First and foremost this is a business hotel so I would not recommend that you stay here for a holiday. There are “holiday” amenities such as a swimming pool and various restaurants around the resort but my impression was that these are more tailored to the other inhabitants of the Rotana Hotels & Suites guests – i.e. the Suites - that makes up 90% of the property.

Bearing that in mind I will review this hotel as a business hotel and for what it offered me personally as a business traveller.

Location
Location wise the hotel is unfortunately surrounded by building sites and at the furthest end of the road that leads to the financial centre of Dubai. This made it nigh on impossible to walk into or back from work. This was particularly an issue in the evening when there was a very distinct lack of Taxi’s around town. Walking back to the hotel is particularly hazardous due to the lack of pavements and the amount of construction going on around you.
Dubai is expanding greatly and the hotel can not be blamed for the safety or condition of roads or pavements or indeed for the lack of taxis around town (I later discovered that all the taxis are parked up at the Mall of the Emirates waiting for better fares!!). But personally given the choice again I would ensure I was staying in a hotel much closer to the centre i.e. within safe walking distance from the office. Should I return to Dubai as a tourist rather than on business I would stay in the beach area.

Staff
All of the staff were very nice. All very happy, attentive and efficient. The only issue I did have was that we booked an excursion through the concierge and during the evening of the excursion I discovered that we had paid twice as much as other clients on the excursion. I can understand the hotel making a small commission on the booking but a 100% mark up seemed excessive and slightly greedy. I am unsure if this is a hotel policy or just the individual chancing his arm. I would suggest you think twice before booking through the concierge as opposed to booking directly with the operator of the tour. – This applies to any hotel you stay in I am sure!

Room
The room was very comfortable, well furnished and had everything I needed, except an iron and ironing board which were delivered on request.
The mini bar was well stocked and slightly on the expensive side – But what business hotel isn’t??
I had a problem on the first two days of my stay with the water pressure. It coughed and spluttered a bit the first day but the second morning I found myself of being in the position of standing stark naked in the shower covered in soap and the water stopping!! Five minutes later I was starting to panic and contemplating having to wash off using (expensive and refrigerated - brrrrr!) bottled water. Fortunately it spluttered to life again before it came to that, but it was a close call!!
I was on the 12th floor and I notice that one of the first people to write a TA review of this hotel had a similar problem on this floor. Probably one to avoid should you be staying here. Having said that the rest of my week there was problem free.

Food
I ate breakfast and had only one evening meal at the hotel. All of these were in the main restaurant –Pergola.
The breakfast was a buffet with a choice of hot and cold breakfast items with a chef to prepare omelettes or eggs. Most of these items were OK but the occasional thing, a pastry here, a yoghurt there was a bit stale or poorly prepared. I have had better breakfasts and buffets at 4* hotels so this being a 5* I was disappointed. On two occasion I asked for eggs “over easy” but I must have been misheard as on both time I was given eggs “over cooked”!! If your chef can’t cook a couple of fried eggs your restaurant is in trouble!!
The evening meal I had was the Italian Buffet. There are various theme buffets throughout the week and judging by the amount of local “ex pats” that turn up they are obviously popular. I have to say that the food I had was all very nice and with free drink (beer or wine) I can see why it’s popular! I would go again and would probably try the other nights too based on the quality of the one I did attend.
There are four other restaurants around the resort and if they are as good as Pergola was that evening I would not hesitate to try them.



Summary
So in summary this is a nice hotel, in a city of very good hotels. Does it deserve 5*? Probably not in comparison to other 5* hotels in the area. It is a good 4* let down by its location (at the moment) and the occasional hiccup.
Would I stay there again? Probably not. Maybe in a few years when the immediate area has finished being developed

Business hotel, well connected by roads, etc....

Good gym and pool, however be prepared to pay through the nose here.

We spent 3 nights at the hotel and never really felt comfortable. It's probabely more a business hotel, but if you are on vacation, I would recomend staying at one of the beach resorts. There was a big construction right in front of the hotel, but than again, that's Dubai. We got special check-in at the executive floor where they also serve free drinks from 7pm - 9pm,. We appriciated that. The rooms are ok, a bit unpersonal though, and so is the staff. Over all it is a good hotel, located in the center of Dubai but if you are on vacation, go to the beach!

We stayed in this hotel for three days on our way out to Mauritius for our honeymoon, the hotel was aware this was our honeymoon but made no effort to make it feel special, unlike the Hilton in Mauritius.
We had booked a non-smoking room but there were none available at the time of check in and as we had just had a 8 hour overnight flight, we didn’t want to wait around for another to become available, all we wanted to do was sleep.
This is a business hotel I would not recommend it for families or for a romantic getaway. I suppose we were disappointed as it was part of our honeymoon and there was no atmosphere in the hotel, mainly business men.
There was also a scent in the lobby when you came through the doors which I think was supposed to smell nice!! It was very overpowering and sickly.
I love Dubai as I worked over there for a while there is so much to do, I should have gone with the hotels I know, we just wanted to try somewhere different.