HotelChatter

As we mentioned, JBH is the family spot with cascading shallow pools and the nearby Wadi Wadi water park outside. Visualize: plump and pasty British and German family types with hand print sunburns and no modesty. (We're not even asking out of religious respect, but just because moobies aren't appetizing to look at.)

The suites are spacious and there are rooms designed for families traveling to Dubai for fun and also as a pampering stopover for those making the hajj to Mecca.

Unfortunately, rooms at JBH have those loud patterned carpets reminiscent of W Hotels that always remind us of the "fiesta" print option for designing birthday cards on our parents' old Apple 11GS.

Lifting us out of the ugly carpet funk are the golf carts which guests can use while on the compound travel. It gets so damn hot in Dubai that you won't ever think: "I should walk and get some exercise." Between eating and spending money, swim a few laps or use JBH’s fancyshmancy state of the art gym.

With restaurant names like Beachcomber and Go West, it’s not so surprising that the menus are similar to say the Macaroni Grille and Cheesecake Factory. It's all typical, expensive, yet tasty hotel food. If you’re dying for something local and authentic to Emirati culture, you might try some camel milk for breakfast. But the culture in Dubai, duh, is money.

Despite the heat, the hotel does a great job at further wasting energy and money by refreshingly blasting AC outside of the hotel for guests to enjoy. If you spend your money right, you might never feel the hot air during the journey from inside your BMW and Mercedes car service to the entry to your hotel. Drivers and hotel door people at both hotels are excellent about having cold, wet hand towels and water bottles for you -- of course always for a price.

JBH starts at AED = 1,800 ($490.255) a night for deluxe twin rooms that overlook the pale green Arabian Sea.

[Photo: Team Sandtastic]