A €100 hotel rate suggested challenging times, but the Dubai I personally saw was busy, international, and changing
Dubai certainly did not look empty during my recent 11-night stay at the Grand Hyatt Dubai during Arabian Travel Market. I saw crowds at Dubai Mall, a busy hotel filled with families and international visitors, and a noticeably changing mix of travelers.
Perhaps the biggest surprise was the price: I paid about €100 a night at the Grand Hyatt Dubai. Using my World of Hyatt Globalist benefits and suite upgrade credits, that stay ultimately included a one-bedroom Grand Suite, breakfast and, because the Executive Lounge was closed, an extraordinary dinner buffet.
After dozens of stays since the hotel opened, I found Grand Hyatt Dubai remains a true Hyatt flagship — now with a huge new waterpark — but what impressed me most was still its people.
This is my firsthand account as a fully paying guest, not a statistical assessment of Dubai tourism.
Dubai is changing, but the Grand Hyatt hasn’t lost its soul
Dubai certainly did not look empty to me during my recent stay at the Grand Hyatt Dubai over Arabian Travel Market. I saw crowds at Dubai Mall and around its fountain area, a busy hotel filled with families and international visitors, and restaurants and public areas with plenty of activity. What I also noticed, based purely on my own observations, was a different mix of international travelers than I remembered from previous visits.
After dozens of stays at the Grand Hyatt Dubai since it opened, I found the property remains a true Hyatt flagship: excellent facilities, impressive food, a huge pool complex, a new 20,000-square-meter waterpark with 16 attractions and, above all, remarkably personal service.
This is not a tourism statistics report or an attempt to draw conclusions about all of Dubai from one hotel stay. It is my firsthand account of what I personally experienced during 11 nights in the city.
I was a fully paying guest. I also hold World of Hyatt Globalist status and used my Hyatt suite upgrade credits for a one-bedroom Grand Suite.
A hotel I keep returning to
I have stayed at the Grand Hyatt Dubai dozens of times since the hotel opened, and I love it.
For me, it is exactly what a true flagship hotel should be. It is big, busy and international, yet somehow it has managed not to lose its personal touch.
At check-in, a hotel employee told me to expect considerably more families than business travelers during this stay. I didn’t measure that myself, but it matched the atmosphere I felt throughout my stay. I actually found it refreshing. It gave the hotel a different feeling from some of my previous visits while remaining unmistakably Grand Hyatt.
A Grand Suite I didn’t want to leave
I used my Hyatt suite upgrade credits for a one-bedroom Grand Suite, and it turned out to be the perfect setup for what became something between a business trip, a vacation and a wellness retreat.
Fresh fruit and sweets were waiting for me, along with a fully stocked minibar. The suite had a large bathroom with virtually every amenity I could think of. I had forgotten my toothbrush, but there was no problem — everything I needed was there.
There were luxury toiletries, an enormous king-size bed that made getting up in the morning unnecessarily difficult, two giant television screens, two sofa areas, a proper work desk and a dining table. Most importantly for somebody trying to work while traveling, it was wonderfully quiet.
Even the air conditioning deserves a mention. In Dubai, that matters. It worked perfectly and, just as importantly, silently. This was my definition of a work vacation, high-speed internet included.
Eating very well — perhaps too well
Breakfast at the Grand Hyatt. I was not the only one attending ATM who liked this hotel; I met Dr. Jens Thraenhart, who equally enjoyed his stay
The Grand Hyatt Dubai has always been a hotel where food is part of the experience, and its many restaurants were operating during my stay.
As a World of Hyatt Globalist, breakfast was included. Normally, I would also have access to the hotel’s Executive Lounge, but the lounge was closed during my stay. Instead, Globalist guests were invited to enjoy dinner at the hotel’s buffet.
And what a dinner buffet it was.
The selection seemed to cover just about every direction on the culinary map — food from the West, the East, the South and almost everywhere in between. Night after night, it was a tremendous spread and far more than a simple substitute for an evening lounge offering.
Frankly, with breakfast and that dinner buffet, there was little reason to eat anywhere else. Of course, I did anyway.
Every once in a while, I treated myself to Thai food or sushi, and both were fantastic. There was also iced coffee from the hotel’s lively coffee shop and bakery, or a lemon iced tea beside the pool.
Sometimes luxury isn’t about champagne and caviar. Sometimes it is sitting next to a swimming pool in Dubai with an ice-cold drink, and nowhere you urgently need to be.
The pool — and a new waterpark — convinced me to stay another week
Then there were the pools. In fact, they were one of the reasons I extended my stay and ended up spending 11 nights at the Grand Hyatt Dubai.
The enormous outdoor pool is big enough that swimming one circuit can feel like a serious workout. There is also a pleasantly air-conditioned indoor pool with a Jacuzzi, open until 10 p.m., plus the spa, sauna, whirlpool and relaxation facilities.
But Grand Hyatt Dubai has now added something on an entirely different scale: a 20,000-square-meter waterpark with 16 attractions.
I spent a wonderful hour in the wave pool, and for a moment I almost felt as if I were back at Sunset Beach in Hawaii. I also treated myself to a leisurely float along the lazy river.
The water slides? I looked at them — and decided that perhaps I didn’t need to prove quite that much about my 68-year-old body.
What really brought Hawaii back to me, though, was the shaved ice.
Having lived on Oahu’s North Shore, I know what Hawaiian shave ice is supposed to taste like. The version at the Grand Hyatt Dubai came surprisingly close — almost as good as what I remember from Hawaii.
A wave pool, lazy river, and shaved ice in the middle of Dubai? I certainly wasn’t expecting that when I checked in for Arabian Travel Market.
Someone had even thought about the practical problem every swimmer knows: what to do with wet swim trunks. There was a dryer for them.
And then there were the gyms — actually, two of them. I completed a circuit-training round every day. By the end of my stay, my 68-year-old body felt about 35.
There was some muscle ache involved, admittedly, but it was the good kind.
The real luxury was the people
Hotels can build beautiful suites. They can install swimming pools, marble bathrooms, waterparks and expensive restaurants. What they cannot manufacture quite so easily is genuine hospitality.
That was the strongest part of my stay.
My thanks go to Rocen, Sonam, Rahul, Naman, Faiima, Panicaz Fatiz, Merijan and Dpieniy — hardworking people who greeted me with smiles and looked after me at breakfast, only to appear again at dinner. Day after day, they tried to go one step further, and they did.
Then there was Jung, he worked around the indoor pool and somehow always had my bench prepared with two towels. We started talking.
Jung told me he was from Nepal and had been working at the hotel for some time. He also told me something that stayed with me long after I left the swimming pool.
According to Jung, he and other Nepalese workers had pooled some of their hard-earned money to help flood victims abroad. He told me that he had recently been sick for ten days and, under his employment arrangement as he described it to me, those days meant lost income. He was therefore trying to catch up financially while still wanting to contribute.
I did not independently verify the details of his employment arrangement, but his story stayed with me. It reminded me that behind the polished international luxury-hotel experience are people with families, responsibilities, and lives that guests usually know very little about.
I also encountered another Nepalese worker in the men’s spa area who, I was told, had spent 13 years working at the Grand Hyatt. I repeatedly saw him keeping the area spotless.
I later overheard him saying that his visa had been canceled, that this would be his final month, and that he expected to return to Nepal. Again, I do not know the circumstances behind his employment or visa situation, and I did not independently verify what I overheard.
But the encounter made me think about a broader reality of international hospitality: the guest sees the hotel brand, while the employment arrangements of the people providing the service can be far more complicated and largely invisible.
For an industry built around the word “hospitality,” the people behind that hospitality deserve to be part of the conversation.
Dubai Mall told its own story
Outside the hotel, one of the highlights of my trip was dinner near the fountains at Dubai Mall.
Whatever reports of a quiet Dubai may have suggested, I can only describe what I personally saw that evening: the area was packed. At times, I watched crowd-control measures being used to manage the flow of people.
That does not tell us how Dubai tourism was performing overall, and I would not pretend that one crowded evening at Dubai Mall represents an entire tourism economy.
Several shopkeepers I spoke with told me their business had slowed following the regional tensions involving Iran. They also told me they felt things were gradually returning to normal. Those were their assessments, not statistics I independently verified.
My Hotel Rate spoke out
Perhaps the one place where I personally felt the impact of the crisis was the remarkably low hotel rate I managed to book.
I paid about €100 per night at the Grand Hyatt Dubai. That was the base room rate I paid as a fully paying guest — not the price of an all-inclusive suite package.
I then used my Hyatt suite upgrade credits to move into the one-bedroom Grand Suite. My Globalist status included breakfast, and because the Executive Lounge was closed, Globalist guests were invited to enjoy that tremendous dinner buffet instead.
Put it all together, and I was staying in a luxury suite, eating an extensive breakfast and dinner every day, swimming, working out, and using an extraordinary range of hotel and resort facilities — all built on a room rate of roughly €100 a night.
I can say that the regional situation most likely caused that rate. But for the experience I received, the value was extraordinary. I am happy or unhappy to see rates seemed to have gone up about 70% in the 2 weeks after my stay – so business is getting back to normal in the United Arab Emirates.
What I could see for myself was the composition of the crowds around me. Compared with my many previous visits, Europeans and North Americans appeared less prominent, while I encountered many visitors who appeared to be from Arab countries, Russia, India and elsewhere in Asia.
I cannot turn those observations into tourism statistics, nor would I try. I can say only this: the Dubai I personally experienced was busy, international and changing.
Why I keep returning to the Grand Hyatt Dubai
After dozens of stays, it would be easy for a hotel to become simply familiar. The Grand Hyatt Dubai hasn’t.
It remains one of those increasingly rare large hotels that manages to feel like a genuine international flagship while retaining something personal.
Yes, I loved my suite, the food, the iced coffee, the enormous outdoor pool, the indoor pool, the gyms and the new waterpark. I loved floating along the lazy river and having a little taste of Hawaii with shaved ice thousands of miles away from Oahu. I even loved that someone thought to provide a machine to dry my swimming trunks.
But those aren’t the things I will remember most.
I will remember Jung putting two towels on my bench. I will remember the breakfast and dinner teams recognizing me. I will remember people working long hours and still smiling.
Luxury hotels like to talk about unforgettable experiences. At the Grand Hyatt Dubai, mine wasn’t unforgettable because of the marble, the suite, the restaurants, or even that magnificent swimming pool and waterpark.
It was unforgettable because of the people.
My 11 nights at the Grand Hyatt Dubai also took me past 60 Hyatt nights for the year, which means I’ll enjoy Globalist status for another year.
And considering how often I return to this hotel, I have a feeling I’ll be back soon.
