It takes a lot to impress a spoilt Dubai resident who has seen a few spectacular hotel openings in his time, but the new Jumeirah Marsa Al Arab has genuinely left me wide-eyed.
A super-yacht of a hotel beached on Dubai’s golden shoreline, it brings a new level of ostentatious luxury to a strip of coastline already groaning under the weight of five-star sparkle.
The stretch between Al Qasr to the south, through Mina Salam and Al Naseem hotels in the Madinat, to the still-splendid Burj Al Arab and that old favourite fun-palace the Jumeirah Beach Hotel (JBH), is the core of Dubai’s luxury tourism offering. Marsa rounds it off beautifully.
My most recent visit was for lunch with Jumeirah’s relatively new head of communications Julien Soyez, an exuberant Frenchman with a CV that includes stints at Vuitton and Gucci – which tells you something of Jumeirah’s refined target market.
We had lunch at Iliana, a very tasteful pool-side Greek restaurant, as he took me through the thinking behind the new Marsa resort. It is the latest offering from one of Dubai’s best known brands – Jumeirah is the only one I can think of that rivals Emirates Airline in terms of global recognition.
The setting is spectacular. Marsa’s architecture, the work of Museum of the Future designer Shaun Killa, recreates the lines and lustre of a luxury ocean-going liner. Soyez explained how it completes Jumeirah’s “nautical trilogy” – the wave-shaped JBH, the soaring sail of the Burj, and now the Marsa super-yacht.
Every view seems to be a cinematic sweep of Gulf shores, skyline, and the neighbouring Burj Al Arab. The entrance arch, which frames the Burj in the background, is destined to feature in a million Instagram shots.
Since its launch in January, Marsa has been marketing to affluent travellers in Asia, Russia and Europe, and the clientele when I was there echoed that wealthy cosmopolitan demographic. It is also very popular with Emiratis and Saudis, by all accounts, especially in the evenings.
There are 11 restaurants, multiple bars and beach pools, two exclusive stretches of sand, and three floors of spa based on Jumeirah’s renowned Talise brand. If you were looking for a long hotel weekend of relaxation and luxury, or were staying in the serviced residences, or owned one of the multimillion dollar villas around the yacht marina, you probably wouldn’t have to leave the hotel complex – which would be a good thing.
Peak Dubai it may be, but like any peak, it comes with the challenge of getting there.
While Marsa delivers a new high point of luxury hospitality, its popularity has also created a very real problem for traffic on Jumeirah Beach Road. On a previous visit – for dinner at the excellent Bombay Club Indian restaurant – I sat in a traffic line for a full 20 minutes just to make the turn off Beach Road into the resort complex. Friends report even longer waits when the place is really hopping late at night.
This part of Jumeirah has always been busy, especially when there are big events at one hotel or another. But now at popular eating-out times, it is a snarl of Rolls Royces and Ferraris jostling for a place on the single-track entrance to Marsa.
Nearby establishments are feeling the pinch as some diners avoid the area altogether. Some local restaurateurs are, shall we say, unimpressed as their drop-in trade diminishes. Uber regularly shows long wait-times and surge pricing for pick-ups in the locality.
There is talk of bold infrastructure fixes — a dedicated flyover, a tunnel, even a causeway linking Marsa from the Gulf side. Dubai has never shied from infrastructure challenges, and I’m sure the transport authorities will come up with a solution. Maybe the resort will be a test-case for the flying taxis being planned for launch any day now?
In the meantime, if you’re heading there for dinner, give yourself an extra 20 minutes. Or maybe go early, stay late, and treat the traffic jam as a small price to pay to sample Dubai’s latest luxury icon.
Better still, why not stay overnight? That will cost you in the region of AED6,000 per night, and Soyez told me the place has been full most of the time since opening.
Expect that to drop significantly in the summer, when I plan to travel by helicopter to sample the accommodation.
Frank Kane is Editor-at-Large of AGBI and an award-winning business journalist. He acts as a consultant to the Ministry of Energy of Saudi Arabia
