Dubai Hotel - What $100 Buys You
I blogged earlier about what $150 buys you in central London. Barely enough room for a bed. Easy to capture in one photo.
Fast forward 3 weeks, I can barely fit the dining and living rooms of my $100/night Dubai hotel in one photo:
Two thumbs up for the Golden Sands Hotel & Apartments. It's one of the biggest hotel/apartment chains in Dubai. They've got 10 of these that all look the same. Makes it easy to walk into the wrong one. They're all nearby in the center of Bur Dubai. Very clean and in good shape. Dubai has a reputation for expensive hotels, but except for a few over-the-top hotels, the prices are reasonable.
What exactly did I get for $100/night? I calculated around 1500 square feet. 5 beds, 3 bedrooms, living room, dining room, huge kitchen, balcony, 2 bathrooms, a laundry room, and this arrow sticker on the ceiling so I know which way to pray.
It was really a damn shame to have this much space and be travelling alone. How did I get such a great deal? Well, I booked a studio apartment on booking.com which was a bit cheaper than the same room on other sites. Then when I got to the hotel, they were all out of studios, 1 bedrooms, and 2 bedrooms. What left but to give me a 3 bedroom? Rack rate for it was around $1000/night. Where you stay has a huge impact on your overall impressions of where you travel, so to me, Dubai is freakin awesome.
I've never had my own laundry room while travelling so I took advantage of it. You'd think that a hotel which provides soap and shampoo in the bathroom could provide detergent in the laundry room. Nope. So I had to buy some Tide at the next door super market, Spinney's. Yup the biggest supermarket chain in Dubai is called Spinney's.
What's the one downside of having a laundry room in your hotel room? Well, actually two downsides. The first was the dryer got really hot and smokey and I thought was going to burn the place down. Fortunately it's pretty darn hot and dry in Dubai, so you can put your clothes on the balcony for about 15 seconds. That'll do the trick. A drying machine in Dubai? C'mon. Do eskimos need a refrigerator? But I digress. The main downside is that your key is in the slot to keep the electricity on. And while the refrigerator is on a different circuit (as I learned after calling the lobby), the washing machine will turn off when you leave the room. How I thought of that ahead of time is beyond me. My usual discovery process involves D'oh moments such as:
1. Washing machine is on.
2. Pull the key out as I leave.
3. Washing machine goes quiet.
4. D'oh!
I'm not in Dubai everyday and I really would have preffered to put the laundry in and then go do something productive like find an internet connection and login to facebook.
Fast forward 3 weeks, I can barely fit the dining and living rooms of my $100/night Dubai hotel in one photo:
Two thumbs up for the Golden Sands Hotel & Apartments. It's one of the biggest hotel/apartment chains in Dubai. They've got 10 of these that all look the same. Makes it easy to walk into the wrong one. They're all nearby in the center of Bur Dubai. Very clean and in good shape. Dubai has a reputation for expensive hotels, but except for a few over-the-top hotels, the prices are reasonable.
What exactly did I get for $100/night? I calculated around 1500 square feet. 5 beds, 3 bedrooms, living room, dining room, huge kitchen, balcony, 2 bathrooms, a laundry room, and this arrow sticker on the ceiling so I know which way to pray.
It was really a damn shame to have this much space and be travelling alone. How did I get such a great deal? Well, I booked a studio apartment on booking.com which was a bit cheaper than the same room on other sites. Then when I got to the hotel, they were all out of studios, 1 bedrooms, and 2 bedrooms. What left but to give me a 3 bedroom? Rack rate for it was around $1000/night. Where you stay has a huge impact on your overall impressions of where you travel, so to me, Dubai is freakin awesome.
I've never had my own laundry room while travelling so I took advantage of it. You'd think that a hotel which provides soap and shampoo in the bathroom could provide detergent in the laundry room. Nope. So I had to buy some Tide at the next door super market, Spinney's. Yup the biggest supermarket chain in Dubai is called Spinney's.
What's the one downside of having a laundry room in your hotel room? Well, actually two downsides. The first was the dryer got really hot and smokey and I thought was going to burn the place down. Fortunately it's pretty darn hot and dry in Dubai, so you can put your clothes on the balcony for about 15 seconds. That'll do the trick. A drying machine in Dubai? C'mon. Do eskimos need a refrigerator? But I digress. The main downside is that your key is in the slot to keep the electricity on. And while the refrigerator is on a different circuit (as I learned after calling the lobby), the washing machine will turn off when you leave the room. How I thought of that ahead of time is beyond me. My usual discovery process involves D'oh moments such as:
1. Washing machine is on.
2. Pull the key out as I leave.
3. Washing machine goes quiet.
4. D'oh!
I'm not in Dubai everyday and I really would have preffered to put the laundry in and then go do something productive like find an internet connection and login to facebook.
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