Burj Al Arab
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
The sail-shaped hotel that made Dubai a byword for excess.
There is no such thing as a subtle stay at the Burj Al Arab. Every room is a duplex suite, every guest gets a butler, and roughly 1,800 square metres of the interior is wrapped in 24-carat gold leaf. It's the physical embodiment of turn-of-the-millennium Dubai ambition, and it has aged into something almost nostalgic.
The Verdict
As an exercise in restraint it fails completely, and gloriously. You don't come to the Burj for taste. You come for the spectacle, and on that it has never once let anyone down.
Arriving by chauffeured Rolls-Royce across the private bridge, then riding up to a duplex suite with a butler on call around the clock.
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