Southampton Harbour Hotel & Spa

Southampton Harbour Hotel & Spa opened in autumn 2017 at Ocean Village Marina, in a building shaped to look like a superyacht. It is operated by Harbour Hotels for its owner Nicolas James Group, and it has a spa, a seafood restaurant and a rooftop bar.

The place

The address is 5 Maritime Walk, Ocean Village, Southampton SO14 3QT. The building sits on a promontory that projects into the marina, at the edge of the redevelopment that MDL Marinas has carried out around the old dock basin.

The hotel presents itself as well placed for the city's cruise terminals, Ocean Terminal in particular, and a cruise-and-park package includes a shuttle. Visitors also use it as a base for the Isle of Wight ferries, the SeaCity Museum and its Titanic galleries, and the New Forest.

The concept

The hotel was built for Nicolas James Group, which already owned a string of Harbour-branded hotels on the south coast, from Christchurch and Salcombe to St Ives. Planning consent was granted in April 2012, and a 2015 report named Scott Brownrigg as the designer. The scheme cost £25m for the hotel alone and sits alongside 82 apartments in three residential blocks. The shape is meant to read as a superyacht moored in the marina, which has also led visitors to describe it as a cruise liner.

Operation has not changed hands. Nicolas James Group developed and owns the building, while Harbour Hotels runs it, and the group's current website still lists it under that name and operator.

The room count is the one figure that moved. Pre-opening announcements spoke of 76, 85 or 91 bedrooms, and the opening press release gave 85 bedrooms plus six family apartments. Reviews from 2021 and 2026 both cite 119 rooms, including 10 suites. The hotel's own site does not state a figure, so the 119 comes from those reviews.

A 2026 review lists six room types, from double and twin rooms to a Deluxe Marina View Suite on the fifth floor with a separate lounge and a dining table for six. A 2021 review measured that suite at 731 square feet. Most rooms have a balcony, and the cheaper Juliet-balcony rooms are reached by an internal staircase, which makes them a poor choice for anyone with limited mobility.

The spa, HarSPA, is on the ground floor. It has a small lap pool, a hydrotherapy pool, sauna, steam room, a mud rasul, seven treatment rooms and a juice bar, and hotel guests do not pay extra for access to the spa and gym. Two reviewers call the pool compact, and one could not get a treatment slot at short notice. Elemis treatments were added at selected HarSPA sites from June 2024.

Dining & wellness

The Jetty is the ground-floor restaurant, built around locally caught seafood, with a decked terrace over the marina. It held two AA Rosettes when reviewed in 2021, and it is run as a business separate from the hotel. Alex Aitken was named as chef patron at the opening. The 2021 reviewer ate the seven-course tasting menu (oyster amuse-bouche, scallops, duck breast, a lemon curd soufflé) and found the wild sea bass course thin in flavour. Booking ahead is advised.

HarBAR on 6th is the rooftop bar and kitchen, with fire pits, a wood-fired pizza oven and a retractable heated canopy. It serves breakfast, all-day dishes, afternoon tea and cocktails, and the hotel says The Times placed it among the best in the UK. Non-residents queue for it, and one guest wrote of being turned away when it was full.