--- 布尔吉阿尔阿拉伯——世界上最为豪华的酒店

Here, there are no regular room numbers; all 202 rooms are luxury accommodations. Each room is two-story, with the smallest covering 170 square meters and the largest reaching 780 square meters. Spending the night in the cheapest room will cost you $1,500. This is the world’s first seven-star hotel and also serves as a symbol of Dubai. I have stayed in many expensive hotels, but this one truly impressed me; it is completely different from everything else... Before the crisis, it was necessary to book a room at Burj Al Arab at least half a year in advance. This time, we managed to reserve a wonderful room just a week before our arrival... Sheikh Mohammed, the ruler of Dubai, understood that for his emirate’s tourism development, they needed a recognizable symbol—just like the Eiffel Tower in Paris or the Statue of Liberty in New York. For this purpose, he hired the English architect Tom Wright. The idea of building a hotel in the shape of a sail came to him by chance. He was sitting in a bar drinking beer when an Arab dhow with a sail passed by outside the window. Tom exclaimed, “Eureka! This is a simple and easily recognizable shape—even a child could draw it!” Getting into Burj Al Arab is not easy at all; it is located on an artificial island and is connected to the land by a bridge that has a security checkpoint at its beginning:

When we were staying in our previous hotel and booked a city tour, we had two options: a regular city tour for $55 per person or a tour that included a visit to Burj Al Arab and tea for $175. We chose the latter option. There are many restaurants in Burj Al Arab; if you reserve a table there, the security staff will check the list and let you enter the hotel lobby. By the way, there are always groups of tourists walking around there, taking pictures and looking amazed. Upon entering the hotel, you will immediately notice the stairway fountain with two escalators on either side. The fountain occasionally sprays water in short bursts:

The check-in process at the hotel is very simple: you just hand your passport to the staff, and while you wait, you can sit on a sofa and eat dates or drink coffee. Since I don’t drink coffee, they offered me a delicious hot drink made from ginger, lemon juice, and honey:

All the restaurants and elevators are on the floor above; you need to take the escalator there. Next to the elevators, there are two large aquariums hidden in the wall:

On the upper floor, there is another fountain that plays music; this photo shows it facing the escalators:

The sound of the fountain:

Burj Al Arab has the world’s tallest hotel lobby, which is 180 meters high. The hotel itself is triangular in shape, and the white side, which is usually visible from outside, really does look like a stretched sail when viewed from inside:

If you look up, you will see a kaleidoscope of colors like this:

Each floor is slightly narrower than the one below; the corridors are not straight but have curved sides. The color of the ceiling also changes from floor to floor, creating a surreal atmosphere. This is the corridor on our floor; it’s a bit difficult to understand the layout at first glance—take a closer look:

Each floor has its own reception desk and concierge to ensure guests get the best service possible. They always meet you at the elevator and accompany you to your room. The concierge is always friendly and asks how your day was going—so there’s really no need to worry when walking through these corridors. The railings are very thick and wide; it’s impossible to look down from them. To take the next photo, I had to hold my camera out at full length. From above, the lobby looks tiny:

Generally, I try not to book standard rooms; by paying a little more, you can get much better accommodations and receive more attention from the staff. We booked a Panoramic Luxury Room that covers 225 square meters. These rooms are larger than others on the same floor and offer views in two directions. Here is a plan of our room; it’s marked in green. By the way, the plan is displayed in a gold frame:

The hotel has a total of 27 floors. We asked to be placed on an upper floor, so we were assigned to the 14th floor, but remember that each floor actually consists of two separate sections. When we opened the door, we saw the following layout:

The stairs lead up to the bedroom, and in front of that is a work desk. Every room is equipped with a laptop, a fax machine, a copier, and a color printer. Here is what it looks like from the other side:

The door was opened by a girl who had come with us from the lobby. Inside the room, she handed us over to our personal concierge, who offered us orange juice and gave us a tour of the hotel. We started on the first floor:

Almost all the space in the room is taken up by a large living area:

The room is equipped with speakers compatible with iPods, and all the audio equipment can be controlled through an AMX panel:

The TV is covered in gold trim. In fact, a total of 8,000 square meters of gold leaf were used in the construction of this hotel:

While we were walking around the hotel, the fruit bowl was constantly replenished by the younger staff members. Every time we left the room, even for just 5 minutes, it would be filled with fresh fruits again:

Here are also the storage area and the guest bathroom:

On the second floor, there is the bedroom:

There is a large mirror hanging above the bed; this is what it looks like during the day...

Using a remote control behind the mini-bar, you can pull out the TV:

The remote control deserves special attention; I really liked the “Call the concierge” button. With this remote, you can also open and close the blinds, turn on the “Do not disturb” light, and even open the front door—so you don’t have to run down stairs...

Of course, on the upper floor, there is also a huge bathroom with a jacuzzi:

The bathroom is equipped with full-sized Hermes cosmetics. The men’s line has black lids, while the women’s line uses white lids. The concierge said we could take all the cosmetics home, so we did just that. He also “allowed” us to take away the slippers and a beautiful beach bag:

During the tour, our suitcases were brought to us. I was quite surprised by the concierge’s question: “Would you like me to unpack your suitcases right away?” I hesitated for a moment before saying, “Yes, please.” He unpacked all our suitcases and neatly arranged them on the shelves, while taking the dirty clothes away to be washed:

From the window, you can see the neighboring hotel, Jumeira Beach:

The next morning when I woke up, I couldn’t recognize the surroundings anymore—we were above the clouds, and the flags of the neighboring hotel were barely visible through them:

I couldn’t help but take a photo titled “The World at My Feet”:

Stay tuned!