--- Burj Al Arab es el hotel más lujoso del mundo. ---

Here, there are no ordinary rooms; all 202 rooms are luxury suites. They are all two-story structures, with the smallest suite 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 it also symbolizes Dubai. I have stayed in many expensive hotels, but this one truly impressed me; it is truly different from everything else... Before the crisis, booking a room at the Burj Al Arab required at least half a year in advance. Fortunately, we managed to reserve a wonderful room just a week before our arrival... Sheikh Mohammed, the ruler of Dubai, understood that his emirate needed a recognizable symbol for its tourism development, 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 recognizable shape that even a child could draw!" Getting into the Burj Al Arab is not easy at all; it is located on an artificial island and is connected to the mainland by a bridge that is guarded at its entrance by a security checkpoint:

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 the Burj Al Arab and tea service for $175. We decided to skip the tea and cookies option at that time. The Burj Al Arab has many restaurants. If you reserve a table there, the security staff will check the list and allow you to enter the hotel lobby. By the way, there are always groups of tourists with cameras and wide-open mouths walking around there. Once you enter the hotel, you will immediately notice the staircase fountain with two escalators on either side. This fountain occasionally starts playing, spraying short bursts of water:

The registration process at the hotel is very simple: you just hand over your passport to a staff member, while you sit on a sofa, eating dates and drinking 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 located on the floor above; you have to take an escalator to get there. Next to them, in the wall, there are two large aquariums hidden:

Upstairs, there is another fountain that is also playing music. This photo shows it from the direction of the escalators:

Here is how the fountain works:

The Burj Al Arab boasts the world’s tallest hotel lobby, which measures 180 meters in height. The hotel itself has a triangular shape, and its white side, which is usually visible from outside, indeed looks like a fully stretched sail when viewed from inside:

If you look up high, you will see a mesmerizing kaleidoscope of colors:

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

Each floor has its own reception area and concierge, to provide guests with greater convenience. You will always be greeted at the elevator and escorted to your room. The concierge is always friendly and asks how your day was, showing great kindness. So, walking through these corridors is not scary at all; the railings are very thick and wide, making it impossible to look down from below. To take the next photo, I had to hold my camera out stretching my arms as far as possible. From above, the hotel lobby looks tiny:

Usually, I try to avoid booking standard rooms; by paying a little more, you can get much better rooms and receive more attentive service. We booked a Panoramic Luxury Suite that covers 225 square meters. These suites are larger than the others on the same floor and offer views in two directions. Here is the evacuation plan for our room; it is marked in green. By the way, this 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 staircase led upwards to the bedroom, while in front of us was a work area with a computer, fax machine, copier, and color printer. Here is what the back side looks like:

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

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

The room is equipped with speakers connected to an iPad control system, and all the technical devices are managed through an AMX panel:

The television is covered with a gold-plated frame. 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 had been constantly replenished by the younger staff members. Whenever we left the room, even for just 5 minutes, it would be magically filled with fresh fruits again:

Here are also the storage area and the guest toilet:

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 adjust the position of the television:

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 go downstairs:

Of course, upstairs there is also a huge bathroom with a jacuzzi:

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

During the tour, our suitcases were brought up. I was really surprised by the concierge’s question: “Would you like me to unpack your suitcases now?” I hesitated for a moment, but then said, “Yes, please.” He opened all our bags and neatly arranged their contents on the shelves, while taking the dirty clothes away to wash:

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

The next morning, when I woke up, I couldn’t recognize the landscape at all; we were above the clouds, and the flags of the neighboring hotel could barely be seen through them:

I couldn’t resist taking a photo titled “The World at My Feet”:

Stay tuned!