Hi Dubai friends,

Welcome to Week 8, Edition 121

Here’s your latest edition of Dubai news, deals & tips, every Friday, in 10 mins or less.

⭐ Hotel star ratings explained

🏊‍♂️ Highest infinity pool

🌙 Ramadan roundup

🚢 QE2

💃 Bluewater buskers

🚁 DXB to Palm Jumeirah in 10 minutes?

💸 Revolut

🏗 BAY360

🛀 Address Beach Resort Jacuzzi Suites

❌ La Baia (J1) to close

PS. You can always email me here also.

Please note: some links in this newsletter may be affiliate links, and will be denoted with an asterisk (*). This is a link to a partner site that may pay me a commission - at no further cost to you - and if so, helps to support me & this newsletter. For more info, please see Disclosure and Policies

With Ramadan upon us, which Ramadan greeting should you use - Ramadan Mubarak or Ramadan Kareem?

The first Iftar cannon of Ramadan has been fired by Dubai Police at Downtown Dubai. The mobile cannon will visit 17 locations whilst six other cannons will be located at :-

If you’re looking for a family-friendly Iftar, here are 20 from Time Out.

The Global Village Family Offer is a limited-time promotion during Ramadan with four entry tickets for only 30 AED, with additional tickets priced at 7.5 AED.

Private sector employees will have workdays reduced by two hours per day during Ramadan, and may be eligible for remote work or flexible work.

 Etihad Airways and Emirates are celebrating Ramadan with unique offerings, including snack boxes at Iftar, in-cabin announcements of breaking fast times and curated Ramadan menus.

And of course, PRs are telling us all about what their hotels are doing for Ramadan, such as Four Season Resort Dubai at Jumeirah Beach and Four Season Hotel Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC).

Saudia Arabia is even taking small steps towards “looser Ramadan restrictions”, reports Semafor.

Bluewaters Island, home to Ain Dubai, has announced a series of free musical performances across the island from 1830-2230 every Friday, Saturday and Sunday by Dubai Busking Experience until 01 March.

The mystery of why Lake D in Jumeirah Lakes Towers (JLT) was drained appears to have been solved.

DMCC, the developer behind JLT, has confirmed that part of the site will become a mixed-use water development called BAY360, and will include retail, dining, medical and wellness facilities along with a Spinneys supermarket.

Swedish House Mafia will close out the grand finale of the Ushuaïa Dubai Harbour Experience on Friday, 16 May.

Is Address Beach Resort still the “world’s highest infinity pool”, as this article suggests?

It did get awarded a Guinness World Record when it opened in 2021 (at 293.9m high), whilst Aura Skypool is the world’s highest 360-degree infinity pool (at 200m high).

However, Tattu Sky Pool now claims to be the “world’s highest infinity pool” at 310m, which seems to fit being it’s located on floor 76 of Ciel Dubai Marina, the ‘world’s tallest hotel’.

How Joby Aviaton and RTA’s Electric Vertical Take-off and Landing (eVTOL) taxis aim to cut the 36km, 45 minutes journey down by 77%.

I’m not normally a fan of awards, if only because there are so many different ones for similar things (especially in Dubai) but also, things like how they judge and other aspects can skew things a tad.

So when Forbes Travel Guide recently published their 2026 Star Award Winners, it made for an interesting list - especially it’s billed as “the only independent, global rating system for luxury hotels, restaurants, spas and ocean cruises”.

What I find interesting about Forbes (which started off as Mobil Travel Guide) is they are independent, whereas Michelin has faced claims of receiving revenue from tourism boards, which may affect perceptions of impartiality.

You can check the properties here, then search for ‘Dubai’ and filter by spas, restaurants, hotels, recommended, new for 2026 and four or five stars. Al Habtoor Palace, for example, is ‘only’ Four-Star whereas the screenshot below shows all the Five-Star. You can also sort the lists by ratings, destination, star rating etc. but I find it fascinating to see how they rate :-

Four-Star is not to be sniffed at, as they are “exceptional properties, offering high levels of service”, whereas Five-Stars “deliver an exceptional experience and consistently offer a highly customised level of service”.

Don’t confuse these awards with the official DCTM star rating and performance reports for hotels.

A tourism board will categorise hotels into star ratings on a very comprehensive list of factors, that are quantifiable, such the Dubai Hotel Classification Guide. (Archived page here).

A travel guide will have its own criteria for assessing a property, which may be totally different from what a tourism board checks. Then, to add complexity, there can be additional ‘ratings’ system on different platforms, such as Google Maps, Trip Advisor, or even a travel agent or OTA’s website.

Google for instance, when it ‘rates’ a hotel as a certain star, does so under its own system of assessment rather than the official tourism board.

So what this all means in a nutshell is - you need to understand how the hotel you may be considering is assessed, based on the platform or website you’re looking at.

Just because a travel agent may say a hotel is five-star, it may not be officially classified as such with the local tourism board (in Dubai’s case, DCTM/DET). You could have say, an older hotel that is classified five-star by the tourism board because it fits the classification guide, whereas service and ‘human touches’ may not always be at the optimum level.

To illustrate a point, ask yourself this - how many stars is Burj Al Arab? If you answered ‘seven’, you’ve been marketed to. The truth is, BAA is a five star hotel and therefore is the same classification as some older hotels in Deira, even if they are a world away in terms of price point, luxury, service levels and perception.

Or as mentioned above, just because Forbes Travel Guide only awarded Al Habtoor Palace Four-Stars does not mean you won’t get a ‘five star’ experience!

🔗 2026 Forbes Travel Guide Award Winners

This is how competitive it can be in Dubai in the hospitality sector.

La Baia at J1 Beach has closed down, following other J1 outlets such as Chou Chou and Lunico.

Time will tell what happens at J1 Beach, as it was developed from the previous La Mer South, and aimed to be the next big ‘beachside club and restaurant’ scene.

I’ve been asked if I can mention a bit more about Revolut, and how it works.

I’ll likely do a more in-depth video on YouTube or an article on the main Eat Drink Stay Dubai site in time, but for now, here’s the quick overview.

Revolut is a ‘neo’ or ‘challenger’ bank, and works as a pre-loaded debit card tied with an app. Whilst there are many advantages to using it, one of the most popular is it charges the ‘interbank’ rate on exchange - which is likely much lower than credit cards, ATMs or foreign exchange/currency houses. You also have a limit of ‘free’ ATM withdrawals, depending on your plan.

You pre-load it with funds, and then make payments from your balance - no credit, no interest fees and you can’t spend more than you have.

Another handy aspect is you can pay other Revolut users easily in-app (or ask for money), e.g. if you feel like dropping me a tip for this newsletter so I can fuel my Guinness habit, scan the QR code below!).

There are different levels (‘plans’) of membership, with the higher membership fees offering more benefits. If you go up to the higher ones, you can get a lot of membership benefits that may prove cost effective set against the annual cost.

For example, I pay ‘Metal’ (£14.99/mo) and get things like travel insurance, discount on international transfers, daily interest on savings, earning RevPoints for airlines, £800/mo ATM free withdrawals and much more.

I spend a lot of money on subscriptions normally, and Metal offers me ‘free’ annual memberships such as Uber One, Nord VPN, Headspace, Headway, Sleep Cycle, Perplexity, Athletic and several more. Just from the subscriptions cost alone, I’m ‘quids in’ and the added travel benefits in using the card save quite a bit of money over time.

This is my ‘referral link’ - you can sign up for free, apply for the card, add money and have a play, see if works for you.

If you’d rather use the (non-referral) link 👉 Revolut

Note - Revolut may not be available in every country, but it’s expanding very quickly, so check it out.

Nader Halim has been appointed Cluster General Manager for Hilton Dubai Jumeirah and Hilton Dubai The Walk. Nader will also be the Area General Manager for Dubai South and Salalah, as Hilton expands across the UAE and Oman.

Fairmont The Palm has announced Jose Martins dos Santos as Hotel Manager. Jose previously served as Executive Assistant Manager, Rooms, at Le Royal Meridien bringing in 50 million USD in annual revenue.

If you’re looking for something different for a Dubai hotel stay, how about Dubai’s only floating hotel, the QE2?

The Queen Elizabeth 2 13-deck ex-Royal cruise liner is permanently moored at Port Rashid, and offers restaurants, nightlife and hotel rooms. (Archived page here).

🔗 Queen Elizabeth 2 Hotel

Atlantis The Royal has a new Vice President, Hotel Operations, in Daniel Worsley.

With 91% of its future hotel pipeline planned to be five-star, Ras Al Khaimah is aiming for an ‘ultra-luxury rebrand’, according to AGBI.

Checking In at Mandarin Oriental Downtown, Dubai with The New York Time Style Magazine: MENA, which “makes a confident case for vertical urban luxury”.

Address Beach Resort (see section above - infinity pools) now has Suites with their own Jacuzzi. The One Bedroom Pool Sea View Suite with Balcony offers a Jacuzzi-style plunge pool.

🔗 Address Beach Resort: Rooms and Suites*