Hotel check: Emirates Palace, Abu Dhabi

Hotel check: Emirates Palace, Abu Dhabi

The entrance is something special. There is an immediate air about the property and everything is impeccable — from the calm industriousness of the staff as they glide around in their striking uniforms — to the gold covered ceilings and pristine marble floors golf practice net. I checked in at 6am and the reception staff still managed to find a vacant room for me within a couple of minutes of keyboard tapping.In all there are 300 odd rooms, plus another 90 odd suites. The rooms are 55 square metres, feature the biggest plasma TVs you could imagine as well as faultless fittings and furnishings. Normally if you look hard enough it’s possible to find a scratched desktop or scuffed skirting board, but not here, everything is perfect. The only negative is that the sheer scale of the hotel means you regularly find yourself lost en-route to breakfast and the distance between rooms and restaurants can be tiring. There is, of course, a butler and a golf buggy on hand to solve this problem.Showcasing lavish luxury; this hotel likes to proclaim itself as seven-star. That puts it in the same league as Dubai’s Burj Al Arab and Brunei’s Empire Hotel and Country Club. Gold, gold and more gold sets the standard, but fortunately the service and product lives up to the billing. For some though, it will be a little stuffy and there is a dress code for the restaurants Martin Laird Was a Million Dollars Richer.