Beit Zamen Hotel near Petra?

I have never been inside - it's quite a bit out of the way, although it's not far in a direct line from Petra and the centre of Wadi Mousa, the hills and valleys mean that you have to go right round a circle to get there from just about anywhere. It used to be called Nawafleh Kanzaman (the old Nawafleh village) but it is now usually referred to locally as "al Karia" - "the village".

That said, it looks like a nice place. It's the same style as Taybeh Zaman, old houses turned into hotel bedooms in a sort of village. Unlike Taybeh Zaman it's down in the valley, below the road coming from Amman. It's run by Mercure Hotels which means it's pretty luxurious.

It was closed during the "tourism crisis" and reopened only in April of last year, which may be why it is neglected even by this year's LP - or perhaps because they couldn't find the way to get there through the maze of lanes - that wouldn't surprise me either!

I hope they offer transport to Petra, otherwise you have quite a walk up hill and down dale! This is actually quite infuriating because one sees it very clearly - it's just not easy to get there!! I wonder if the Rough Guide (new edition expected next month) reached it???

Needless to say there are no restaurants, coffee shops or souvenir shops anywhere near to it! Don't even consider staying there unless you have a car.

Have a look at Google Earth. The coordinates of the hotel are 30°19'36.72"N, 35°29'15.18"E
You can see that getting there and away can take some time even if it is a lot closer as Ruth stated.

Thanks everyone for your advice. We are actually renting a car for our whole 12 day stay in Jordan (I was able to get a rate through hertz of US$32 a day) to give us total flexiblility, so assuming we can figure out the route to and from the hotel, that should be a problem! Given that we have 4 nights at Petra, we wanted to make sure that we had a comfortable place to return to in the evenings, that was also interesting. Even though we're flying a bit blind on this one, I think we'll risk it.

thanks again!

k

Hello,

I was looked at the same place for October and here is the website.

http://www.jordantourismresorts.com/

It looks like a good place but I noticed they dropped their prices by about US$40 a night since when I booked in April.

I too found it very difficult to get information on it and make a booking but did so through www.asiatravel.com

best of luck

Holy smokes Ruth, you weren't kidding when you said Wadi Musa was a hilly place!!!!! The hotel is lovely, although you definitely need a car or are prepared to pay 5JD for a taxi everytime you want to get to town or petra. It is essentially like a sanitized version of a stone village on a hillside, with a lot more character than any of the other hotels in the area. We booked through some place called Jordan Select Tours who were very helpful. We ended up in a suite, because there were no standard rooms available for our stay, and while pricey, the room (which was huge, gorgeous and had its own little terrace where we could drink a beer and watch the stars while others looked on enviously) was a far better value than the other luxury hotels of equal or greater cost, based on trip advisor reviews. the hotel is clearly aimed at large european tour groups, so don't plan on getting a lot of info from the front desk or individual attention. The indoor pool is quite swanky and is the temperature of a bath, and there is a nice area outside the pool with lounge chairs. Given how complicated it is to walk to town (we tried it one night to the horror of the hotel staff who rightly looked at us like we were crazy when we insisted on doing so!), eating at the hotel is not a bad idea. The salad buffet/dessert option is 8JD (vs 18JD for the full buffet) and involves more salad options than I have ever seen before in my life. You can make more than a decent meal out the salads and they were very good. Desserts, however, were pretty awful. the breakfast buffet (included in the room cost) is also decent, although inexplicably, like many luxury hotels in egypt and jordan, they did not serve fresh juice but some sort of cool-aid type stuff which was pretty grim. In the end, it was worth the cost to have a nice place to return to each night after an exhausting sweaty dusty day in Petra, b/c Wadi Musa is more a functional town than a charming place and there isn't a heck of a lot to do in the evenings. I'd recommend the place to anyone who can afford the $150-220 a night because it really was a very nice place.

It sounds very nice indeed for those who can afford it or who are prepared to splurge.