Dubai is a small place with a long stretch of expressway, north to south. If you drive, it will take no more than 30 minutes. In this “Hotels in Dubai” series, I’ll recommend three hotels, one in the south, one in the north, and one in the middle. Starting with the hotel in the south, the Pullman Jumeirah Lakes Towers Hotel is about comfort and peace of mind.

All good hotels are the same, more or less. They should have basic amenities, like iron, hairdryer, and safe; and they should make you feel safe and comfortable. It’s the tiny details that differentiate a good hotel from a great one.

These are some of the tiny details that I like about Pullman:

1. Location, location, location: It’s nearer to Abu Dhabi than hotels in the north, and it’s very, very near to a Metro Station. Just a 2-minute walk. It may come be very intuitive to us city-dwellers that good hotels must be near public transport but this common sense is not common in Dubai. Many hotels are inaccessible, designed either for the backpackers or people who filthy rich.

The location of the hotel is also good to visit the beach, and near amazing restaurants. I walked to both Indego by Vineet, and Rhodes Twenty10, both restaurants by Michelin-starred chefs.

2. Inside the room: I was upgraded to a corner room, and 2 of the 4 walls are glass, giving a panoramic view.

The room has all the basic amenities a good hotel should have, but Pullman offers more than that.

I like it that they give pillows of different sizes, one a normal sized, the other a huge square pillow, because the pillows have different uses. It sounds like it’s common sense for hotels to give different sized pillows, but Pullman is the first I’ve come across.

A second thing I like about the room is the long bathtub. It’s the first ever bathtub I can stretch out my long legs. Needless to say, it’s good for lovers.

A third thing I love is how the room makes me feel safe. It has a latch behind the door, and a safe in the closet.

3. Facilities: they have a rooftop pool, steamroom, and sauna. They also have a huge gym, one of the biggest hotel gyms I’ve seen. And it even has a view. It inspired me to gym.

Gym with a view

Got hungry after gym, so ordered room service!

4. Food: If you don’t want to step out of the hotel, you can. The Italian restaurant Manzoni is quite famous. Amarillo Bar provides alcohol and live music. There is also a terrace bar La Vue that provides shisha.

Was at the Seasons Restaurant for their breakfast buffet and it is a good mix of Western and Arabian food. They have “live” stations that make omelettes, pancakes, and waffles! And they serve desserts for breakfast! Umm Ali is an Egyptian bread pudding, which is pretty delicious.

The bread screamed, “Let me out of the cage, into your tummy!”

Pullman Jumeirah Lakes Towers Hotel
Jumeirah Lakes Towers, Cluster T, Beside Damac Properties Metro station, 9268 Dubai
Telephone: +971 4 5671100

Written by A. Nathanael Ho.

Thank you, Karen and Zakia, for the complimentary stay.