Love it or hate it, you’ll never forget a stay at these grandiose digs

The hotel

Emirates Palace Mandarin Oriental, Abu Dhabi

The sprawling Emirates Palace Mandarin Oriental.

Check-in

Emirates Palace Mandarin Oriental Abu Dhabi is another world, to be sure, but right now, having checked in, it’s feeling rather like a lost world. Never one for fully committing directions to memory, after I head off to my suite, I soon realise I have no idea where I’m going and have to return to the front desk to ask the receptionist who checked me in to please guide me to my two-night abode. I don’t feel so bad once I learn that the Emirates Palace’s footprint is a staggering 1 million square metres, rendering it, by one measure, the world’s third-largest hotel in size, behind two establishments in Las Vegas.

The look

In the swim at the world’s third largest hotel, by size.

Ostentatious with a capital “O”. This hotel is a Garden of Eden for “gee whiz” fact aficionados. It has no less than 7000 doors, 1002 Swarovski crystal chandeliers, 104 elevators, 128 kitchens and 114 decorative domes, with the main one rising to 200 metres. Built over three years at a cost of $3.5 billion and opened 20 years ago this November, Emirates Palace is a monument to the marvels of marble and gold leaf. They sprinkle the precious metal around here like chocolate atop a cappuccino and, wouldn’t you know it, you can actually have 24-carat gold flakes on your preferred coffee order.

The room

A hotel suite and its king-size bed.

Curiously, for such a massive hotel, there are fewer than 400 rooms – Emirates Palace was originally built as lodgings to host and impress visiting dignitaries. It’s nowadays a fully fledged five-star-plus hotel managed by the esteemed Hong Kong-based Mandarin Oriental group and divided into two wings – East (Mandarin) and West (Oriental) containing 302 guest rooms and 88 suites along wide marbled corridors with polished wood banisters and carved doors. My enormous butler-attended suite, once I finally reach it, features floor-to-ceiling windows revealing an extensive strip of golden Arabian Gulf beachfront. Each guestroom and suite, beginning at 55 square metres, has king-sized beds with luxury cotton linen (sky-high thread counts), separate sitting areas with chaise longues and a commodious, extravagantly marbled (there they go again) bathroom with sunken bath and rain shower.

Food + drink

Vendome, the hotel’s all-day dining restaurant.

To sample all the restaurants on offer, you’d really need to check in for a week or longer, and even then, you’d struggle to eat at each one. There are a dozen mostly high-end venues, including two Michelin-starred diners spanning various international cuisines such as Italian, Indian, Cantonese, Japanese and even Mexican. Several of the restaurants, including the appealing Lebanese Terrace, offer al fresco dining with ocean and garden views, but possibly the most beautiful venue is Episodes. It’s not a restaurant, but a more relaxed indoor café in the hotel’s mammoth lobby lounge, framed by faux but realistic-looking cherry-blossom shrubs.

Out + about

Episodes, the relaxed indoor cafe in the hotel’s marbled lobby lounge.

Emirates Palace is a fully fledged tourist attraction as well as a working hotel, and you could conceivably spend your entire Abu Dhabi stay here without leaving, particularly in the searing summer months when the daytime temperatures soar but the room rates happily plummet. However, staying put would mean missing out on an arts-minded Abu Dhabi’s stellar attractions. These include the well-established Louvre Abu Dhabi and the long-awaited Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, expected to finally open later this year, forming cornerstones of the city’s ambitious, game-changing Saadiyat Cultural District.

The verdict

The stupendous and sprawling Emirates Palace Mandarin Oriental will work wonders for your daily step count and, whatever your final impression, you’ll never forget your stay here.

Essentials

Rooms in the low season from $459. Emirates Palace Mandarin Oriental, West Corniche Road, Abu Dhabi, UAE. Ph: [phone]. See mandarinoriental.com

Our rating out of five

★★★★½

Highlight

Abu Dhabi, already home to a brand-new airport billed as “the world’s most beautiful”, is poised to finally challenge Dubai with its blockbuster line-up of cultural venues.

Lowlight

Pack a magnifying glass to read the ridiculously small hotel map provided when you check in.

The writer was a guest of the hotel and travelled courtesy of Viking Cruises and Etihad Airways. See vikingcruises.com.au; etihad.com