to have fewer doors and more staff per guest. The villa count is the buffer; the standard-room block is where service pressure will show.
Whether the destination itself is ready. Shura Island opened its first three hotels in late 2025; Raffles is among eight more slated for 2026, with the island's full launch pegged for October. A property opening into a half-finished destination — roads, ferries, retail, airport connections still bedding in — is a different experience from one opening into a mature resort zone.
Whether the Accor-managed Red Sea opening glut flattens differentiation. Accor is opening both Raffles and Fairmont on the same island, plus properties elsewhere in Saudi Arabia. We'll be watching whether Raffles The Red Sea is run as its own property or as the premium tier in a multi-hotel compound that shares back-of-house resources.

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 Raffles The Red Sea 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 Raffles The Red Sea open?

The property is expected to open in October 2026, in line with the wider launch of Shura Island as a complete destination. Accor's own booking platform still lists a Q1 2026 date, and the official Raffles site says 'opening soon' without a specific month — so the exact timing remains reported rather than confirmed. Given the phased nature of the destination, treat any date as approximate until Raffles publishes a reservations window.

Where is Raffles The Red Sea located?

It sits on Shura Island, the dolphin-shaped centrepiece of Saudi Arabia's Red Sea destination on the northwest coast, roughly 30 minutes by transfer from Red Sea International Airport. The island is part of Red Sea Global's wider development, which spans more than 200 kilometres of coastline and around 90 islands in the Tabuk region.

Who operates it, and is this Raffles' first property in Saudi Arabia?

No — this will be at least the brand's third Saudi property. Raffles Makkah Palace has been open since 2010, and Raffles Jeddah is already operating; the Red Sea is the next addition. The hotel is operated by Accor under the Raffles flag, with the Shura Island site also hosting a Fairmont managed by the same group. Foster + Partners led the island masterplan, known as the Coral Bloom scheme, and Citterio & Viel (ACPV) are reported as the interior designers.

How many rooms and villas will it have?

The official Raffles site lists 121 guest rooms and 14 suites, plus 33 pool villas — 168 keys in total. All rooms are described as having private terraces with lagoon or beachfront views.

What restaurants and facilities are planned?

Five food and beverage venues are confirmed on the official site: Sijaraja, which carries Raffles' Singapore heritage into a contemporary format; Ni'ma, focused on Eastern Mediterranean cooking; El Nay, a Pan-Arabic bar and shisha lounge; Halwa & Rose, a waterfront patisserie; and a Pool Bar. Facilities include a Raffles Spa, lap pool, gymnasium, padel court, watersports, and kids and teens centres, plus 24-hour butler service.

Will Fat Voyage score Raffles The Red Sea?

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

Raffles The Red Sea is still under wraps. Here's what's already open and scored in our collection — more from Raffles, and nearby in Saudi Arabia.

Fat Favorite

Raffles

Le Royal Monceau - Raffles Paris

Paris, France

Most Paris palace hotels compete on gilt; this one competes on personality. Philippe Starck's redesign, with its 350-plus pieces of art scattered through the public spaces and rooms, gives the place a genuinely offbeat, gallery-like feel nothing else in the 8th attempts. One guest's deluxe room came with a giant mirrored bathroom and an Eiffel Tower sightline from the sitting area; another spent a jet-lagged first night being gently lectured by the turndown attendant to lock up her passport, which says something about the kind of care on offer here. The concierge team gets named and re-named by guests who keep coming back: Karla built a first-timer's itinerary around three tight days in Paris, and Mélinée comped a suite night after a rough previous stay. The people are why guests rebook, not the incidental nice touch. The building is where the price starts to wobble. Reports running into 2026 describe an AC problem needing several technician visits before a room change fixed it, a sewage smell and a damaged wall in another room, and a general sense that the fixtures don't always match the rate. First-floor rooms catch bar noise until midnight, and the front door goes unmanned often enough that guests mention coming and going unnoticed. The concierge, for all the goodwill, can be slow on basics: one simple restaurant confirmation took five days to come back. Matsuhisa gets real praise for the room and the staff, but more than one diner found the menu thin for the price; breakfast and Le Bar Long, snacks and all, get closer to universal approval. Book this one for the people and the art, not for flawless upkeep. If you want a spotless, predictable room over a hotel with an actual point of view, that's a fair preference and this isn't the address for it. For most people who've done the other Paris palaces and found them interchangeable, this is the one that stops feeling like a hotel.

Fat Favorite

Raffles

Raffles Singapore

Singapore, Singapore

Book Raffles for the all-suite rooms and the staff who seem to have been doing this since 1887. That's the pattern across nearly every recent stay: a doorman named Narendra greeting returning guests by name after a single day out, a butler covering a cash-only cab fare when a card failed, hot honey-lemon water arriving for a hoarse guest before anyone asked. The 2019 restoration keeps earning the same praise: soaring ceilings, period furnishings, bathrooms as large as the bedroom, and it reads as restored rather than staged. Breakfast comes up constantly as the best meal of the trip, the mee goreng singled out often enough that it isn't a fluke. That's not the whole stay, though. Pre-arrival emails go unanswered for weeks — one guest waited three weeks just to confirm a room location, with nothing back. Check-in has produced real misses: wrong suite categories, guests left waiting past 3pm with a manager's apology and no follow-up after. And there's an uncomfortable, recurring thread of guests in casual dress being challenged about whether they belong on property — one traveller says it happened four separate times in a single stay. That's not a bad afternoon; it's frequent enough that you should assume it could happen to you too, whatever you're wearing. The Tiffin Room splits opinion every time: a gorgeous room, food that lands well for some and falls flat for others. If what you want is the history, the courtyards, and staff who remember your drink order by day two, this still beats Fullerton Bay for that particular feeling, and it's worth the price for it. If you're travelling casually and don't want to explain yourself to a doorman, price that risk in before you book, not after.

Fat Favorite

Raffles

Raffles Udaipur

Udaipur, India

Book Raffles Udaipur for the island itself, not just the Raffles name on the door. It sits on its own patch of Udai Sagar, reached by a short dhow boat crossing, and almost every recent guest writes about the same thing before anything else: staff who remember a kid's food allergy, an anniversary, a father's retirement, and act on it. Named staff show up constantly and specifically — Gaurav upgrading a couple to a private pool room after learning it was a celebration, a housekeeping manager named Satya walking a lost family 40 minutes back to the property on his own time, off shift. That's the kind of detail a script doesn't produce. The building earns its own case: colonial-trader-estate architecture, lake views from most rooms, and enough going on (archery, pottery, birdwatching, a nightly Rajasthani show) that several guests say they never left the island and didn't miss the old city. Chef Ranchhod's Rajasthani menu at Sawai gets called out by name more than once, dishes and all. The trade-off is the buffet, which more than one guest flags as repetitive across a multi-night stay, and one detailed account from July 2026 describes a front-desk and restaurant team that walked past guests without acknowledging them and left a tea service without napkins — a real miss, and worth knowing about, though it sits against a much larger stack of specific, glowing service reports naming staff by name, week after week. This isn't a hotel for people who want to walk out the door into old Udaipur; it's for people who want the island to be the whole trip. Families and honeymooners get the most out of it, based on what's written here. Book it for the staff and the setting, and let the boat ride be part of the arrival.

Get notified

Be first when Raffles The Red Sea opens

We'll email you the day it opens — and our first honest verdict once guests have actually stayed. No paid placements, ever.

Joins the Fat Voyage list — leave any time.

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