I loved Dubai so much, I’ve been 29 times!
Sadie Nicholas introduces her baby to the capital of glamour and bling
OVER the past decade my husband Jon and I have clocked up 29 trips to Dubai, visiting close friends who live there. Many visitors complain that this sprawling metropolis lacks soul and is flash and ostentatious. But it doesn’t pretend to be anything else and we love it.
With opulent hotels, sumptuous restaurants, plus glamorous social events such as the Dubai World Cup – the richest horse race on the planet – it offers ordinary mortals like us a taste of a lifestyle usually reserved for the rich and famous.
But our recent trip was very different because we had our fivemonth-old baby boy, Albie, with us. Time to swap the nights partying and the serene, adult-focused hotels of old and embrace a family holiday.
Fortunately Albie is a champion sleeper, getting up to 14 hours a night, so we weren’t going to share a room and risk disturbing his slumber. We’d also need a kitchen with a washing machine – is it ever off once you have a baby? – and a fridge for his milk.
Anywhere else in the world, we’d book a villa. But unless you want to pay £6,000 a week for a palatial villa on the Palm, self catering isn’t Dubai’s thing. The public transport system is patchy, only a handful of areas are close to shops and restaurants, and it’s illegal to sit in a privately owned home and drink alcohol – you’ll need a licence which is only available if you hold a residence visa.
Thankfully this is set to change. Dubai will host Expo2020, which will attract about 20 million visitors, prompting its ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum to vow he’ll sort out the self-catering market.
In the meantime, we decided to book a serviced apartment within the Grosvenor House Hotel. Located on the marina it offers accommodation in two towers. Our two bedroom, two bathroom residence had a huge open plan living, dining and kitchen area, and because it’s within a hotel we could enjoy alcoholic drinks from room service.
The cot and baby bottle steriliser we’d requested were waiting when we arrived. One quick call to the on-floor butler on the first night and a baby bath was also delivered.
We spent our days by the pool where there were large day beds with retractable hoods, perfect for spreading out in the shade with Albie’s toys. Come late afternoon it took just 15 minutes to walk past the glitzy yachts to Marina Mall where there was a Waitrose and an abundance of taxis to bring us back with our shopping.
Guests of the Grosvenor can also use the pool at the Royal Meridien hotel on the beach – favourite haunt of Abbey Clancy and Denise Van Outen – five minutes away in the complimentary shuttle bus.
For parents in need of some ‘us’ time, the Grosvenor offers a babysitting service on the proviso parents don’t leave the premises while their little ones are in the care of a hotel nanny.
We hired one for three nights so we could sample the Grosvenor’s restaurants including Toro Toro, a funky South American affair where we ate steak washed down with pomegranate caipirinha cocktails.
But our greatest pleasures were the simplest – watching our baby splashing in the pool, blowing raspberries at the lifeguards and gazing, perplexed, at the camels on the beach.
GETTING THERE
Destinology (destinology.co.uk) offers three nights’ B&B at the Grosvenor House Hotel (grosvenorhouse-dubai.com) from £749pp including return flights. Direct flights with Emirates from airports across the UK start from around £390pp return. Visit emirates. com or call 0844 800 2777.