90 swimming pools, 24-karat gold facials, and all-day champagne: Inside the Middle East’s ‘best’ luxury resort

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Free-flowing champagne, 24-karat gold facials, and a VVIP cabana with a suspended plunge pool: these are just some of the ultra-luxury experiences at one of the Middle East’s most opulent resorts.

Atlantis, The Royal, opened in Dubai last year, next to the brand’s flagship resort on The Palm. Its three-day opening party — featuring performances from Beyoncé and Swedish House Mafia — put the hotel on the map as one of the region’s most iconic resorts, and nine months later it became the only hotel in the Middle East to snag a spot on the inaugural World’s 50 Best Hotels list.

“The guest rooms and suites are truly setting the bar for the industry, but beyond that, there’s also the collection of restaurants: it’s a great location for entertainment and dining,” says Tom Roelens, general manager at The Royal and managing director at Atlantis Resorts.

90 swimming pools

Atlantis, The Royal, isn’t a resort to do things by halves — evidenced in its 90 bathing spots, ranging from a 300-foot-long (91-meter) sky pool to private cabana plunge baths.

CNN visited the hotel in March, before devastating floods hit the city in April.

The resort’s must-see venue is Cloud 22, the infinity pool on the 22nd floor. Its “floating” sun loungers shaded by Dolce&Gabbana parasols offer sweeping views of the iconic man-made Palm islands, with cocktails and light bites (caviar bruschetta, anyone?) available at the swim-up lotus bar. There’s a second lap pool overlooking the Arabian Gulf, and the deck is lined with private cabanas.

But when private isn’t enough, there’s the VVIP duplex pool cabana; used by Kendall Jenner for the launch party of her tequila brand, the luxe pool pad has two lounge areas for entertaining and its very own glass-bottomed dipping pool, suspended from the second floor.

In the resort’s sky pool villas and signature suites, guests also have access to pools on their private terrace, up to 43 floors high, says Roelens.

“We’ve taken the concept of a resort, which typically would be horizontal, but we’ve made that vertical,” adds Roelens. “That really creates a very unique experience, where you have these exceptional views across The Palm and skyline of Dubai, but at the same time, you have great privacy.”

Pools aren’t the only water feature in this hotel.

The interior designers dip into the region’s history, taking inspiration from the Bedouin, the nomadic people who originally inhabited the Arabian desert and navigated via water wells.

The theme is neatly summarized in “Droplets”: a 37-foot-tall (11.3-meter) stainless-steel structure in the lobby that represents the first drop of rain in the desert.

The theme of water is repeated throughout the resort, from glass elevators encased in 3,500 gallons of cascading water, to three floor-to-ceiling aquariums filled with 7,200 marine animals.

Gilded glamour

The hotel’s 795 rooms boast designer amenities from diamond jeweler Graff, bathrobes by Italian luxury textile brand Frette, and specially designed gold toothbrushes, combs and brushes.

Guests with access to the “Royal Club” can take advantage of all-day champagne service, daily afternoon tea and canapes, although there’s no shortage of places to eat here.

The resort has 17 dining options, including “the largest collection of celebrity chef restaurants anywhere on the planet,” says Roelens. And venues like Nobu Beach Club — the luxury hospitality brand’s first, and currently only, beach club venue — are helping establish the resort’s reputation as “somewhere they want to see and be seen,” adds Roelens.

For a bit of rest and relaxation, its 32,300 square-foot (3,000-square-meter) spa offers not only a gold facial (this is Dubai, after all) but also a “golden hour massage” — gold-dipped hot volcanic stones with gold-infused aromatherapy oil — along with therapies grounded in Arabic wellness traditions: desert sand and date sugar exfoliations, and Gulf salt and date seed scrubs.

A penthouse fit for a Queen (B)

For the ultra-rich, the star of the show is the Royal Mansion, an 11,840-square-foot (1,100-square-meter) four-bedroom, split-level suite — where Beyoncé and Jay Z stayed when the superstar performed for the opening.

Accessed via a private elevator and entrance landscaped with 100-year-old olive trees the resort “adopted,” the duplex offers “360-degree views” across the Palm and the Gulf, says Roelens. With its own infinity pool, amenities by French fashion house Hermès, a triple-height library, a home-cinema room, and three dining spaces, guests are given a “unique experience” here, he says.

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“We have added some great touches —backgammon games by (crystalware designers) Baccarat, and a Louis Vuitton ping pong table, so there are some really fun elements to that suite as well,” he adds.

The stunning interiors are complemented by five-star service: guests are met at the airport where their luggage is picked up by staff, and designer brands — from Graff to Valentino — are brought into the suite for a personal shopping experience. Chefs from any of the resort’s restaurants, including its celebrity venues, can cook for guests in the suite’s private kitchen, and 24-hour butlers and bartenders are on-call for any occasion.

“Ultimately, it’s about the service: it’s about our endeavor to create what our guests are looking for, whether or not they know they are looking for that,” says Roelens.

A taste of luxury

With room rates starting from around $1,300 a night during high season — and from $100,000 for its most exclusive penthouse, one of the city’s most expensive suites — the high-life comes with a hefty price tag.

But there are more “accessible” ways to enjoy the resort, says Roelens: the Sky Blaze fountain, for example, located in the resort’s expansive grounds, puts on a “dramatic” show every hour from 12pm daily.

The fountain is overlooked by Elements Lounge, a terrace bar serving up sunset cocktails, and Estiatorio Milos by Costas Spiliadis, a Greek restaurant with extensive outdoor seating. The business lunch menu at the latter costs just 200 dirhams ($55) — not a bad price for fountain-side dining at the Middle East’s “best” resort.  

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