Originally Posted by offerendum

Our next stop during our boat trip was Curieuse. Today the island isn't inhabited, but in the past it was a leprosy station. It is now a nature reserve especially for turtles.
Close to the beach where we arrived with the boat are open huts where the tour guides barbecue fish and meat for the tourists. On the other side of the island is the turtle bay and the ranger station. You could either take the boat there or hike across the island. Apparently the majority of people are too lazy to walk. They seriously miss out. The hike was the highlight of Curieuse. The path wasn't paved and you had to climb over stones up to the peak of Curieuse, but it wasn't too difficult and the view and landscape were worth it. After arriving on the other side we walked over wooden runways through mangrove forest where we could watch thousands of blue-red crabs, turtles and other animals. It was great.

Curieuse from the water

The beach were we landed

Impressions from the inner island


Steps to the top

Way through the mangroves

View from the top of Curieuse

Turtle bay


Beach at turtle bay

Leaving Curieuse

Originally Posted by DC777Fan

Amazing TR!!

I think we're going to do the Raffles Praslin as we can get a friends & family rate there (saving roughly $1k/nt), but a shame about the food. Did you find anywhere off site that you enjoyed meals or is Praslin too sparse to eat off site? Was the breakfast bad too?

Bad form on EK's part to substitute aircraft and not even offer any type of points/apology. They had a chance to impress you and instead did the opposite...really shooting themselves in the foot.

Originally Posted by WanderlustB

Many of the "photographers" seemed more like "paparazzi" for I always seemed to be in their pictures

the jeans and t-shirt crowd was seated next to us. It was slightly awkward for them

Originally Posted by Flyingfox

How did you come to these conclusions?

Your report is quite good, but these statements seem a tad strange.

Originally Posted by sfoactuary

Thanks again for this report, was really, really useful in making decisions on what properties to stay at. Just put the finishing touches on our Dubai/Seychelles trip next month, and with the shorter amount of time will basically be doing a subset of your trip with many of the same properties (FS Mahe, Burj Al Arab, Raffles Praslin) along with a couple chains (Conrad Dubai, Hilton Northolme).

Originally Posted by offerendum

When I started planning our vacation in Dubai, it was clear that I wanted to stay in the Armani. We like hotels with a modern and clear design, so that we really liked the photos we saw of the Armani. Besides, I'd read very good reviews, so I was even more excited.
The hotel is situated in the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. It was very important for me to get a room with a view of the water fountains, so we could watch the water plays at night.
Starting at the Al Maha, we arrived at the Armani around lunch time. The lobby wasn't spectacular, but quite modern. We could sit on one of the sofas in the lobby during the check in.
We had to wait a bit for our room. After stepping our of the elevator on our floor we got a bit of a shock. The corridor was completely window-less, all held in brown, even the doors had no door knobs. It was one monotone surface. Dark, and it smelled stuffy. A horrible atmosphere and definitely not the kind of simple style that we like. Your mood can't help but drop when you walk through those dark corridors. When we entered the room, we found even more brown tones. Everything seemed so monotone.
We had an executive suite. The suite officially had 95 sqm but due to the dark tones and the layout of the two room suite (the room weren't square, they were more like triangles), the room appeared really small. At first we wondered if we were in the wrong room, but that wasn't the case. The bathroom was also held in brown tones and surfaces that imitated a wooden appearance. Even the soap was in a brown tone.
The service, too, wasn't what we'd expected. One day we came back from a stroll in the afternoon and our room still hadn't been serviced. The bed was unmade, everything was exactly as we'd left it in the morning. We talked to the staff and told them we expected an early room service, but even after that the service didn't happen early.
The staff wasn't very attentive and forgot our faces quicker than should be possible, so we were constantly asked for our key card to confirm that we were hotel guests.
The hotel has a pool. It's nothing special. It's an outdoor pool on one of the lower floor without any kind of special view. It was quite windy. The Burj pool area was better for relaxation.
The restaurants came highly praised. On our first evening we ate at the signature restaurant of the hotel, The Ristorante. Signature were the prices which reached michelin star dimensions; the food sadly did not. Not even close. Our fish was overcooked (why is it so difficult for chefs in Dubai to cook fish?) and the taste was nothing special. Not impressed, we decided against a dessert, which happens almost never.
On our second evening, we ate at the Indian restaurant, Amal, which surprised us positively. Even though it was quite pricy too, the food was really good and we enjoyed the evening. The best of the Armani restaurants was the Japanese restaurant, Hashi, which was very good. The food was delicious, and so were the Japanese inspired cocktails. And what made the evening even better was that we could watch the fountain from our table. We sat outside, though it can get quite cool in the evenings. We would love to eat at the Hashi again!
The location of the Armani is good if you want to go shopping in the Dubai mall. OTherwise there's nothing to do. Other than at the Burj where you can spend time at the beach, the lovely pool or the Al Wadi water park, there's nothing to do in the Armani hotel. We were quite bored, since there isn't that much to see in Dubai and we saw it all in the first few days of our visit.
Considering that we paid 900 € per night, I'm pissed. We neither liked the design in reality, nor the service. This hotel really isn't worth the money.
The best for last: On the day of our departure we were picked up by the chauffeur service of Emirates. Even though the driver announced his arrival at the reception, he was told we couldn't be reached. Which is strange considering we were in the room and nobody called. We waited and waited in the room, until we lost patience and went down to the lobby where we asked at the reception if our car had arrived. They said no but when we went outside we found the car and the driver who after being sent away by the reception was quite desperate and tried to reach our mobile (which we didn't see since we were busy talking to the incapable reception staff at the time). When we finally sat in the car, we had to wait even more; this time for our luggage, though we had asked for someone to pick it up more than 30 minutes before. We waited fifteen more minutes and had to ask them for our luggage several more times before they finally took it to the car.
This was the icing on the cake...