Five Things You Need to Know about The Chedi Al Bait, Sharjah

With the opening of The Chedi Al Bait, Sharjah in December 2018, this port town on the Arabian Gulf has stepped up its game on the hospitality front. The 53-key resort has forged a new anchor for the Heart of Sharjah, a redevelopment project that seeks to preserve a great swath of the city as it was in the 1950s. While Sharjah has for some time been able to offer accommodation in international chain hotels, it has not until now been able to offer an upscale boutique opportunity that celebrates the heart and soul of this city.

Here are the five things you need to know about The Chedi Al Bait, Sharjah.

1. The resort has its own museum. Plenty of hotels have museum-worthy exhibits and some are so enamored of their heritage, they liken the entire premises to a museum. But The Chedi Al Bait has actually opened its own, purpose-built museum. In two generous galleries, the museum tells the story of Ibrahim Bin Mohammed Al Midfa, who lived in one of the four old homes that form the foundation of the new resort. Images picture Al Midfa and his family and tell how they accrued wealth from the pearl trade and rose to prominence in the government. Glass display cases exhibit artifacts from his life, from a replica of the dagger he wore at ceremonies to the pens he used to compose poetry to books from his library. Another exhibit memorialises the location of the post office that stood on this site. In another room, the door to Al Midfa’s original home stands against a far wall, no longer providing egress to any actual place but to an imagination of the past.

The doors on display in the museum once graced the entrance to the Al Midfa household.

2. The staff-guest ratio is extremely high. One of the most significant factors in a guest’s experience at a resort is related to the number of staff per room. In Asia, where the ratios are highest in the world, you typically have two staff for every room at the most distinguished resorts. At The Chedi Al Bait, there will be 3.4 staff for every room. Numbers don’t tell the whole story, of course, but what this does mean is that a stay at Al Bait, which means home, is going to be a lot like a stay at home – a home, that is, if you’re used to having three or four different people waiting on you every day.

The name of the resort — Al Bait — means ‘home’ in Arabic. Inspired by the four historic houses that were repurposed as the foundation of the new property, the living spaces strive for an atmosphere that feels familiar and intimate.

3. Families are going to love the resort. While the bright lights and big city of Dubai continue to lure the glamorous jet-set, Sharjah is cultivating a quieter crowd, and setting up as a particularly attractive destination for families. It’s a dry destination, for starters, which means happy hour can be all about time with the kids. There are a number of museums within walking distance and a number of museums that would likely rate a spot on any kid’s bucket list of things to do in Sharjah. To wit, the Al Montazah Water Park, where there’s a whole host of pools and rides for a range of ages. Kids can explore the emirate’s aquatic life, animals, fauna, and flora at the Sharjah Natural History and Botanical Museum. They can learn about art at the Children’s Art Park, and about the emirate’s biodiversity at the Islamic Botanic Garden. At an archaeological site in the desert outside town, dune buggies will ferry families to Camel Rock, the Faya Dunes and the Mleiha Desert.

More than 7,000 guests can frolic at the 126,000 metre Al Montazah Water Park, while an additional 10,000 enjoy an amusement park next door.

4. It’s an easy place for groups to sequester. Now that ‘togethering’ is a thing for families who like to gather two or three generations for holidays, for groups of friends on celebration vacations, and for business people who’d just as soon carve out their own space for work and play, some hotels are better than others in answering the demand. At The Chedi Al Bait, the heritage home is a world apart within the larger resort, with four bedrooms and two suites that can accommodate twelve people. No other guests will have access to this part of the resort, or to the comfortable common areas of its majlis, or salon.

The hotel was designed with spaces, like this outdoor lounge, for the exclusive use of extended families, friends and corporate groups.

5. Al Fikker Square is the best place for a selfie. Like it or not, every hotel has a sweet spot where guests, guided by some invisible hand, are apt to migrate for a selfie or the most Instagrammable angle. At The Chedi Al Bait, this one’s easy, thanks to the resort’s windtower, an architectural structure that is to Sharjah what the lighthouse is to New England and the obelisk is to Egypt. Just outside the resort’s Arabic restaurant, there is a sitting area in Al Fikker Square. The windtower looms in the background, like something out of the Middle Ages. Once upon a time, the wind tower, or barjeel, was depended upon to ventilate living quarters. These days, air conditioning has supplanted the wind tower as a more effective way to stay cool, but technology has its place. No one’s ever going to stand up against an air conditioner for a selfie.

Destined for another 15 Minutes of Fame, the windtower, or barjeel, is now ready for its close-up.

For an indulgent stay at The Chedi Al Bait, Sharjah, consider booking the Sharjah Delight package, valid until 30 September 2021.

Text by Jim Sullivan for GHM Journeys.
Background image: Opened in December of 2018, The Chedi Al Bait, Sharjah strikes a delicate balance between commitments to both authenticity and luxury. The resort is an echo of life as it was lived in Sharjah in the 1950s before oil was discovered in the Emirates.