Finally – after 9.5 years living in Dubai, I have made it inside Burj al Arab!!!
While it is pretty much the height of ‘kitsch’ with everything either covered in gold, or with gold flakes or even crystals, it IS The Burj al Arab, and you can’t help but respect the greatness of it all.
Inside the lobby – Ramadan themed lights and water fountain 🙂
When you drive across that little bridge to reach it from the main road, and then drive up to the valet (embarrassingly in my tiny little Mazda 2 😀 ), you can’t help but go “WOW!”
We had ventured to this 7-Star hotel on a Saturday night for dinner, as part of Nat’s farewell. Yum!
We were seated at the window, which unfortunately did not offer great views because the night itself was not fantastic, but I took a walk outside to look at the pool & terrace. Also WOW!
Dinner was an international buffet – we dined at Bab al Yam – and the food was exceptional. Normally buffet dinners are difficult to get excellent-tasting food as the whole idea of buffets does not make it easy (nothing is freshly prepared), but these guys know how to do it properly!
There is a stir-fry station where they freshly make chicken, beef and prawns. They have roast beef, your usual salads, potatoes, rice, other ‘main’ dish types of food, mini pizzas, a pasta station, cheese & bread sections, and dessert. And then, they have the CAKES! Freshly made cakes of various flavours, and just absolutely delicious! I felt a bit out of place taking a photo of any of the food so you’ll have to just imagine it… sorry. But take my word that it’s amazing!!!
CAKE!!! (Snuck in this photo at our table 😉 )
We sat at the restaurant for about 3 hours, taking our time to enjoy as much of the food as possible, and still have space for the cakes and cheese. There was no way we were leaving there without 😉
After dinner we asked if we could head up to the Sky View bar to have a look. Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to have a look out the window as the bar was full, but the ride up & down in the elevator was enough fun. It’s a glass lift that allows you views of Dubai as you shoot up (and then back down). Good fun!
Total fancy-pants stuff – next time, it’ll be the High Tea 🙂
mynuttydubai 
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Most people’s knowledge of this building is via Tom Cruise in a Mission Impossible film so it’s nice to read a real insight. An Irishman managed the hotel for many years but I don’t know if he’s still there.
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Thanks for reading 🙂
You seem to have your buildings mixed up though – Tom Cruise (Mission Impossible) was filmed on the Burj Khalifa – the tallest building in the world. I can understand the confusion though – with both buildings being called Burj, it does make things confusing. Burj actually means “tower” in Arabic.
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Doh
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haha 🙂
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