Check in to work out at this high-tech hotel in Dubai
By blending digital tech, expert advice and savvy design, this new luxury hotel aspires to be the ultimate retreat for fitness fans and wellbeing devotees. Ready to sweat?
After a diabolically sleepless flight from Sydney to Dubai recently, I was elated to arrive at my hotel. That is, until I heard these words: “Your group exercise class starts in 20 minutes.” At Siro One Za’abeel, where wellness is next to godliness, guests are encouraged to hit the treadmill running. Staying here is about recharging your mental and physical state with a mix of next-level workouts, high-tech spa treatments and nutritional guidance. All admirable, of course, but I was knackered. Noticing my hesitation, the staffer kindly rearranged my schedule. I could happily ease in at my own pace.
Unveiled by Kerzner International last year, Siro is the apotheosis of the health retreat. The lobby buzzed with lissome guests mingling between classes, gulping smoothies and having earnest exchanges like, “Is your visit a detox?” The adjoining Fitness Lab is a sprawling gym with various well-equipped training zones and pulse-pounding classes informed by athletes, including the AC Milan football team. The Recovery Lab, meanwhile, is a haven of yoga, Pilates and meditation sessions, as well as infrared saunas, steam rooms, and plunge pools.
It was the latter space that I gravitated to. My intuitive therapist, Sujan Thapa, prescribed compression therapy, with inflatable boots purported to relieve muscle soreness, followed by vibroacoustic therapy, which involved wearing noise-cancelling headphones piped with sounds of waves crashing and pianos plinking. The following day, after a workout, Thapa placed me under an MLX i3Dome, a sci-fi-like pod that used infrared rays, among other technologies, for all-over rejuvenation. I felt like a hothouse flower, nurtured back to life.
Suitably revivified, I later met with nutritionist Heeral Shivnani, who quizzed me about my eating patterns. “Nutrition is 70 per cent of health,” she told me before recommending a few standout dishes at the restaurants in the One Za’abeel complex. “You must have the pistachio lamb kebabs and the baklava at Arrazuna,” said Shivnani, who described herself as a “clinical gourmet”. Most guests, it turned out, combined exertion and indulgence in one stay.
So, yes, I did have the baklava, but I also attended a boxing class devised by Olympian Ramla Ali. In a pitch-black room, with large screens highlighting each exercise, we scuttled on self-powered treadmills, leapt on boxes, squatted with hand weights, and slugged a teardrop-shaped bag. Perhaps owing to my frazzled state, I was assigned a Recovery Suite, with a thermo-regulating mattress, sound-proofing and smart blinds that controlled light exposure. I slept like a champion.
The writer was a guest of Kerzner International, which is opening Siro outposts in Montenegro, Japan and Mexico. sirohotels.com
This story is from the latest issue of Travel + Luxury magazine.
To join the conversation, please log in. Don't have an account? Register
Join the conversation, you are commenting as Logout