Emirates Palace Hotel Abu Dhabi

Emirates Palace. It's all in the name. This one truly is a Palace!
It's impressively huge... over 700m long. But only 300 rooms and 90 suites. Unlike with some other luxury hotels, let's say in Las Vegas, what you see is what you get: If something looks like granite, marble or gold, it is granite, marble or gold. And not just some marble - genuine Carrara marble from Italy.

Me and a friend had the chance to stay there for five nights during the soft opening phase in August 2005, shortly before the place officially opened. There was still some construction going on, but this way it was affordable.
Well, going to the UAE in August isn't actually a good idea, because it's incredibly hot and humid... but what the heck, here we are, in one of the finest hotels in the world! ;-)

The room - which was a standard room - was very nice although it wasn't very spacious. You get more space and about the same amount of luxury from a room in a hotel like The Venetian in Vegas or Macau. But here, you get your personal butler and a free refill of your minibar. Also, a 50" flat screen TV with internet access is quite nice to have.

As a typical german tourist you first check out the pool and beach area. So what, weather sucks most of the time in Germany, so we like to hang out in a sunny place for once in a while! ;-)
The pool on our side of the hotel was obviously the one intended for families and kids, as it has waterslides, a water canal and a waterfall. On the other side of the hotel there's another pool for the adults, with pool bar and the like. But this one wasn't finished, also it was about 1 km away, which you don't want to walk at 45°C...

Pool area is beautiful, and the water is cooled down to 28°C or something. Try to take a bath in the ocean - it's like taking a bath, water temp being 32°C or so. So it's very refreshing to jump in the cool pool!
The hotel's private white sandy beach is a mile long or something... so you won't have to share it with hundreds of tourists. Very nice!

We booked our room including half-board, which included breakfast and dinner.
Food was veeeeryyyy delicious there! So many choices at the breakfast buffet...everthing so tasty!
Dinner also was very good. They served a different meal every day. We were lucky to get to eat the lobster one evening, which was so far the best meal I ever had to this day!

So what else can you do there except eating and hanging out on the beach?
Well, at 45°C you probably won't enjoy going outside for any outdoor activities. We went outside once to check out the old Heritage village, just 2 kilometers away from the hotel, which is a museum now. We where so soaked with sweat after an hour it really wasn't funny any more. There was no taxi around, so we had to walk a few hundred meters, until we arrived at nearby Marina Mall.
So you better grab a taxi right away and check out places with air condition, like one of the malls.
You could also visit Dubai from here. It's just an hour by car. Well, we rented a car the other day and went to Dubai, but it turned out they also had 45°C, so it wasn't so much fun except for the times we were in a mall or checking out other luxury hotels.

I'd also highly recommend the hotel tour. Check at the front desk, they are showing people around in the hotel, especially in the suites that cost 10.000 bucks a night. I'm not sure if they still offer the tour, but just ask... it's worth it!

However, if you happen to be around in this area and you like to stay in a luxury hotel - pick this one! Even if it's just for one night... you'll feel like a Queen or a King that night!