First, the logistics.  This is the tallest building in the world used solely as a hotel.  While there are hotels located in taller buildings, those buildings also have office spaces and other uses.  The other detail is every room in this hotel is a suite.  Unlike the huge Las Vegas hotels with thousands of rooms, this hotel has only a bit over three hundred.  Even getting a close look at this hotel can be a challenge.  Every entrance to the hotel is blocked from several hundred meters by security personnel.  A select few visitors are allowed to see the inside of the hotel each day for fifty dollars a person.  Photography, though, is strictly forbidden.  Luckily, photography is not forbidden for guests.

The inside of the hotel features the tallest hotel lobby in the world.

Each floor has its own lobby and private butler.  When we first arrived in our room, we were given a “tour” for over half an hour.  Our room had a two story view and was 250 square meters in size.  When we first entered the room, we thought this must be the lobby!

The desk in the front had a laptop and printer available for use whenever we wanted.  Going passed and around the stairs we came to a bar and our living room.

The TV has multiple uses – from getting the standard (amazing variety of) channels, to getting free on demand movies, to seeing who is at the door when someone rings the bell.  The boxes on the tables contained a variety of sweets and dates.   The fruit bowl was filled each day and we received complementary copies of not only newspapers, but a variety of magazines.  The following is the view from the upstairs.

I love the touch of the projected clock on the wall.  Turning around there is the bedroom.

Although the bed looks small, it is huge.  If the pillows on the bed aren’t suitable, a “pillow menu” was available from which you can choose your ideal pillow.  We tried ordering a number of different pillows to test them out, but wound up kicking most of them off the bed.  The bed faces another full featured television and, in our room, a view of the Jumeirah Beach Hotel – which before the Burj al Arab was considered the best hotel in Dubai.

The bathroom was even more impressive.

By the sink was a complementary set of a complete line of Hermes products for him and her.  These weren’t tiny bottles – but were instead the full sized products.  Just the Hermes products would normally cost over $300 in a store!  The stand up shower had jets that hit you from the sides (very nice) and in the back was a huge Jacuzzi.

As nice as the room was, the service completely blew it away.  Our butler constantly brought us interesting snacks to try – such as some of the most delicious cookies I have ever had, to wonderful fruit drinks, to foie gras (“duck paste”).  All of this, as with everything else, was complementary.  While the hotel is expensive, they don’t nickel and dime you to death as they do in other hotels. 

Every time we left our room, the room was completely remade.  I heard that the entire staff of the hotel meets every morning and discusses their guests.  It seems like everyone knows you there and they are all beyond friendly.  One time we mentioned that we were going to take a walk by the beach.  Our butler quickly dropped off some complementary beach sandals and a beach bag in case we wanted to buy something.  We took a rather quick walk and came back up to find our room completely made.  On our bed was foot balm – in case our feet were hurting from the walk.

For breakfast, the food was exquisite and included pastries and fruits flown in from Europe and elsewhere in the world.  Perhaps the best breakfast I ever had was there.  I was glad that I booked the room with breakfast included – as the normal price was $100 per person.  The silverware, by the way, was Christofle ($20,000 for a set) and the plates were made exclusively for the hotel by a well known company that I have since forgotten.

Not only did the hotel have its own private beach and pool (with a life guard literally every 3 meters – there were so many life guards it was comical), but we had free access to the Wild Wadi amusement park.  This is a rather small park, but it makes up for its size in quality.  The tube ride is an interesting concept – where you sit in tubes and are jetted to the top of the hill where you then slide down.  That’s right – no walking up wooden stairs like in most other water parks.  Obviously I did not have my camera there, but I did get this shot of the super slide from a distance.

I had the opportunity to walk around the hotel and get some shots.

In the front of the hotel are fireballs that they have every so often.  The Burj al Arab was clearly the best hotel that we have ever stayed in, and we are planning to return there in 2011, when we will get to compare it with the new Burj Dubai – already the tallest building in the world and still growing.

One detail I forgot to mention before, while we were staying there Roger Federer was also a guest – in the same type of room that we had.  Of course, we did not get a chance to meet him.  Shortly before we checked in, Will Smith checked out.  A few weeks before we arrived, Madona stayed there.

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Imagine that someone woke up someday and thought.

“I live here in some desolate area of Wyoming, but I kind of like Chicago.  So, I’ll build Chicago right here.”

The scale of building in Dubai is matched by nowhere on Earth.  When we were there, every patch of ground in sight was the future location of some skyscraper.  The following shot gives you an idea.  This is part of the Marina complex, which is now complete.

Admittedly, the original reason we went to Dubai was for the shopping.  Dubai is well known as the shopping destination both of the Russian rich and famous as well as the bargain seekers.  Normally when we are bargaining for a price, Nelya and I will use Russian with each other to discuss what price we should offer.  This approach did not work at all there.  Neither did using Tajik, as the large persian population there understood it very well.

Although Dubai is known for its shopping, we weren’t really impressed by it there.  While every high end brand you can imagine is available there, the prices were not bargains by any means.  The silk souq did not really compare to the silk markets of Singapore and electronics and camera equipment were more expensive there than in the US.  We did however get decent bargains on gold and a beautiful silk Persian rug.  The quantities of gold in the gold souq itself was impressive.

Nelya and I both had fun at the spice souq, where you could buy vials of saffron for a quarter.  It was quite mind boggling seeing saffron for sale by the kilo.  The vials made great gifts for friends and coworkers upon returning. 

Malls in Dubai made the largest of our malls look tame.  They are currently constructing the largest mall in the world – far larger than the current largest mall located in Edmonton.  We went to a relatively new mall called Ibn Batuta, where each section of the mall resembled a different part of the world.  The following shot is of a ceiling in a mall, not a mosque or any historic structure.

The primary mistake we made with Dubai was not bringing our kids.  Like a lot of people, we were worried that the Middle East could be a dangerous place and was no place for children.  We could not have been more wrong.  Children are welcome everywhere there and there are many playgrounds and activities just for them.  Almost every hotel has baby sitting services.  Now I realize that the truth is the opposite.  The Middle East is one of the easiest places to take children, with children being far more welcome than they are in most places in the United States.

We started our trip in the Oasis Beach Hotel.  This was a very nice hotel and would easily qualify for at least 4 stars in the US.  Next to our subsequent destination it was a drop in the bucket, but for the price it was a very nice place.  The picture below was from our window.

Dubai is a very international place.  Tourist flock there from almost every corner of the world, with the exception of the United States.  We saw Germans, French, Russians, Indians, Pakistanis, Venezuelans, Chinese, Australians, and Kenyans there – but hardly a single American.  Although many signs are in Arabic, English is widely used there and most people understand it.  In fact I suspect more people understand English there than Arabic!

I will keep the highlight of the trip for the next day’s post though, where we had the chance to stay in the best hotel in the world.

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