You could, it’s true, arrive at the new One and Only resort in Dubai at the tip of Palm Island’s western fringe by car. The hotel’s dedicated limousine service would surely make the ride from Dubai International both swift and a pleasure.
To do so, however, would be to deny yourself the far greater pleasure of arriving by sea.
This can be effected by launch from the One and Only Royal Mirage, the Palm’s older but no less beautiful sister. It sits just across the water from the hotel, amidst palm trees and lush landscaping beneath the glittering spires of the Marina.
The journey itself is a matter of just seven or so minutes, from boarding the Royal Mirage until the moment you disembark at the luxurious reception centre at the end of the pier but in making it, you literally and metaphorically turn your back on thrusting, bustling Dubai.
So complete is the sense of transition that when you arrive onshore, feeling perhaps like Grace Kelly or Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief, you feel a sense of idyllic seclusion that is hardly contradicted by the mainland’s towers, which remain very much in sight (and indeed, offer a spectacular backdrop to the resort at night).
In part, it must result from the carefully manicured gardens and strategically planted greenery, which create such a picture perfect setting for the resort’s neo-Andalusian architecture.
Mostly though, it is because in stark contrast to the fact that you are on an island that will be home to 70,000, sitting opposite one of the densest and most vertical parts of Dubai, the only sounds you hear are bird song, the wind in the trees, the surf on the shore and a barely-perceptible ‘tink’ as the crushed ice in your clove-infused orange juice welcome drink turns slowly back into water.
In fact, the only conceivable disadvantage to arriving at The Palm by boat is that you miss the experience of stepping from Dubai’s heat into the cool confines of the main reception:an essay in Cappuccino-coloured marble, gleaming white fountains, floral arabesque archways and dramatic crystal chandeliers that dangle pendulously from gilded ceilings over glossy inlaid floors.
But there is both time and opportunity to experience this welcoming area throughout your stay, whether it is to lounge, take a drink at the bar or perhaps, in the low season, to pass through on your way to an evening of culinary sensuality at multi-Michelined chef Yannick Alleno’s Stay, where the atmospheric, almost fin-de-siècle décor belies the lightness of Alleno’s signature contemporary French dishes as well as the pastries, served by the metre and prepared before your eyes, at the chilled black marble Pastry Bar nestled in a corner of the dining room.
Then there is ZEST, the light-filled all-day dining restaurant to the right of the lobby, which hosts a buffet breakfast in the morning and serves a mix of seafood and international cuisine until late into the night. There is also the 101 where, temperatures permitting, you can enjoy Mediterranean classics on the sea deck as the sun sets over the sea. If none of those choices appeal, there are eight restaurants and cafes over at the Royal Mirage, whose guests staying at The Palm are liberally encouraged to sample.
Overall, the hotel is an intimate and cosy affair. Unlike some ‘boutique’ hotels, which happily apply the label to behemoths catering to a thousand or more guests, The Palm keeps numbers in the low hundreds. Even fullybooked, you’re unlikely to notice too many other guests as the division of rooms between the main building, or Manor House, four outlying beachfront villas and six beachfront Mansions - eight suites in each, two of which come with private dip pools – means everyone has enough space to call their own.
This being the Gulf though, there are a few notable concessions to excess. The four beachfront villas, each of which has its own pool, can only be rented as a whole while the hotel’s largest suite, the sprawling 250 square metre Grand Palm on the first floor of the Manor House, has a breezy terrace the size of a Polynesian nation overlooking the main pool. A glittering expanse of water by day, the pool becomes a mesmerising shimmer of glowing turquoise by night, its light and dark blue tiles thrown into relief by the lighting.
It goes without saying that the Palm is an exercise in opulence and the resplendence of the fixtures and furnishings found in the grand public areas and lobbies is echoed in the restaurants, the intimate Arab-Asian style spa, and finally in each and every room, suite and villa.
Even the smallest rooms (and let's face it, they aren’t that small) come with bathtubs the size of small swimming pools, walk-in rain-shower cabins, sumptuous bath products (here, it’s a delightful amber scented range by Ex Voto of Paris), towels big enough for two and impossibly downy, ocean liner-sized beds as well as, of course, as the habitual technical toys. Yes, some suites are a little more splendid than others but when it comes to making guests feel pampered, it would be hard to imagine anyone left wanting.
That, more than anything else, may be The Palm’s genius. In a world in which luxury has proliferated to such an extent in recent years that what would still have been considered exceptional a generation ago has become almost a commonplace today, opulence is expected. What is less expected in our still fiercely hierarchical world is that opulence should be equally available for all. The One and Only The Palm doesn’t subscribe to that school of thought. Here opulence is egalitarian; luxury for one, luxury for all.
