Well, what can you say about the Burj Al Arab that hasn’t been said already?
Let’s start at the beginning.
Breakfast wasn’t included with our hotel room, so we had breakfast at Café Undici, a nice place popular with locals.
The drive from Sharjah along route 11 was a bit strange, as a sandstorm had blown up and was bringing visibility back to a few hundred metres. It was rather like yellow fog, you could say. It wasn’t blasting across the road or anything, but it was enough to send little spirals and twirls of sand dancing in interesting patterns across the road.
Dubai was just a stone’s throw away and it was Friday, weekend, so there wasn’t as much traffic as usual on the roads.
We first drove to Palm Jumeirah, to try to look at the artificial island that has added over 100 km of beach to Dubai’s coastline. Unfortunately, the sandstorm made it impossible to see anything and most of the area is still under major construction, so there are checkpoints stopping you from going most places.
We turned around and headed for the Burj Al Arab, normally an unmistakeable behemoth on the Dubai skyline, but today a barely visible ghost-like image and, even then, not until we had left route 11.
One more left turn and we were there, pulling up to the security checkpoint.
Yes, indeed, it appears that one cannot simply walk into this hotel. Our name was checked against a list of guests, the barrier lifted and we were waved through. A second checkpoint dropped its roadblocks under the ground and we drove on to the front entrance, where a team of valets and doormen pounced at our arrival.
We didn’t even have to unload our luggage. We simply indicated which bags should be brought inside and then we were ushered inside, where we were given rosewater to refresh our hands.
It was explained to us by the lady who greeted us that our suite wasn’t ready yet, so we were escorted upstairs to a café, where we drank juices and relaxed.
Gigantic aquaria line the escalators up to and down from the first floor.
Clever, choreographed waterjets make for mesmerising fountains on both the ground and first floors.
Eloïse caused her first mayhem by yanking the tower of nuts and olives from our table and scattering its contents across the floor. An Arabian band struck up in one corner of the café and we began to people-watch.
It was busy at the hotel, as it was around lunchtime, so lots of foot-traffic was on account of restaurant reservations. Cameras were being pointed in every direction, as people seized the opportunity for a few snaps of the ostentatious and resplendent interior. Others posed for photos to prove they had been here.
You could grow poor here very quickly. Boutiques selling everything from gigantic, pure silk Persian carpets to skeletonised Vacheron Constantin watches to 24 carat gold, diamond encrusted jewellery are worked away into the walls.
After 13:00, the curious tourists and restaurant-goers ebbed away and it became relatively quiet again. Eloïse was getting past her nap time and was also hungry, so I asked one of the staff if she could have some banana.
Sure enough, a plate soon turned up with banana slices on it. There was even sugar on top of the slices.
14:00 arrived and we were collected and accompanied up the escalator. We were taken to the ninth floor and brought to our suite. Our lady left us and told us that our butler would soon be with us.
And he was. He came in with three glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice and started to show us how to use the remote control. This controls not just the plasma screen in the living room, but also operates the main door. If someone rings the doorbell, you can see their image on the TV and let them in with the remote control.
The remote control also operates the curtains, so you really can do almost everything from the comfort of your fat arse. Similarly, a press of a button on the phone connects you with your butler.
Next, we were shown the newspaper menu. It’s impressive: you can choose to have any of 300 newspapers from all over the world delivered to your suite each morning. All major Dutch newspapers were available. I chose De Volkskrant and Sarah opted for the Boston Globe.
The suite itself is as big as our house in Mountain View was. I estimate it’s a good 175 m².
Fresh fruit and dates were in the room, along with crackers, biscuits and whatnot. There’s the standard complimentary bowl of fruit, plus a free bottle of wine. Fresh flowers adorn the room in multiple places.
There’s a laptop on the office desk. The system administration around these parts must be efficient, as it’s already running Vista (the first time I’ve even seen it). The laptop has wireless Internet. In fact, each of the 202 rooms here has its own network.
The ESSID is your suite number and is cloaked, presumably to stop you from stumbling onto your next door neighbour’s network. Still, if you’re out to get on his network, it’s trivial to type in the suite number yourself. There’s no WEP, let alone WPA.
There’s a fax machine in the office area, too. We had a fax waiting for us, welcoming us to the hotel and informing us of our own private fax number. It will be abandoned when we leave and not reused, to avoid privacy issues. I’m not sure whether the same thing applies to the suite’s telephone number.
We needed to get out and about at this point, so that Eloïse could have her nap. We went downstairs and out to the foyer to request one of the golf-like buggies that the hotel offers on a complimentary basis to guests.
Because the sand was still blowing about, they told us that a buggy wouldn’t be quite suitable now, and would we mind going in a white Rolls Royce instead?
Well, OK then, you’ve twisted our arm.
And so we turned up at Souk Madinat Jumeirah in a white Roller. Well, why not? When in Rome, etc…
The souq was very good. The Arabian architecture is straight out of 1001 Nights and the boutiques inside sell everything from baby wipes to very expensive pure silk Persian carpets. We had to prise ourselves away from them.
Happily, we finally left the souq empty-handed (apart from the aforementioned baby wipes, that is) and took a complimentary shuttlebus back to the hotel.
Back in the room, a mysterious visitor had been and left a cuddly Burj Al Arab teddy bear for Eloïse. Aww.
What about the bedroom? Well, the bedroom has a Dux bed, but I haven’t tried it yet. Sarah says it’s great, though. After turn-down service, the bed had been bedecked with chocolate-covered dates and his-and-hers eye creams. The bedroom ceiling has a mirror on it, but as I tend to sleep with my eyes shut, I can’t think of anything more useless.
Just before dinner, the doorbell rang. I answered it and a waiter was there, bearing gifts of tiramisu and the most fabulous coffee I have tasted on this entire trip. This waiter received an extremely warm welcome, as you might imagine.
Dinner was at the The Wharf, a delicious seafood restaurant just a complimentary buggy ride away.
After dinner, I collected the car from the valet and Sarah removed Eloïse’s car seat from the back to chants of “our car, our car” from Eloïse. She’s grown very fond of our dusty Mitsubishi Pajero and probably has a stronger impression of it now than our own car back home.
Sarah took Eloïse inside to put her for bed, while I headed off to fill up the car with petrol. I had had the hotel call Thrifty earlier in the day to find out if we could return the car at a closer location than where we had hired it, as the airport would be a long drive from the Burj Al Arab and an equally long taxi ride back.
Happily, they told me I could return the car to their office at the Mall of the Emirates, which is a short distance from here.
The mall was absolutely buzzing. What seemed like a kilometre long line of taxis was queueing along the slip road to get down in front of the adjoining Kempinski Hotel.
I parked the car in an arbitrary spot (which was hard to find, even though 6000 cars can park here), went inside and located the Thrifty desk. After a few formalities, we were carless once again.
The final odometer count was 3854 km and the car was definitely showing signs of its ordeal. It had been across the desert, up and down mountains, over wadis, through cities, across four borders and along more unsurfaced roads and dirt tracks than you can shake a stick at. I was sad to say goodbye to it, even though it’s underpowered and has that annoying >120 km chime.
Afterwards, I went to the Virgin Megastore to purchase a pile more CDs. The mall is open to midnight at the weekend, which is very convenient for people like me, as I can shop at the end of the day without taking anything away from the family’s daylight hours. I couldn’t believe how many people were there. The scenes inside and outside were more reminiscent of an airport than a shopping mall.
Virgin has this cool listening post system, whereby you slap on the headphones, run the CD’s bar code under the scanner and then — more often than not — it pulls ripped samples of each track from Virgin’s database. How convenient is that? It’s DIY try-before-you-buy.
Close to midnight, I headed out to the front of the mall and grabbed a taxi back to the hotel. I paused to take a few nighttime pictures outside. The Burj Al Arab is even more extraterrestrial-looking at night, with purple, green and orange spotlights shining onto it’s sail-like white front.
What else can I tell you about the place? The bathroom is very large and features a jacuzzi and large shower cabinet. There’s a complete range of [Hermès](http://usa.hermes.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay ?storeId=10202) toiletries in there, for both men and women, which we were encouraged to take home with us. I don’t know about such things, but I’m told these are expensive products. It includes aftershave, deodorant, soap, etc.
Other items are a decent shaving kit (proper Gillette razor and having foam) plus all the stuff you’re not supposed to take, like dressing gowns, etc. There’s a beach bag, too, and we were encouraged to keep that when we leave, also.
Oh yes, and there was even a bag of toiletries for Eloïse, consisting of sun cream, ointment and a couple of other bottles.
There’s a pillow menu with about 15 different pillows, including one that has been infused with vitamin E and aloe.
And a separate menu in the bathroom informs you of all of the baths that they will prepare for you in your suite. Top of the price list is Beyond Decadence, which includes caviar, chilled champagne and a bowl of strawberries. This will set you back a mere AED 3000 (±€625).
Outside, a row of expensive Ferraris and Lamborghinis is available for hire. A very nice Ferrari 430 with glass-topped engine compartment will set you back a mere AED 9000 (±€1878) for 24 hours. The mind boggles. I guess some people really must pay it.
Our butler offered to show us the presidential suite tomorrow, which costs a mere $13000 per night. He told us that people have been known to rent it for two months at a time! Can you imagine checking out and receiving your bill for three quarters of a million dollars? Again, the mind boggles.
This is our chance to see how the other half live and, for a few days, to live that life ourselves. Rubbing shoulders with the other guests, it’s obvious that we come from different worlds. The men are snappily dressed and the women in their designer gear and high heels look like they’re fresh from the Oscars.
We’re definitely on the shabby side, but hey, our loot is as good as anyone else’s, right?
What an experience, anyway. We’re unlikely to forget this place in a hurry. It’s the tallest hotel in the world; taller, in fact, than the Eiffel Tower.
One of the tours on offer here is a helicopter tour of the city, which leaves from and returns to the helipad on the top of the hotel. Wow.
The lift here travels at an ear-popping six metres per second.
Every detail in this hotel’s presentation, service and engineering has been designed to astound and impress; and impress it does, too.
The only thing wrong with it — apart from the price — is that it’s all going to look dated very quickly. In fact, the remote control unit and the plasma screen would have been absolute state-of-the-art back in 1999 when the hotel first opened, but they are showing their age now. Not that there’s anything wrong with the technology; just that it doesn’t look new any more.
Anyway, it’ll be a busy day tomorrow, so it’s time to retire for the night.