Jane Hall and Miguel Maestre are travel buddies on celebrity travel show Luxury Escapes
These beloved Aussie stars pair up for the holiday of a lifetime in a 6-star escape in Dubai.
Beloved Aussie actress Jane Hall is not in Erinsborough anymore.
The former Neighbours star is living her best life with travel companion Miguel Maestre for the new Foxtel series Luxury Escapes: The World’s Best Holidays.
The series sees our favourite Aussie celebrities play travel guide on the program each week, with stars such as Natalie Bassingthwaighte, Rebecca Gibney, Neale Whitaker and Cameron Daddo – who escaped to Tuscany, Italy in the first episode – each embarking on trips of a lifetime.
And in Hall’s episode airing tonight, she was lucky enough to explore Dubai in a lavish 6-star escape.
“I honestly had no idea what to expect so everything we experienced in Dubai was a spectacular surprise. I found it to be breathtaking!” the 52-year-old actress tells news.com.au.
“To travel with Luxury Escapes was genuinely the highlight because I was able to explore Dubai in a way I never could have imagined (or afforded!!). Our trip was carefully curated and designed to allow us to cherry pick the best experiences and accommodation on offer in the city.
“There’s a great deal of wealth in Dubai, so the luxury was dialled up to 10 and we were so unbelievably fortunate to lap it all up!”
On their trip, Hall and Maestre, 43, stayed at not one but two of Dubai’s finest hotels: the luxury desert resort Bab Al Shams and the newly opened opulent Atlantis The Royal, in which the Royal Mansion penthouse costs a staggering $100,000 per night.
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“I’m mad for a fabulous hotel and I have the two we stayed in, Bab Al Shams and Atlantis The Royal, are unrivalled in the opulent luxury stakes,” Hall gushed.
The travel buddies also shared some fun moments off-camera where Hall witnessed Maestre’s impressive haggling skills at the souk market.
“We spent an afternoon at the souk market in the traditional area of Dubai and Miguel proceeded to do some of the most amazing bartering and haggling I have ever seen,” she shared.
“It was hilarious watching him whipping everyone up into a frenzy. He managed to buy my mum a cashmere shawl for roughly one tenth of what the stallholder was asking.”
“I absolutely loved travelling with Miguel … his joy and enthusiasm for life is infectious and you can’t help but be swept up in it! Seeing Dubai alongside Miguel was ridiculously fun … and just as noisy as you would expect. Miguel is hilarious, big hearted, so kind and a bloody fantastic chef … I only hope we are sent off on another Luxury Escapes adventure soon!”
Needless to say, Erinsborough will never live up to the opulence that is Dubai, but Hall says she wouldn’t mind returning to her stomping grounds to revive her character of Rebecca.
“I adored my years on the series. If they ever need Rebecca to turn up again and rattle Paul’s cage, I’d only be too happy to do so!” said Hall, who appeared on the long-running soap from 2007 to 2019.
“Neighbours is part of the fibre of the Australian TV landscape. Making a show like Neighbours takes skill and endurance and I take my hat off to the hardworking and loyal long-standing cast and crew members. It’s a family atmosphere, and you never forget being a part of it. It remains really memorable for me.”
Another series close to her heart is the Aussie sitcom All Together Now, which marks 30 years since the show wrapped in 1993.
“I’ve actually been watching old episodes as you can see them on Prime!” she said. “It was an incredible good fortune to be part of a hit show in the early 1990s when network TV was pumping out content. We filmed in front of a live audience every Saturday night and those nights were fabulous.”
“I learned a great deal about comedic acting and live performance. We were very close as a cast, and my enduring close friendship with Rebecca Gibney is testament to that. We had an absolute blast.”
Luxury Escapes: The World’s Best Holidays is now streaming on BINGE and Foxtel