Review Shangri-La Hotel Dubai ~ Few vs Many Few vs Many

Review: Shangri-La Hotel Dubai

Touch down Dubai! We’re finally at the Shangri-La Hotel in Dubai. The place where the jet set of the world come to wine and dine. And drink some ‘forbidden’ alcohol. The world famous hotel chain Shangri La from mostly China has invited us to come and take a closer look at their hotel, and we were very much looking forward.

From the airport its a 15-minute drive to reach the hotel. The Shangri-La hotel is located in the buzzing financial district (5 minutes from the Burj Khalifa and Dubai Mall) and has 302 rooms and suites. Of course there are differences in the rooms, that’s something every hotel has. But the Shangri-La also has something not every hotel has: Horizon Club. This is a luxurious and personalized service for people. People like us apparently, because for 2 days we’re part of this Horizon Club.

And that basically means most of the hotel services are a bit different. Check-in and check-out are at a private reception on the 40th floor of the hotel. On the same floor there’s a extra room where people from the Horizon Club can enjoy breakfast in a more calm surrounding. There are a lot other privileges which could be pretty interesting if you’re a business person, because that’s obviously the target audience for the Horizon Club (free use of meeting room and free suit pressing).
Our room is nicely decorated. Small Chinese influences are noticeable but it doesn’t really dominate. The bed is perfect and air conditioning very silent (which is becoming more and more of a thing for us).

We arrive in the middle of the night so the first thing we do is get some sleep. Of course, if you just get off from a plane, you don’t really sleep that well, but we can use every extra hour. After this very useful nap its time to hit breakfast. And our first morning we immediately check the Horizon Club breakfast.

At that moment we don’t have a clue how things are ’downstairs’, but we enjoy a very peaceful and quiet breakfast with on the background a sunrise and the famous Burj Khalifa (which actually is a pretty nice view when you just arrive in Dubai).

The next morning we have breakfast at the busy part of town, and the difference is really big. Of course, there are more to choose from at the buffet, but we enjoy a little quietness when we just woke up.

The pool at the hotel is supposed to be famous for a lot of expats. It’s located at the hotel, but the hotel doesn’t really owns the stuff that goes one there. The place is used regularly by third parties for festivities and such. But ok we spend some time at the pool and enjoyed it very much. Its nice to cool down in the pool when it 40 degrees Celsius.

On our last night we try one of the hotels restaurants. We pick Hoi An, the Vietnamese establishment because it’s recommended to us by the lovely communication manger of the hotel. And listening to her might have been one of the best things we did in Dubai. The food was amazing and the staff very chatty (which is common on their home country). This chattiness could be a bit annoying when you’re trying to enjoy some food with your loved one, but we loved it. The food, the ambiance and the staff! Dish to remember was the Hoi An tasting platter. All of their best appetizers in one plate… We want to go back just for that platter…

As you might have noticed, we enjoyed the heck out of Shangri-La Dubai. At first we were a bit worried that this might be a bit too much of a business minded hotel, and we also don’t really have good experiences with China. But the Shangri-La surprised us in many ways. We know there are a lot of good hotels to stay in Dubai, but we know for sure you won’t be disappointed with the Shangri-La. High level service, good food, nice people, great location… What are you waiting for?