Tag: Dubai Hotel Reviews View All Tags
Towel Origami
A Zoo On Your Bed at Jumeirah Beach
June 5, 2007 at 9:14 AM | 0 Comments
While we were puzzling last week about Harry Potter deals at the Jumeirah Beach Hotel in Dubai, we couldn't help but notice that their housekeeping staff obviously have a degree in magic too. Towel origami has gone mad at Jumeirah Beach.
While part of us thinks that the time spent twisting our towels into elephants, swans and dragons could be better used on vacuuming the dust under the bed that we always find when we check we didn't leave socks there, we do appreciate it as an art form. We also want to know what happens to the eyes. Do they recycle them?
[Photo: Sunskier]
Related Stories:
· Harry Potter Checks In To Jumeirah Beach Over Summer [HotelChatter]
Dubai Hotel Reviews
Harry Potter Checks In To Jumeirah Beach Over Summer
June 1, 2007 at 9:14 AM | 0 Comments
Sitting pretty on the Arabian Gulf, the Jumeirah Beach Hotel might look like just another luxurious Dubai hotel. Looks can be deceiving, because this summer it will also become a Harry Potter-style Department of Magic.
We're not quite sure if it's corny or clever, but the special deal of the summer (designed, of course, to attract families) is the Wizards and Witches package. Included with your accommodation is a copy of the seventh Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a wizard welcome gift, Wizard adventures (whatever they might be) and for the kids, a place in the Jumeirah Beach Hotel Magic School. The press release has been particularly careful about satisfying the concerns and curiosities of prospective guests:
Hotel security has been training all winter ... advising that any dark wizards will be promptly returned to their mortal homes. The local Department of Magic has also been advised of the anticipated influx of promising witches and wizards and has ordered extra broomstick parking outside the hotel.
This offer's valid between 19 July and 18 August, with a minimum three night stay, and starts at AED1,600 per night ($435). We'd go if they'd do magic school for adults, too.
Related Stories:
· Jumeirah Beach Hotel
[Photo: Sunskier]
Hotel Hell
More Dubai Hotel Hell
April 17, 2007 at 12:43 PM | 1 Comment
[Ed. Note: Hotel Maven Contractor1803 has a hotel hell report from Dubai. Here's his story below. As always, this is one person's side of the story. If you feel differently, let us know. Enjoy.]
I recently had the displeasure of staying at the Mayfair Hotel in Dubai. This semblance of a hotel should be avoided by anyone seeking an enjoyable hotel experience. From the car that failed to meet me at the airport as promised, to the snotty front desk attendant, I had a thoroughly unenjoyable time. I booked my hotel through Asiatravel.com, and planned to have an enjoyable break from my work in Afghanistan. Boy was I surprised!
Dubai Hotel Reviews
Have Your Passport Handy When Visiting the Burj Al Arab
February 26, 2007 at 3:52 PM | 1 Comment
Inside, this place looks like "tacky Vegas."
Once again, HotelChatter's tentacles have sent dispatches to the mother ship from abroad. This time, the report comes from Dubai where our source snooped around the Burj al Arab which despite magnificent architecture it is, in short, un désastre.
The architectural structure from the outside and even the inside is gorgeous. The interior is a disaster. The public areas are not Arabic like Al Qasr, but tacky Vegas style. The only nice things inside are two beautiful tropical fish tanks. Even the bar on the 27th floor is a disaster. I would not want to stay there even for half the price of my room at the Park Hyatt. I could not see the rooms or even the spa.
They check your papers as you go around the grounds as though they have a priceless place. It all reminded me of being stopped every few miles when I drove around Haiti during the days of Baby Doc Duvalier.
Being compared to a country under rule by a wacky 1970s/early 80s dictator in a leisure suit can never be good. Hard to believe this was once the best hotel in the world back in 2005, huh?
Anti-View
Room With an Anti-View: Dusit Dubai's Parking Lot
December 7, 2006 at 8:57 AM | 0 Comments
You know the scene. You open the door to your brand new hotel room, run over to the window, open the blinds and bam, you are hit with the anti-view. Maybe you are looking down a dirty alley, witnessing a drug deal, staring at an air shaft in the face, or seeing a brick wall. Whatever you are viewing it is not extremely pleasurable. Help out your fellow hotel mavens by uploading your anti-views to the HotelChatter/Flickr photo pool, or by sending the photo along to us. Remember to tell us the name of the hotel and the room number with the not-so-easy-on-the-eyes view.
It's hard to justify traveling all the way to Dubai and staying in the five-star Dubai Dusit Hotel and having a view of the parking lot. Might as well check into a Best Western in Nebraska somewhere.
Related Stories:
· Don't look down [Flickr]
Google Earth Hotels
Google Earth Views: Al Maha Desert Plunge Pools & Dry Heat
October 12, 2006 at 11:11 AM | 0 Comments
Each of the 40 Bedouin-style suites at the Al Maha Desert Resort comes complete with plunge pool and 180 degree views of the dunes. The kind of place Luke Skywalker and his moisture-farming family would have developed on Tatooine if the Rebels paid him well for all his hard work.
Oh, and according to a tipster, it is a dry heat:
We went during at the hottest time of year, however the humidity is far less than it is in the city and beach and with your own infinity pool to cool off in during the heat of the day and a buggy that will pick you up from your suite and take you anywhere you want to go the 44 degrees heat seemed strangely bearable!
This tipster must be from Phoenix. Those Arizona folks are always talking about this mysterious dry heat.
Check out Al Maha on Google Maps below, walking home drunk from Dubai center doesn't look like an option.
Related Stories:
· Al Maha Desert Resort [Google Maps]
· Al Maha Desert Reviews [TripAdvisor]
