Quite impressed with this property! Excellent elite recognition, great suites, good club lounge (snacks plus alcohol table service), and property is attached to (one of?) the biggest malls in Bahrain.

I visited for 2 nights on points / a FNA in order to tack on a visit to Bahrain at the end of a Greece and Thailand trip rather than just layover in the Gulf Air lounge for the fourth time.

I saw in the app when I left Bangkok that I had been proactively upgraded to a junior suite. I did app check-in while on the departure tarmac (arrival time 20:00). At some point during my 8 hour flight, the junior suite was upgraded to an Oriental Suite. I did not have any contact with proprrty in advance and I dropped down to platinum status this year for the first time (although will get to Titanium in December), so I had no expectation for a suite upgrade. It was a nice surprise

At check-in they didn't ask for platinum arrival gift choice (not unusual for app check-in, as default is points with it) but they did mention breakfast was served in the restaurant downstairs, so it seems elites get both restaurant breakfast plus points. That's always really nice when offerred (I slept through breakfast both days, so cannnot comment on the food). No issues communicating in English with any of the staff.

In the suite was also a welcome amenity of 6 specialty dates (each a different style) plus a hand-written (!!) welcome note.

Oriental suite was spacious, with a proper separate living room, consisting of a large L-shaped couch, large coffee table, TV, work desk, a dining table with 4 chairs, and a 0.5 bathroom. Bedroom had a medium-ish King-sized bed (plush), sit-back chair, work desk, TV, a very large walk-in closet (big enough to be considered its own bedroom in some jurisdictions...), and a nice double sink bathroom including shower (handheld plus rain style) and bathtub. I found the shower pressure slightly lower and maximum temperature slightly too low for my preferences, though I'm spoiled by the other properties om this trip and at home -- it's probably more than fine for most people. Some things in the room are showing their age but had no issues with anything not working. Contrary to a review upthread, they did provide Malin + Goetz branded toiletries in both the shower and bath (wall-mounted shampoo/conditioner/body wash), plus individual sized lotions and bar soaps, and various white labelled other toiletries (mini toothpaste was colgate). 3x plush towels and 2x bath robes by default. Housekeeping is available until 7pm each day. I'll also add that the property was very generous and proactive with ensuring the room had enough bottles of water in the living room, by the bed, and in the big bathroom. There was also a pass within the in-room hotel literature for free entry to an art gallery.

I read a review on OMAAT of the adjacent Westin property that aptly summarizes the view pretty accurately: you get a view of Bahrain. What that means is I could see a parking lot, the highway, and a couple buildings with cool lights on them. No street noise except on Friday when the music played to signal prayer times (beginning at 430am and lasting 10(?) mins each time) could be heard from the room, though not sure if it's only on Fridays or I slept through it on Thursday morning.

Club lounge serves snacks and alcohol from 6-8pm, though they seem to let people enjoy a bit before and after that window. Alcohol is kept in the attendant-only part of the lounge (so you don't know exactly what they have without asking, seems to include one white wine, a red wine, beer, gin, and whiskey) and is then served to you at your table. Lounge can get full and individuals sometimes need to share tables. There is a long library-style table along with dozen 2-person tables. I found the food to be on par with what you'd expect at a "good" European Marriott lounge, rather than a Middle Eastern or Asian lounge per se. Chicken slider burgers were the highlight the one night I could visit, but they also had some veggie (?) slider burger, some kind of middle eastern dip, small salads in cups, a soup, 3 cheeses, and 3 desserts (coconut cookies, a fruit in pudding thing, and delicious chocolate cake). I'd peg the spread as "good" but not "exceptional". Lounge closes for the night at 11pm.

The attached mall is quite nice, has tons of food options, and is accessible through a short corridor from the hotel's front desk. It's one of those mega malls that mixes luxury brands, western restaurants, carnival rides and games, a waterpark, a bowling alley, an escape room, etc, all into one Las Vegas-esque place. You have everything from Shake Shack, TGI Fridays, and PF Chang's to local chain restaurants and coffee shops.

Outside the mall, the surrounding area isn't really walkable due to a lack of sidewalks. Everything is car-centric. You can use Uber or careem (local taxi app with upfront pricing that tends to be cheaper than Uber) to get around readily. From the airport, it was a 5.1 BHD ride by careem (Uber had surge pricing at that time and was showing between 8 and 12 BHD, though the ride back is currently showing as 3.0 BHD on careem and 4.46 BHD on Uber). For late night food, I used a local delivery app (talabat) that is really hard to set up and super glitchy with foreign phone numbers, but was possible with enough brute forcing.

All in all, I was very pleasantly surprised with this property. It was great enough I am inclined to stopover in Bahrain in the future.