Celebrating Vday at Le Meridien Dubai

Celebrating Vday at Le Meridien Dubai

We decided to book a room for one night at Le Meridien Dubai Hotel & Conference Centre near Dubai Airport to celebrate Valentine’s day. We usually give our family a little treat once in a while. A ‘staycation’ is a nice luxury experience. This year, we decided to stay somewhere near our place.

As usual, I had prowled the net to read reviews and Le Meridien has general positive reviews.

We booked a Royal Club room and we were ushered to the new building of the hotel which looks very polished.

While waiting for the check-in process to be competed

Check-in was swift and a staff accompanied us into the room. She offered to give us a tour and showed how the different control functions.

An office area

King size bed

Mini bar with espresso machine

A big shower/toilet/bath area

A walk-in closet  

The jacuzzi which took us quite sometime to figure out.
Booking a Royal Club room (or even just a Club room, I believe) comes with breakfast, access to the lounge area, afternoon tea from 3-6 pm and happy hour in the evening. Please note that children are not allowed in the Royal Club lounge and you won’t be able to avail the happy hour with them. It was quite a let-down to be honest since this is not mentioned on their website. Access to the lounge is one of the reasons why we booked the Royal Club room. Anyways, we just enjoyed the facilities that comes with our booking.

After check-in, Cole kept on asking if he can swim immediately. Me and the kids went straight to 5^th floor of the Royal Club building but the pool is geared towards the adults. I believe there are five other pools in the hotel but we only found two. We tried to access the pool dedicated to the Royal Club guests but it’s locked and a code is required to open the door. To avoid being embarrassed, we just went to find another pool. We found one that the kids can use so we immediately asked for sunbed and settled. We also had our lunch at the pool area.

The pool is just right next to the fitness building wherein hotel guests can avail the facilities complimentary. I’ve tried the steam room which was nice.

Although we were still full from what we had during lunch, we thought of going down to the lobby and try the afternoon tea. A selection of mini sandwiches, deserts, scones, coffee and tea are available to order.

In the evening, we decided to just order room service.

The following day, we had breakfast at Yalumba. To be honest, I don’t know why we were advised to have our breakfast at Yalumba and not at the lobby of the Royal Club building since breakfast is also being served there. I am thinking because of the kids. I didn’t bother asking since I know Yalumba has a better breakfast buffet spread and option than that at the lobby.

We checked-out around 12 noon and went straight to a birthday party of a friend’s daughter. How would I review the hotel? I am comparing my experience at Le Meridien with similar 5-star hotels in Dubai and neighbouring cities. For its price, the rooms in Le Meridien Dubai can be considered a value for money. Breakfast is good and staffs are polite. However, since Le Meridien is near the airport, I can imagine that the hotel is most probably occupied by guests who are just in transit, so it lacks the family atmosphere. We only saw few children and my eldest son was wondering why there were no kids roaming around.

Will I go back to this hotel? Probably, but only if we bring a nanny with us so she can take care of the kids while we try the happy hour and sip that margarita. 🙂