An icon shy of greatness

After a few weeks of feeling cagey with nowhere to go given the current COVID reality and noticing that InterContinental Muscat was offering super-low rates, I decided to break the seal on my loyalty with IHG and check this hotel out for a one-night staycation.

InterContinental Muscat is located in the Qurum neighborhood of Muscat, the best in the city. With expensive homes conforming to a strict all-white scheme, lush greenery, an extensive beachfront, restaurant villages along the waterfront and the Royal Opera House right behind, Qurum is the best place to be when in Muscat.

InterContinental Muscat is twenty minutes away from Muscat International Airport [MCT], and can be reached via transfer from the hotel or from the many taxis available outside the terminal [they’re all metered, but taxis in Oman are annoyingly expensive. Don’t let the small number of rials fool you, because the conversion rate packs a punch!]

The hotel was built in 1977 as the first international hotel in the country and was the only structure for miles around [you famously needed a four-wheel-drive to get to it after it opened since access roads were only built later], but from the outside today, it looks like not much has changed. It’s a very unfortunate looking structure more akin in looks to a parking garage than a luxury hotel, with brown concrete and a heavy, brutalist design that sharply and negatively clashes with the iconic white and lightness of other buildings in Qurum.

A bit of history: the hotel is owned by Omran, a government-backed entity with deep pockets that also owns the neighboring W and a slew of other hotels across the country. They devised a plan in the late 2000s/early 2010s that would see the W developed on the empty plot adjacent to the InterContinental, the InterContinental ripped down after the W opened and replaced with a Westin and Element in two separate buildings, and a new public plaza with gardens, water features and open spaces that spilled downwards towards the sea from the Royal Opera House. Although the W was built, Omran and the government seem to have had a change of heart whereby they canceled the demolition of the InterContinental, scrapped the Westin/Element replacements, built an out-of-place neighbor to the Royal Opera House in the form of the sad Opera Galleria mall, and killed the public plaza plan by building the House of Musical Arts… which is hulking, gated and never gets used. Omran instead decided to save the iconic InterContinental and give it a very much-needed and comprehensive multi-year renovation, part of which was completed several months ago with the introduction of all-new rooms. Be warned, however, that there is a plan to eventually renovate the restaurants and lobby, as well as to reconfigure the grounds, move the entrance and add several low-rise towers of condos around the existing hotel in the coming years.

The lobby is accessed via an elevated ramp that goes up towards the first floor driveway. The hotel is famous for its airy six-floor atrium capped by four barrel domes. As mentioned before, the hotel has been subject to several phases of a long renovation that will eventually see the property altered, but the current renovations have created an odd mishmash that looks like several themes and design teams were smashed together. While the lobby itself hasn’t been renovated and has lots of old chairs with antiquated prints and raggedy fabric, the InterContinental Concierge corner of the lobby by the entrance has been completely redone and is very modern. This makes the neighboring reception desk, with its wood paneling and heavy design, look older yet. To the left of the entrance is a new dining concept called Tr.eat, with a modernized industrial look that looks great in and of itself, but once again looks strange sitting in an old lobby. That being said, the wooden struts of the barrel domes above are in terrible shape, with shoddy paint and peeling everywhere - it’s surprising that the lobby in general hasn’t been done right as it is ultimately where first impressions of any property are crafted.

After standing in line for a few minutes while two other guests each tended to by a staff member where taking their sweet time at the reception, an agent escorted me to the sit-down “Duty Manager” desk by the InterContinental Concierge corner and checked me in. She was very friendly and professional, offering me a warm welcome and offering to escort us to our room - but she wasn’t clear about the provisions of my special rate which included a property credit, welcome amenity and breakfast, and said she needed to check despite seeing a screen shot on my phone which clearly explained everything.

Historical photo of the hotel from way back in the day

The forthcoming redevelopment plan - egads

There are three elevators in the atrium in a triangular formation that lead to the guest floors, which are accessible by a swipe of your room key.

As mentioned earlier, the guest rooms and floors have very recently completed a comprehensive remodel that stopped just short of gutting the building; carpets in the corridors are new, the furniture is modern, the fit-out is high-quality - but there are certain things that no amount of renovation can change in a building, the most obvious factor of which is ceiling height. I am 5’10” [178 cm], and the ceilings are EXCEPTIONALLY low. Coming off the elevators, I could touch the ceiling by reaching my arm upward and without extending it to its full length. This feature was also exaggerated by the low doorways in the room and beams that jutted across the rooms and hallways, leading to a sense of claustrophobia and making me subconsciously duck my head down even though I had a small number of inches of clearance. If you are 6’ [185 cm] tall or taller, you must absolutely take this element into consideration - I cannot stress this enough.

I was upgraded from a standard room to a Club InterContinental Deluxe Suite, a combination of my Platinum Elite status with IHG Rewards, part of the upgrade package in my rate plan, low occupancy and the hotel’s generosity. I was informed that I was the first guest to stay in my particular suite since it was handed over to the hotel post-renovation, and it showed - it even smelled brand new. Compared to the antiquated mess of before, this was a job very well done - all the furniture was modern with a mid-century twist, extremely comfortable, solid and high-quality. The color scheme is beige and taupe with pops of brown and blue to reference the topography and sea of Oman’s environs, along with photographs of the flora, fauna and scenery of this beautiful country.

Upon entering the suite, located in the corner of the building, there is an entry hallway with a half bathroom on the right and table on the left, which leads into the living room. It was furnished with a large L-shaped couch, two armchairs and a coffee table, while the office area behind it separated by a lamp-topped table featured a desk with two chairs. The armoire containing the minibar sat in the same part of the room, just outside the bedroom door. Two separate and adjoining balconies formed part of the living room; these were strangely unfurnished, with no chairs or tables. In keeping with the hotel’s odious design, there are blocky concrete overhangs that eat up precious views of the sea, and due to the low ceilings make cracking your head against them very easy if you lean out. I can’t understand why these weren’t chopped off during the renovation to open the views up and lighten the heavy visual load of the building.

The separate bedroom featured a king-sized bed, chaise longue set against the wall and a table, along with a separate walk-in closet and an additional [also unfurnished] balcony off the bedroom. The bathroom setup is a bit curious - there’s a three-fixture bathroom with sink, commode and shower stall in the bedroom, but a separate bathroom in the bedroom also features a dressing table, double vanity, freestanding tub and an enormous separate shower stall. The smaller bathroom setup and fit-out is what you would find in the standard rooms, so it’s strange to have the bathroom and toilet split between two separate rooms the way this was. A consequence of the old bones of this building, perhaps. Heads-up: a long-running issue of the hotel is brown water coming out of the fixtures. I would have expected this to be resolved, especially after the renovation, but we still experienced it a few times during our stay.

Wi-fi is fast and free for IHG Rewards members, with good coverage throughout the hotel.

Illustration of just how low the ceilings and doorways are - my hand marks where the top of my head would line up [I'm 5'10" - 178 cm]

The awful exterior and poor balcony design, which impacts views and are a hazard to heads

I had three meals at the hotel as well as some snacks and drinks: Friday brunch and breakfast at the Musandam restaurant, and lunch at the hotel’s Japanese restaurant, Takara. The snacks were from Tr.eat, mentioned above and specializing in more contemporary offerings like avocado toast and poached eggs, as well as seriously good pastries and baked goods - and very good coffee.

Brunch at Musandam was great. The physical restaurant and outdoor setup are old and strangely configured [i.e. having tables in the grass, with the pathway between the building and grass separated by a tricky concrete partition that invites tripping over] - the renovation is yet to reach the ground floor - but the food was rather good. The hotel touts its brunch as the biggest in Muscat and while I feel like that might be pushing it, the quality was excellent, the seafood was extremely fresh [very important as a pescatarian], the creativity of some dishes was remarkable [i.e. the shrimp coleslaw - delicious] and the buffet setup worked well.

Breakfast, unfortunately, was extremely underwhelming. None of the creativity we saw in the dishes at brunch carried over, instead giving way to an uninspired conventional setup of egg station, cheeses, dairy, cereals and some greens. As an InterContinental, marketed as a luxury brand, I expected there to at least be a nice salad or two, a small à la carte menu to complement the buffet setup or just some more effort beyond what was available, which would be far better suited to a midscale hotel than a purportedly luxury product. Further detracting from breakfast was the crowd, which was mostly Omanis who ignored any form of order and weren’t corrected for it. For instance, I stood in line for the egg station for ten minutes while other Omani men and women cut ahead, ignored everyone and placed their orders with the Omani women manning the station, who in turn didn’t remind them of others standing in line ahead of them. This being COVID, masks are required by guests indoors but many walked around the buffet with their masks under their chins or off entirely without being reprimanded by staff. I understand that culturally, many staff members are afraid of approaching locals and asking them to follow the rules [the joys of living in the GCC], but this needs to stop: staff need to be empowered by management, and standards need to be set no matter what - especially during a pandemic and under law.

Thankfully, our experience at Takara was much better: although not technically a hotel restaurant as it is third-party-run, Takara offered an unlimited à la carte lunch [a weekly occurrence every Friday and Saturday] that we took advantage of. We’ve had some good sushi and excellent seafood in Muscat, but this place took it several notches higher yet: absolutely impeccable presentation, wonderful flavors, excellent ingredients and professional staff. What a treat this restaurant was.

We used the drink vouchers offered to us at check-in at Trader Vic’s, located in a separate building accessible from the driveway serving the hotel entrance. If you’ve been to one Trader Vic’s, you’ve been to them all - Polynesian-themed decor, tiki torches, masks, you name it, it’s all here. This used to be a consistently packed house pre-COVID and when the tourists were here, but it was a ghost town when we used it with all the lights bright turned up. The staff member serving us didn’t know about the drink vouchers or if they were accepted, and needed to verify if I could use them at the bar despite the reception telling me it was possible.

The hotel offers a lane-separated lap pool, children’s pool and lagoon pool dotted throughout its extensive grounds. Like the rest of the ground floor facilities, they have yet to be touched by renovation and as such, the large poster-like photos behind the pools are washed out, the astroturf is peeling and the tiles are cracking. The cabana rooms around the gardens are also clearly being used as offices or storage space, and between their old doors, mangy metallic blinds and the inconsistency of different signage on different doors, creates an unnecessarily dilapidated look in the garden. A smartly-run hotel would renovate these and offer them as an upmarket product with direct pool access - this just seems like a missed opportunity.

Qurum Beach and its attached promenade is accessible via a gate from the garden, but you’ll need your keycard to buzz out and in using the adjacent scanner.

The hotel has several ballrooms and meeting facilities that got frequent use before COVID, but they’re dormant for the time being.

Service was well-intentioned and generally very good, with warm and genuine delivery from staff who cared about guests’ well-being and their experiences on the property. I would specifically like to thank Jemnah and Andrea from the Concierge, executive assistant manager Yousuf, Marion and Ivan from Musandam and Richard and Margie from Takara for their professionalism, courtesy and hospitality. I also had a small incident that was resolved and graciously compensated for by Jemnah and Yousuf, which was appreciated.

I do, however, urge the hotel’s management to tighten some screws in certain areas:

• Empower staff to get guests who break COVID rules around mask-wearing to follow the rules. I’ve encountered this issue across several hotels in Oman and despite hearing the same excuse of “staff being afraid of the locals”, I would like to see a tighter ship being run.
• Better crowd management and staff training should also be considered with regards to the breakfast setup, with staff paying attention to guests as they come in and properly serving them in the right order.
• More training is needed to ensure staff are aware of hotel-sponsored programs [i.e. the confusion over my rate plan and the drink vouchers], without the need to constantly have to look into everything and leave guests waiting for answers.
• I ordered some drinks via room service, and it took nearly half an hour for them to reach the room. When they arrived, I was charged 14 rials for something that should have cost 10.4 [4 times the 2.6 in the system], and when I tried to explain this error to the staff member, he looked confused and told me to follow up with room service about it. I spoke to room service about it, and they couldn’t quite figure it out and offered to look into it. I never heard back from them, but upon reviewing my folio on check-out, I noticed it had been corrected.
• I requested some extra lotion to be sent to the room a half hour before I checked out, and it never appeared.

I’m glad I finally experienced the iconic InterContinental Muscat, but I’m left with strange feelings. The renovations are beautifully done where they've been done, there’s some good food to be had here and the staff are generally fabulous… but I think resources would have been better spent by tearing this old building down and building something new for the future of Muscat. Millions have been poured into the beautiful new rooms, but when the ceilings are too low and the renovations aren’t consistent across the property to ensure a unified experience, then it all feels a bit wasted.

I would return to this hotel, and ultimately do recommend it - just keep a few things in mind and some expectations tempered, and you’ll have a good time.