Hotel Review: Hilton Dead Sea Resort & Spa, Jordan

After spending six days in Egypt, Shae and I flew to Jordan for the last leg of our international trip for her 40th birthday. We spent a week in Jordan, with the first three nights spent at the Hilton Dead Sea Resort & Spa.

Overall, we had a pretty good stay. It’s in a great location on the Dead Sea, it has a lot of swimming pools, offers complimentary mud massages and more. The biggest downside is that it seems to be a party hotel and so if you’re going there for a quiet, relaxing stay, you might not get what you were hoping for.

Here’s my full review of the Hilton Dead Sea Resort & Spa in Jordan.

Check-In

We landed in Jordan in the evening, so it was almost 10pm by the time we’d driven from the airport to the hotel. Seeing as we were checking in so late, there wasn’t a line which meant it didn’t take long until we had our keys to room 625.

When checking in we were given a couple of towel cards. These were handed over when getting towels at the hotel’s pools and beach and given back to us when returning our towels. We were advised that the towel cards had to be returned to the front desk when checking out, otherwise there’d be a charge (I think it was 10 JOD / ~14 USD).

The Hilton Dead Sea Resort & Spa has four different wings, with each one named after a town or city in Jordan – Petra, Madaba, Jerash and Ajloun. Room 625 was in the Madaba wing.

Bedroom

We were at the far end of the 6th floor which meant it was quiet down our end in terms of not having noise from other guests on our floor. I’d booked a standard king guest room, but we were upgraded to a room with a sea view thanks to having Hilton Diamond status.

When entering our room there was a luggage rack and closet on the right.

The closet contained an extra pillow, an iron and ironing board, a safe and shoe shining items.

That short part of the hallway turned round to the left which led through to the bedroom.

The layout of the room was a little weird because on the left before reaching the bedroom area was the room’s toilet. This only contained a toilet though – the sink was located elsewhere.

The room’s king bed was pretty comfortable, although the sheets and pillowcase weren’t the nicest and it felt like they warmed up very quickly.

On the opposite side of the room was a dining table with a couple of chairs. To the left of that was a storage unit with the room’s TV on top.

On top of the dining table was a welcome amenity of some fruit and chocolate treats.

The storage unit had a couple of large (1.5 or 2L) water bottles on top, along with an electric kettle and items to make tea and coffee. The large bottles of water were replenished each day of our stay which was useful as we got through a lot due to the heat.

Beneath that was a mini fridge. This was empty rather than being used as a mini bar.

To the right of the bed was the bathroom which had a walk-in shower. This had both a rainfall shower head and a handheld one.

The best part of our room was the fact that it had a balcony that overlooked the Dead Sea.

With it being so late when we arrived, we couldn’t really see the sea that night.

The view was much better in the morning.

Breakfast

Breakfast is served in Spectrum Restaurant which is on the second floor. The hotel lobby is on the third floor, so you have to take an elevator down or walk down the stairs.

Breakfast is served from 7am to 11am each day and is buffet style. Some parts of the buffet were self-serve, while others – like the hot items, egg station, salad and cold cuts bar and breads – were served by hotel employees.

I’m not sure how much breakfast costs because it was complimentary for us thanks to having Diamond status with Hilton.

Breakfast itself was average. The egg station was incredibly slow – I don’t know if they keep the burners turned down low, but it always took ages for omelets to cook. The croissants weren’t that great and on a couple of mornings they didn’t have any jam to go with them – the only option was bitter orange marmalade.

The fresh fruit wasn’t all that great either. The orange slices had lots of seeds and the cantaloupe was rarely ripe. The fact that breakfast was free for us meant it wasn’t such an issue, but I’d have been disappointed if I was a guest paying for breakfast.

Dinner

The Hilton Dead Sea Resort & Spa has a few restaurants. There’s Spectrum restaurant (where breakfast is served) which offers dinner from 6:30pm to 10:30pm each night. There’s also Bacchus restaurant which serves Italian food.

We didn’t end up eating at either of those restaurants because we had dinner in 1312 each night – a Lebanese restaurant. Ordinarily we’d have had access to the Executive Lounge with my Diamond status which would offer food and drinks in the evening. The Executive Lounge was still closed due to COVID though, so instead the hotel gave us a voucher for each night of our stay which meant we got two complimentary snacks and two complimentary drinks each night in 1312. We were only given the vouchers after actively asking about the lounge situation, so if you have Diamond status and the lounge is still closed, be sure to ask about what’s offered instead.

Having arrived so late at night on our first night, we were grateful that the restaurant was still serving food after we’d checked in to our room.

1312 Restaurant has a couple of different menus. There’s a full menu available, along with a snack menu (similar to tapas) which is what we were able to select from for our two free snacks. Here are the two different menus, although these might have changed by the time you stay.

1312 Restaurant Menu

1312 Restaurant Snack Menu

We also got two free drinks, so Shae ordered a glass of red wine, while I ordered a beer which came in a frosted glass.

Shae chose oriental feta cheese balls for her snack which came with a herbed tomato salad. I ordered batata harra which were potato cubes served with fresh coriander, peeled tomatoes and spicy shatta.

These snack dishes came with complimentary sides of flat bread, almonds, vegetable dip and olives. This was more than enough food for us and all of it was delicious. Shae loved her feta cheese balls and my potatoes were fantastic – incredibly flavorful and crispy, as well as being a much larger serving than I’d expected.

The next night we ordered the same snack items, but we also ordered a separate entrée on top. That night we got chicken which came with a large serving of fries, garlic sauce, pickled vegetables and roasted vegetables. This ended up being a ridiculous amount of food on top of the complimentary snacks, so we weren’t able to eat it all.

On our final evening we did something similar, except this time we ordered beef skewers.

Dead Sea

The Hilton Dead Sea Resort & Spa is in a great location right on the Dead Sea. It has its own private beach area which you can access from the lobby level by taking three elevators down. Each elevator only goes down one level which initially seemed like a lazy way of getting to the beach, but you’ll appreciate having them on the way back up!

The beach had plenty of sun loungers and shades. There were never more than half a dozen people at the beach as most people staying at the hotel enjoyed the numerous swimming pools instead.

The hotel’s beach has a roped-in swimming area along with a pontoon.

The swimming area didn’t look very big from a distance, but it was plenty big enough once you’re in the water seeing as you mostly just float rather than actually swim.

At the top of the beach there are showers and the opportunity to take a mud bath.

The Hilton Dead Sea Resort & Spa also offers complimentary mud massages, so we’d definitely recommend taking advantage of that opportunity.

We wrote separately about our Dead Sea experience, so check out Our Dead Sea Experience: Floating, Mud & Tequila Shots! for more.

Speaking of tequila shots, there’s a bar down on the beach.

Amenities

In addition to the Dead Sea activities available, the hotel has a bunch of other amenities to take advantage of during your stay. That includes several different swimming pools. There’s the Infinity Pool which has a swim-up bar.

There’s the Sarab pool which is adults-only and has a poolside bar you can order drinks from and have brought to you.

They also sometimes set up impromptu water volleyball games in the Sarab pool.

Then there’s the Paradise pool on the level below which would be good for doing laps due to how long it is.

On the same level as the Paradise pool there’s a shaded swimming pool and play area for smaller children called Kidz Paradise.

There are lots of sun loungers available around all the different pools.

There’s also lots of other seating around the property in general.

The resort is quite large, but they’ve done a good job with signage around the property to help ensure you don’t get lost.

Back inside the hotel there’s a good-sized fitness room on the first floor with lots of equipment.

As the hotel’s name suggests, the Hilton Dead Sea Resort & Spa has a spa. Shae was given money by some friends and family members for her birthday so that she could treat herself while we were away, so she got some treatments at the spa one afternoon during our stay.

The hotel has a few other amenities. There are beach soccer and volleyball courts, a coffee bar, gift shop and concierge desk.

Executive Lounge

The hotel has an Executive Lounge which you can get access to when booking an Executive level room or by having Hilton Diamond status. The lounge was closed during our stay in terms of it serving food and drink, although it was open at breakfast time for guests with Executive level access to sit in if they wanted a quieter eating environment.

Noise

Something I thought was important to address in its own section was how not peaceful the hotel was. From 11am until 11pm, there was a DJ pumping out loud music at one of the pool areas. This isn’t so bad if you’re staying at the hotel to party, but it meant the hotel had a completely different vibe to what we were expecting.

The biggest problem with this was that the music wasn’t confined to the pool area. It was so loud that it can be heard all around the hotel. Even if you’re trying to relax down on the beach you can hear the music.

One afternoon while I was working, Shae went out to one of the pools to relax and read a book. She ended up giving up on being able to read anything as the music was so loud that she couldn’t concentrate on the book.

The hotel needs to do a better job monitoring the music that gets played too. There were several instances where they played songs with repeated swearing in them. This didn’t offend us, but it meant children playing in the Kidz Paradise pool could hear songs with F*** being sung which I’m sure many parents wouldn’t appreciate. To be fair, when these songs ended up coming on the DJ seemed to cut them short, but it happened frequently enough for us to notice swearing in songs on many different occasions.

Seeing as we had a room with a view of the Dead Sea, it also looked out over the pool areas. That meant we could hear the music playing until 11pm which isn’t ideal if you’re trying to get to sleep.

Parking

The hotel offers complimentary parking for guests, or valet parking for 2 JOD (~2.80 USD) per night.

Service

Service at the hotel was pretty good. It wasn’t always the most personal, but Khalil in 1312 restaurant was very friendly, as was Natalia who did Shae’s spa treatments. When checking out, Atyat was also very friendly and helpful.

The best of all though was Amed. He was the person working at the beach who gave us our mud massages. Amed was lovely and gave a great massage.

Wi-Fi

I don’t know if it was due to our location at the end of the Madaba wing, but the Wi-Fi connection at the hotel was simply awful. It was so bad that my laptop could rarely get connected, so I had to tether to my phone’s data coverage. Thankfully we’re on Google Fi which offers free internet coverage in most countries overseas, so this didn’t cost us anything extra.

Check-In & Check-Out Times

The check-in time at the Hilton Dead Sea Resort & Spa is 3pm, while check-out is at 12pm.

Location

The hotel is in a great location on the Dead Sea seeing as it has direct beach access with its own beach. It’s about an hour west of Amman and Queen Alia International Airport and three hours north of Petra.

Cost

Our stay cost 112.35 JOD per night including taxes which is ~158.50 USD. We paid for the stay with my Hilton Aspire credit card which has a $250 annual resort credit. Seeing as the Hilton Dead Sea Resort & Spa is an eligible property for that credit due to it being a resort, we saved $250 on the stay by paying with that card.

Points Earned

We earned 29,388 Hilton Honors points from the stay which is broken down as follows:

• Base points – 7,097
• Bonus points from Diamond status – 7,097
• Bonus points from triple points promotion – 14,194
• Bonus points from Diamond MyWay bonus – 1,000

By paying for the stay with my Aspire card, we also earned 14 points per dollar. We charged food and beverages to our room, as well as Shae’s spa treatments. That means we’ll earn an additional 12,826 points for our stay for a total of 42,214 points. That’s a fantastic return seeing as we also got $250 back from the resort credit.

Final Thoughts

We had a nice stay overall at the Hilton Dead Sea Resort & Spa in Jordan. It was great being located right on the Dead Sea and having direct beach access along with complimentary mud massages.

Although the Executive Lounge was closed, the vouchers for complimentary drinks and snacks in 1312 Restaurant got us more food than we’d initially expected. We appreciated being upgraded to a sea view and Shae enjoyed her spa treatments.

There were a couple of negative points with the stay though. The Wi-Fi didn’t work in our room and the booming music playing non-stop from 11am to 11pm meant the resort isn’t anywhere near as peaceful as you might hope.

Our Rating

Room = 4.1 / 5
Hotel Amenities = 4.6 / 5
Food = 4.3 / 5 (the breakfast score is lower, but the food from 1312 Restaurant brought up the average)
Location = 4.6 / 5
Service = 4.3 / 5
Overall Value = 4.4 / 5

Total = 4.38

Address

Hilton Dead Sea Resort & Spa, Dead Sea Rd, Sweimeh 11953, Jordan

Check Out All The Posts From Our Dubai/Egypt/Jordan Trip

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• Awesome Dubai Desert Safari For Shae’s 40th Birthday
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• Hotel Review: Ramses Hilton In Cairo, Egypt
• Exploring Babylon Fortress In Old Cairo, Egypt
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• Hotel Review: Marriott Mena House In Cairo, Egypt
• 6 Days In Cairo, Egypt – Here’s What We Did
• Our Dead Sea Experience: Floating, Mud & Tequila Shots!
• Hotel Review: Hilton Dead Sea Resort & Spa, Jordan
• 10 Tips For Driving In Jordan
• Visiting Petra In Jordan – One Of The New 7 Wonders Of The World
• Hotel Review: Petra Marriott, Jordan
• 1 Week In Jordan – Here’s What We Did
• Flight Review: Turkish Airlines Business Class – Istanbul (IST) To Chicago (ORD)
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• Spending Breakdown: 3 Weeks In Dubai, Egypt & Jordan – Here’s What It Cost