The only real hope for a hotel with a close view is the Marriott Riyadh Airport; not cheap, £200ish a night. Immigration had no queue and once e-sim had installed, it seemed that Uber worked so we went to the hotel, dropped bags and Ubered to the rather excellent Saudi Air Force Museum. We were back at the hotel around 1200 and were granted early check in for an additional £25; a request for a high floor airport view room seemed to cause some amusement but resulted in room 431 which has a reasonable view of the easterly runway, the VIP/biz parking, 6 ex-Saudi 777s and 3? 747s being dismantled all visible in the distance.
We were lucky that they were landing past the hotel; the majority of arrivals were on the westerly runway out of sight from the room, all departures and any biz arrivals were on the easterly runway. There was plenty of seating out the front of the hotel for smokers which would be a great place to spot movements and overflights if (a) it wasn't 45C and (b) our hobby were understood. This is not the Proud Bird Restaurant at LAX; using optics, cameras and note taking outside the room would be most unwise!
The hotel wifi seemed to strangle adsbexchange but 5G didn't and FR24 worked well. In 24 hours we logged around half of the flynas and flyadeal fleets and there was a reasonable flow of traffic to/from the VIP/biz ramp.
The locals were delightful, very keen to look after us, give us bottles of water etc.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/q3MTAksYKvRqpBRe6
Credit Ian Metson