Canyon Point, southern Utah, USA
Amangiri Review
The most beautiful hotel in America, and I'd still think twice. At $5,000 a night the service is unpolished, dinner is forgettable and almost every outing is charged on top, and the price has doubled while the hotel has stayed the same. Go for two nights, once, for the building and the desert, and expect nothing more.
Service
Service is where Amangiri falls down. It's well meant but unpolished, and a long way from what the Amans in Asia are known for. You have to ask for drinks at the pool, dinner can drag, and the planning before you arrive is slow, so I'd pin down every outing and spa booking by phone well ahead and check it all again when you check in.
The people themselves are lovely. You're met at the door with a cold glass of sage lemonade, your bags disappear, and the staff, young and mostly local, are warm in an easy, unstuffy way.
The best of them are the guides who take you up the via ferrata or out on the morning walk to Broken Arrow Cave. They know the rock, the plants and the history, and they're the staff I remember afterwards.
Rooms
The suites are the best thing here after the landscape. There are only 34, in two wings either side of the pool, and even the entry ones are around 1,000 square feet. One whole wall is glass, so from the bed you look straight out at empty desert. It's pale concrete and white stone floors that are warm underfoot in winter, with a deep soaking tub, twin rain showers and a terrace with a fireplace. I love how spare it is, though some people find it severe, and the only thing between you and the toilet is a sliding door.
Don't assume your suite has a pool. The entry Desert View and Mesa View suites don't, so at that level ask for one at the far, upper end of the wing, because the first few have a dune in front that takes some of the view. If the budget stretches, the Desert Pool Suite is the one I'd book, with a private plunge pool, heated in the cooler months, and a roof terrace with a daybed for the stars. The Girijaala and Amangiri suites have full lap pools, at a price to match.
Camp Sarika, the sister camp five minutes away, is where I'd put a family. Its ten tented pavilions have one or two bedrooms, each with its own heated plunge pool, a fire pit and a golf cart for getting about. It's more private, but for a couple on a first visit I'd still choose the main building, for the pool and the wider view.
Food and drink
Dinner is the weak spot, and at this rate it shouldn't be. It's decent resort cooking that varies from night to night, so the same steak can be right one evening and overdone the next, and the coffee is poor. The dining room is lovely, open to a wood-fired oven and the desert, with elk, bison and Colorado River trout on the menu.
Breakfast is the best meal, and all three are included, which matters with the nearest town 25 minutes away. I'd order the cast iron pancake, thick and crisp at the edges, and at lunch a pizza from the oven or the lobster roll by the pool. Go across to Camp Sarika for one dinner, where the set menu changes daily, and book a table at both.
Drinks aren't included. Cocktails run to about $30, the wine list is marked up hard and there's no real bar. What I'd do instead is take a drink to the fire pit after dinner, where they set out s'mores under more stars than you've probably ever seen.
Setting
The setting is the whole reason to come. The resort sits alone in a valley on about 900 acres of its own, with flat-topped mesas in every direction and not another building in sight. The pool curls around a huge outcrop of sandstone, heated and open all night, and floating in it at dusk while the rock turns pink is what I'd come back for. The spa is very good too.
Book the via ferrata, steel cables and rungs bolted up the mesa behind the hotel, with a suspended stairway 400 feet above the desert floor. You don't need to be a climber, only steady with heights. Antelope Canyon, Horseshoe Bend and Lake Powell are all within about half an hour, while Zion, Bryce and Monument Valley are two hours or more each way, and I think they're better as separate stops.
Getting here takes effort. Page has a small airport 25 minutes away, with flights from Phoenix and a free transfer, and otherwise it's about four and a half hours' drive from Las Vegas or Phoenix. July and August are often over 100 degrees and you'll spend the middle of the day indoors, so April, May, October and November are the months I'd pick.
Value
No, it isn't good value. Entry suites start at around $4,500 a night in the quiet months and run $5,000 to $6,000 in spring and autumn, and Camp Sarika starts at about $6,500. That covers the suite, three meals a day for two, soft drinks, the transfer from Page, a daily wellness class and two guided group hikes a day, but not alcohol, the spa or the outings you've seen in the photographs. One-night stays are refused for much of the year.
The outings are where it really adds up. The via ferrata, the slot canyons, horses, off-road tours and boat days are priced per outing, from roughly $900 to $2,000, so it's easy to add several thousand dollars to a short stay. I'd pay for the via ferrata, but for Antelope Canyon and off-road tours, local operators charge far less for much the same trip. For desert at a gentler price I'd look at Castle Hot Springs in Arizona, and if it's the red rock you want, ULUM Moab gets you a very good tent for a fraction of the cost.
Who it suits
It's for design lovers and couples marking something big who want real silence with some adventure attached. If you're paying for pampering, go elsewhere. If food matters most, I'd choose Twin Farms in Vermont or Blackberry Mountain in Tennessee, and for riding and fishing included in the rate, the Lodge at Blue Sky near Park City.