Emirates Palace
Our first full day in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the UAE. We are staying at the Emirates Palace. To call it a hotel is an understatement as it was initially conceived as an actual palace, a guest house if you will, for the royal family who live in the neighboring Presidential Palace. The top floor remains exclusively reserved for the royals, their friends, and diplomatic guests. If a U.S. president were to visit the UAE, they would likely stay here. The venue is a tourist attraction in and of itself and has become an iconic symbol of the country. We will be jaded in all future hotel stays due to the opulence and luxury this place exudes. Some of its amazing stats . . . .
* It cost $3 Billion to build in 2005, ranking it as one of the top three most expensive hotels ever built.
* Owned by the government of Abu Dhabi, run by Mandarin Oriental
* It sits on 222 acres and the building itself occupies over 1M square meters (10.8M square feet), larger than Buckingham Palace
* 394 rooms, 12 restaurants, including a 2-star Michelin restaurant
* 8000 trees, 7000 doors, 102 elevators, 128 kitchens, 92M square meters of marble, 200 fountains, a 2500 person ballroom, and 2 helipads
* It has a multitude of secret doors and even secret floors, allowing the service staff to navigate the property as unnoticed as possible
* 1002 chandeliers, the largest of which is composed of 350,000 pieces and weighs 2.5 tons
* 115 domes, the largest being 73 meters and is larger than the dome of St. Paul’s in London. This dome also boasts the largest application of gold leaf in the world.
* There is an actual gold bar ATM (it dispenses real gold bars!)
The list goes on. It took me 2.5hrs to walk around the property this morning while Julie wrapped up her work week. Some more pics from my wanderings . . .
André says: Greg you are having a fabulous trip. How lucky you are. Keep sending us your beautiful pictures
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