And now for Dubai, and its luxury hotels

What a lovely idea – there is now seaplane transport between the UAE’s pair of lovely Park Hyatts. Go from one luxury hotel to another in style, thanks to Seawings, who took the gal on a 40-minute sightseeing trip over Dubai a couple of years ago. Then, the only Dubai landing stage was at Jebel Ali, but now, sensibly, there is another, right on the creek outside Park Hyatt Dubai – see the video, below, for a scenic tour around Dubai Creek and its marina. There is so much to amuse every time you return to this hotel. This is the place where you never, ever, get bored. GM Mattheos Georgiou, whom everyone calls Aki, even has a unique car. See it above.

It may not be unique, but the view from most of the hotel’s 225 rooms is pretty unusual – because of the zigzag shape of the five-floor block, opened nearly 11 years ago, you are probably going to have a view over the creek. I certainly did from room 1408, at a corner of the zigzag so I looked in two directions. I lazed on the lounger on one balcony just enjoying the serenity, so near to the airport but no noise from those planes, merely the enjoyable sound of a seaplane coming in to land, roughly once an hour. What is unique, by the way, is the carpeting throughout the entire building. Some areas are honey-warm marble flooring, but other areas are carpeted.

Corridor carpets are cream waves on chocolate, but in bedrooms the all-sand carpet has raised ripples, really sensuous on the bare feet as well as a reminder that this was all desert, once. Art on bedroom walls is mostly sepia photographs of sand dunes and other Middle Eastern reminders. Sculpture seems to change every time I come. Now an inner courtyard has some delightful bronzes. The inner courtyard and the hotel’s many terraces are used more and more with each year. At breakfast in Arabesque, most choose their copious spread – oh what a fruit selection – and then move outside. At dinner in Traiteur, we sat on the lower-level restaurant’s terrace, near the water, and just about managed to distinguish what we were eating and drinking.

This is a luxury hotel which gets a lot of stressed-out locals coming for calming weekends, or perhaps a chance to feel as if you are in the country, even though you are so close to business bases – it is also great for transit stops, say between Australia and Europe. You come to this luxury hotel and you really do not have to move more than a few yards. As well as its own restaurants, a whole range of excitement is less than 500 yards away, in the water-set Dubai Creek Golf and Yacht Club restaurant tower, and you can sign back to your room. There is Boardwalk fun-casual, a Spanish tapas, a rooftop martini venue and, from all, look down at the floating shisha hall, an amazing sight with up to 400 people in the open evening air, smoking shisha waterpipes, and some, also, sitting in rubber-ring private dining areas having barbeques as well. Another lovely idea!