InterContinental Muscat, an IHG Hotel

Oman's First International Hotel, Thirty-Five Acres Deep

InterContinental Muscat opened in the 1970s as the first international hotel in the country, and the scale it was built on still shows: 35 acres of palm gardens unfold between the Hajar Mountains behind and the Gulf of Oman in front, in the Al Shati area a short walk from the Royal Opera House Muscat. A renovation programme, run in phases so the hotel stays open throughout, is working room by room through its 258 keys, part of a wider renewal of this whole stretch of coastline led by the same public development arm behind the Opera House and the newer hotels around it. For a property now well into its fifth decade, that combination of original scale and steady, visible reinvestment is rare, and it is what first put this address on our list.

Why It Works

We were drawn to a hotel that carries its history rather than hiding it: a seven-level atrium lobby with glass elevators climbing the full height of the building, and a separate check-in set inside a Bedouin-style tent for returning guests, both features a newly built resort couldn't simply replicate. Pairing that scale and theatre with an active, ongoing modernisation gives the property a case for a stay that a brand-new hotel, however polished, doesn't have on its own. It is a hotel that rewards guests who notice architecture and provenance as much as thread count, and the renovation means a booking today increasingly lands in a freshly finished room rather than a dated one.

Why This Location

Al Shati sits among Muscat's diplomatic and government quarter, putting the hotel within easy reach of the Royal Opera House and the string of beachfront properties along the same stretch of coast, with the airport roughly fifteen to twenty minutes by car. The Hajar Mountains rise directly behind the gardens, framing a property that reads as much like a resort estate as a hotel grounds, with enough acreage to separate the pools, tennis courts and gardens from each other rather than stacking everything within sight of the lobby. It is a quieter, greener pocket of the capital than the souq or the harbour, better suited to travellers who want Muscat's culture within reach but prefer to return to open gardens rather than a dense hotel strip.

Fast Facts

• Price: €€€

• Vibe: historic grande dame, under active renewal

• Rooms: 258 rooms across 35 acres of palm gardens

• Best For: travellers drawn to Muscat's hotel history, business stays near the Opera House, families using the lagoon pool

• Our Favorite Thing About the Hotel: the seven-level atrium lobby with its glass elevators

• Dining: multiple restaurants and bars around the ground-floor atrium, including an Irish pub and a bakery

• Amenities: 25-metre lap pool, lagoon-style pool with bridges and fountains, two floodlit tennis courts, gym, sauna

• Attractions: Royal Opera House Muscat (short distance), Al Shati beachfront, Hajar Mountains backdrop

A Seven-Level Atrium and a Bedouin Tent at Check-In

The lobby rises seven levels in a single open atrium, with glass elevators tracking up through the full height, a piece of 1970s hotel architecture rarely built at this scale today and rarer still to find still in daily use. Returning guests and loyalty members check in separately, inside a tent styled on a Bedouin majlis, a small gesture that sets the tone for a hotel built as much around arrival as around the room itself. Walk the ground floor and the same instinct shows up again and again, in a run of shops, bars and a bakery set around the atrium rather than tucked down a corridor, so the lobby functions as a genuine gathering point rather than a pass-through space.

Two Pools, Renewed Room by Room

A 25-metre lap pool sits close to the main building for guests who want to swim laps, while a second, lagoon-style pool winds through the gardens with bridges and fountains, generally the one families gravitate to over an afternoon. Two floodlit tennis courts, a gym and a sauna round out the grounds without crowding them, spread across acreage most central Muscat hotels simply don't have. The renovation programme is extending the same attention to the rooms around both pools, phase by phase, so that a stay booked today finds a mix of renewed and still-to-come categories rather than a uniformly finished hotel, worth asking about at booking if a freshly renovated room matters, and worth embracing if the appeal is precisely a historic property still mid-transformation.