I may have mentioned that I visited Dubai recently. Yes? Well. While I was there, I made a few discoveries that I thought I ought to share with you.
One such discovery was Jumeirah Zabeel Saray’s Talise Ottoman spa. There are very few words that do the hotel and spa justice, but I’ll give it a go: vast, opulent, elegant, and utter excess (but not, please understand, in an even remotely tacky fashion).
We were greeted at the grand, imposing wooden doors by an uber-polite concierge, whisked in the lobby (neatly circumnavigating an impressive water feature and various other gilded decor) and immediately given the grand tour of simply the most impressive spa I’ve ever entered. Space is clearly not at a premium here.
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Pre-treatment and post-tour, we had a few moments to kill (I say kill. It absolutely was not a chore) so headed to the couple’s floor to use the facilities. After a good old poke about (no, ‘fun time’ would not be appropriate on the Hammam, and yes, it was possible to do laps in the jacuzzi), we indulged in the sauna-steam-snow room triple whammy, before retiring, gowned, to a couple of massive chaise lounges.
We were led into the largest treatment room I’ve ever seen (lounge areas, yet another jacuzzi..) and each assigned a bed plus masseuse. The wall infront of us was entirely glass (bit of a trademark for Dubai) so we had warm sun streaming in as we relaxed. Nice touch.
A quick-as-a-flash 60 minutes later, and we were off to lunch at Al Nafoorah for traditional Lebenese mezze.
I’d love to get all holier-than-thou here and say that we abided by the rules of good spa-man-ship, picking at sticks of celery and sipping room temperature water.
But we didn’t.
In fact, we accepted a truly extravagant quantity of food, presented over and over again (I’m not kidding – there were five or six courses) until I became seriously concerned about my buoyancy for all future swimming excursions. And began to seriously regret the “nibs and tucks” (snacks) we’d graciously accepted in the relaxation rooms earlier.
Perhaps I should illustrate my point. This was course one…
And this was desert…
It would have been rude not to though, right?!
Love, Laugh, Liverty x
