La Tour d'Eole

Style

Easy breezy eco lodge

Setting

Lagoon-side Saharan outpost

Deftly rigged for kitesurfers, all-inclusive stay, La Tour d’Eole, is as Earth-kind as it is breeze-blessed – an eco lodge at the edge of the Sahara, lapped by the sheltered waters of Dakhla Bay, and windy for 300 days a year. This coastal resort of bungalows, rooms, suites, and villas, has a private beach and watersports academy, where you can hire kit and take tuition. It does a fine line in after-sail care, too, with a cosseting spa to ease board-weary muscles, and a beach club and restaurant taking turns to serve cold cocktails and hyperlocal, organic cuisine.

Facilities

Rooms

45, including 21 bungalows and seven villas.

Checkout

11am, but flexible, subject to availability. Earliest check-in, 3pm.

More Details

Rates include all meals, but exclude drinks. There are varying requirements for minimum stays, depending on the time of year.

Also

This remote desert stay is sadly not suitable for wheelchair users or guests with limited mobility.

Free Internet Access

Laundry

Pet Friendly

Pool

On-Site Restaurant

Room Service

Spa

At the Hotel

Watersports centre; kit lockers; changing area and showers; a beach club; concierge, and free WiFi throughout. In rooms: protective glazing, electric sunscreens, free bottled water, bathrobes, and organic custom bath products. Prestige Suites and villas also have a 50-inch TV, Nespresso machine, tea-making kit, and a minibar.

Our Favourite Rooms

We’re enchanted by the Prestige Suites, arranged over two floors with generous outdoor space. Bungalows are our pick for Smiths à deux, especially if you bag a front-line one with uninterrupted ocean views. Villas are notably well appointed for group stays, set around a private pool and sun terrace with ensuite bedrooms, enticing living spaces, and a kitchenette. Pool- or sea-view rooms are your budget-friendly options.

Poolside

A heated infinity pool set on a sun terrace in front of the restaurant is open all year round: dip in its sulphurous, geothermal waters and take in the lagoon views.

Spa

The spa at La Tour d’Eole is a welcome retreat after a day out on the water: book in for a deep-tissue Berber massage with argan oil in one of its three treatment rooms; join a free group yoga session, late afternoon (private lessons can be booked at extra cost); or head to the Zellige-tiled hammam for a steam, followed by an aromatic scrub.

Packing Tips

Strictly trousers and shorts – a skater dress if you will – but leave any flared skirts and dresses, shawls and wraps at home (it’s too windy). And taking along a film camera or sketchbook is a good shout in such cinematic scenery.

Also

La Tour d’Eole’s location on El Argoub beach enjoys 300 days of wind each year – great if you’re kitesurfing, but a little exfoliating if you’re just planning to stay on shore.

Children

The emphasis on watersports here and the desert-edged, remote setting mean La Tour d’Eole is better suited to adults, but children of all ages are welcome. Babysitting can be arranged, and the hotel has multi-bedroom villas, each with a private pool.

Gallery

Food & Drink

Top Table

Make the most of the varied scenery on offer by alternating tables on the patio or on the terrace at La Table d’Eole.

Dress Code

Easygoing: anything but beachwear passes muster for dinner.

Hotel Restaurant

Flanked by an ocean-facing terrace on one side, and a plant-dotted patio on the other, La Table d’Eole is light-filled space for dining indoors or out. Breakfast is served here – a buffet affair with Continental options, and Moroccan-inspired plates and eggs cooked to order bolster its daily variety. By evening, chef Ali Timouni and his team turn their attention to dinner and the healthy, fresh (entirely organic) cuisine that defines the hotel’s flagship dining spot. Timouni’s menu, which aspires to zero waste, focuses on hyperlocal ingredients: an oyster farm, two kilometres away, supplies couldn’t-be-fresher shellfish, and lobster is caught in the lagoon, as is the fish. Fruit and veg come straight from nearby growers to the hotel kitchen. Style wise, you can expect a delicious melting pot of Moroccan and French influences, plus nods to Asian cuisine. Down on the beach, Le Chergui is the resort’s lunch spot – serving grills, and mer and terre light bites. From 3pm, its curation of crêpes, sweet or savoury, draws a fresh afternoon-tea crowd.

Hotel Bar

Next to the Ocean Academy, Bar Le Chergui is your drinking den on the sand, serving sodas, cold beers and signature cocktails (hard or soft) alongside its food menu. Adjacent to the restaurant, Bar La Tour d’Eole is a pergola-shaded lounge of outdoor sofas, where there are eight different mojitos to work your way through, as well as wine, champagne, and a selection of gins, whiskeys and rums.

Last Orders

La Table d’Eole is open for breakfast, 8am until 10.30am; for dinner, it’s 7.30pm until 10pm. Le Chergui is open 12.30pm until 3pm for lunch, then until 7pm for crêpes.

Room Service

Between 8am and 10pm, you can order from the restaurants’ menus to your room.

Planes

Dakhla has its own airport, served by connections via Morocco (often Casablanca), and direct flights from Paris. It’s 45 minutes by road from the hotel and private transfers, which are recommended, can be arranged from MAD1,320 for the return trip.

Automobiles

There’s little call to use a car during your stay at this coastal desert hotel, but if you are bringing your own wheels, the hotel has free parking.

Worth Getting Out of Bed For

The hotel’s watersports centre, Ocean Academy, is the first of its kind in this area, set proudly on El Argoub Beach, and attracting kitesurfers and windsurfers of all levels of ability to its wind-blessed waters. For extra adrenaline thrills, this is the place to try out wing-foil, too. You can book in at Ocean Academy for tuition, and Duotone kit is available to hire. If you bring your own gear, you can rent a locker, and use the centre’s changing rooms and showers. The main freeride area is just in front of the hotel’s private beach; but at high tide, experienced riders are drawn to the ‘piscine’, a shallow expanse of very flat water where the ocean bed is comfortingly always in reach. For wind-free days or to vary the schedule, La Tour d’Eole can happily arrange a number of tours. Head out on the hotel’s boat either to go fishing, or to visit the unspoilt sands of the White Dune and Dragon Island, where you can climb to the summit for bird’s-eye bay views. Discover the unique wetlands of Sebkhet Imlili, and the beautiful-if-desolate shores around Porto Rico, on the Dakhla peninsula, which is across the lagoon from the hotel (an hour away by road). As part of any tour, you can call at the Sahraoui Village, where you will take part in a traditional tea ceremony – a small insight into the life of the area’s Saharan nomads.

Earn or Redeem Points with World of Hyatt

This Mr & Mrs Smith hotel participates in the World of Hyatt loyalty program. As a member, you can earn and redeem points and enjoy exclusive benefits for qualifying nights. .