Lebanon is known for its service, restaurants and night life, I probably haven’t seen any people with so full of life and wanting to party and go out 24/7 seriously, I for one can’t keep up with them. There is an after club for every club and then lounging in some beach type club the next morning, and always the best of service in any restaurant, and they love rebranding the same places every year and coming up with new concepts for the same place and keeping it fresh. I had some work and break trips to Lebanon over the past 6 months and had the chance to experience the hotels and their services thoroughly on many different aspects, and levels, from personal service to cost of room service. These are the four five star hotels that I had a lot of experience with and the ranking is from best to worst, from top to bottom in all the categories.

Below is the list of hotels by ranking and which one I prefer to stay in:

• Le Gray
• Four Seasons
• VenDome Hotel Beirut
• Phoenicia Beirut

Concierge Service: Le Gray out did everyone in every scale for level of concierge service, if you are willing to pay they can get you into any place and any reservation or anything you had in mind even in very short notice and keep following up with you which is fantastic, that is what made Le Gray the best of the list for me, what set it apart from the rest.

• Le Gray
• Four Seasons
• VenDome
• Phoenicia

Hotel Interior: The Four Seasons Interior is very fresh, very much like the rest of the chain but from a touch of Lebanon

• Four Seasons
• Le Gray
• Phoenicia
• VenDome

Hotel Rooms Size & Quality: Le Gray has rooms which are about 20 to 30 % bigger then Four Seasons but both have excellent quality

• Le Gray
• Four Seasons
• Phoenicia
• VenDome

Hotel Room Service: Le Gray and Four Seasons both had amazing food

• Le Gray
• Four Seasons
• VenDome
• Phoenicia

Hotel Location: I like walking around and Le Gray had the easiest access to shops and restaurants around it without the need for a car.

• Le Gray
• Four Seasons
• Phoenicia
• VenDome

Hotel Cost: From Most to Least Expensive

• Le Gray
• Four Seasons
• VenDome
• Phoenicia

Everything about Yas Island has been planned perfectly from the hotels to the track, and all the other possible venues around it. Now they are building others services and infrastructure outside Yas Island with so much to do. I have yet to visit there and I honestly can’t wait. But nobody has really mentioned the Marina which has the view of the F1 circuit when your parked in your boat. They sell the yacht parking spots for the F1 just like they sell normal ticket seats but with a closer and better view. They have really thought everything out with this setup, I just can’t imagine how much the yearly fees are to park a boat there.

The Yacht club has sparkling white exterior shells integrated with LED façade lights which transform the giant structure into a pixilated viewing screen against the night sky. The 5 star club houses restaurants, bars, lounges, function rooms, outdoor decks and 45-metre observation tower.

Link: TheDesignBlog

I had a quick to Beirut, I was recommend to stay at the new hotel Le Gray, and I’m very happy I did. This is probably of the most unique hotels that I have stayed in, and excellent service. I do enjoy boutique hotels, and try them whenever I have a chance, and in this case its an amazing hotel. Its an 87 room hotel with a restaurant, cigar lounge, pool and bar up top. I really liked how quite the hotel was when you are on the room floors, and the rooms are huge.

I booked an executive suite since it was the only room available, everything else was booked. The location of the hotel is fantastic as well, you are in the Solidaire area,
able to walk to so many restaurants and places to shop. If you are up for the swim the pool has an amazing view and slightly on the scary side.

The staff are very friendly and helpful, you feel like you are in some European country when your inside the hotel. When I love about Beirut is that they have really improved the areas around the buildings, its a gradual improvement but it keeps getting better, and its always an active city.

The room is very wide and open with lots of amenities, and I really like the modern style of the hotel. There is free wireless internet all over the hotel, and in your room you have a very good A/V system that I hooked up my iPod to listen to the music in my room. there is also a free fresh coffee machine for those who like coffee, and the bathroom is fantastic. Then the room service is just something else, morning breakfast was exquisite and so was midnight sandwich, there food just tastes so good, and probably one of the best breakfasts I have ever had. If I have a chance to go back to Beirut I would like to stay in that hotel for a longer period, its a bit more on the expensive side but its worth it for an amazing experience.

Link: LeGray

Trip adviser has made a list of hotels ranked by their pools and some of them look amazing. Makes me want to get on a plane and go anywhere that isn’t dusty. The pools are ranked by its features, a major one being infinity pools and secondly what it overlooks. At the top of the rank is Hotel Caruso Ravello in Ravello, Italy shown in the first picture.

The ones I like from the list are:

• Hotel Caruso Ravello in Ravello in Italy
• Six Senses Hideaway Zighy Bay in Oman
• Perivolas, Santorini, Greece

Link: Luxist

The hotel features 2,560 rooms that would cost you $520 a night. Designed by Moshe Safdie, the structure is said to be based on the design resembling a deck of cards. The hotel décor includes an indoor canal that has Sampan boats to ride in, a casino, an outdoor plaza, a convention centre, a theatre, a crystal pavilion and a lotus flower shaped museum. The resort will open employment to over 10,000 locals, enough to generate $72m each year.

During my visit to Singapore I passed by the Marina Bay project and at the time they just opened the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. It looks amazing, three curved buildings and it looks like a big boat is set on top of it which is the infinity pool above. It now surpasses the hotel in Abu Dhabi, UAE, as being the most expensive hotel in the world. Its a very nice hotel and very much worth visiting but its a little off on its own, about 20 minutes from the downtown area, but the view is fantastic. The rooms have a modern feel to them and I’m assuming the service is going to be good since they have been working on this project for a while.

Link: LuxuryLaunches

When I have short trips in London I usually like staying somewhere I’m familiar with, and St. Martin’s Lane is always at the top of my list of choices. Good service, attentive staff, good food, everything within walking distance, and the best part is that its always active with people coming and going. For the few days I was there I noticed paparazzi sitting on the opposite street waiting for someone to come out, but I was so busy I forgot to ask.

I booked a Loft King with a package deal of 20% discount so I got a very nice room with a nice view for the price of standard room. Whats good is that they do have a lot of different packages available if you book early enough with decent pricing for London. The best part is walking out and heading in any direction from that hotel, lots of interesting places to go to, and you can easily find a black cab in that area. I didn’t realize how much I missed London after getting there and it was sunny and cool, and so many bookstores to visit but I didn’t have too much time on my hands.

Link: SML

For my second trip to Oman I wanted to pamper myself a little but like any company there are certain budgets that I had to work within. I decide to choose a nicer hotel this time but the one I wanted didn’t exactly fit into the budget, so I took what they gave me and choose the one I wanted paying the rest off on my own. The company paid for a 1/3 and I paid for 2/3 out of pocket and it was really really worth it. First off Oman is one of the cleanest and most vegetated country in the Gulf, and some of the nicest people there. The hotel is a resort about 20 minutes from the airport and probably one of the nicest I have seen. I was one of the few Arabs staying there, I mostly saw Italians and Germans for some reason, and they said that only 10% of the hotel is ever filled by people from the GCC.

Walking in you really feel like your swept away, it has the lushest green laws I have seen. Took a 5 minute walk to my room and it was amazing, a scene out of a movie. Put my things down, changed and headed to spa to book a massage and I wanted to have a late dinner. I booked a one hour reflexology session an hour later, went back to my room finished a few reports up before heading back to the spa. As soon the session started I knew that it was going to be good, I brought a magazine to read but I passed out within the first 10 minutes. I wasn’t expecting it to be this relaxing. After being woken I was all loose and dazed from only a foot massage. Then I head over to restaurant to have dinner, and it was an amazing meal, a very good salad and lobster.

Next morning off to meetings, I think I was the only person there he was staying there while heading to meetings, most everyone were couples or families on vacation at The Chedi. This hotel is more oriented to younger adults and couples then it is to families with kids. The service is very good, everyone is very helpful, and the rooms are amazing and comfortable, full Bose sound system with two different iPod docks, not including free internet and minibar. I’m not much of a Spa person but their massages were so good I made an appointment every day in the evening for three days, luckily they were open until 10pm. I just couldn’t get enough of the amazing range of food during breakfast or dinner, didn’t have a chance for lunch during my stay but I am planning a visit their for vacation. I didn’t manage to take advantage of the two pools while I was there, next time I hope to. Anyone who is looking for a nice relaxing place for vacation then I highly recommend the Chedi, it really surpassed my expectations.

(A lot of pictures below!)

We got a normal room with twin beds for our one night in Dubai, I knew the hotel was nice but I didn’t think it would be this nice. First off there are two Addresses, one is inside Dubai Mall and one is next to Burj Dubai, we stayed at the one next to Burj Dubai because the one inside Dubai Mall is horrible in comparison, same furniture but horrible service. But this hotel was something unexpected, the rooms are big, big bathrooms with an amazing view.

The staff were very nice and efficient, what surprised me was the room service. We ordered a variety of food for breakfast at 10:00 am before heading out and it was up in 20 minutes, everything tasted very good. There is free Wifi available but its extremely slow, I would expect something better from a hotel of this caliber. The lobby area is very nice, but going up to the rooms is a bit confusing and you need a card to get up to the room, and a card to keep the lights up in the room, I tend to get extra cards to put in that slot to keep the lights on. Overall the hotel is very nice, extremely convenient being right next to Dubai Mall, and its only 20 minutes from the airport, we left before our flight in an hour and twenty minutes, when we go there we had 50 minutes before take off and we made it easily to the plane.

I have stayed in the Grosvener House a couple of times over the past couple of years. I have tried other hotels in Dubai and none have been as comfortable or as good a service as this hotel. The staff are very friendly and flexible with all the facilities at the hotel.

I noticed that the hotels don’t have a capability to make a booking between each other easily, unlike hotels in the US that usually have relationships when they are in the same city. In Dubai it seems each Hotel is on its own to serve its customers.

The entertainment system in the rooms are very good, and the internet is decent. The room facilities are great, the controls of the room is through a small touch screen system for the lighting, A/C and a few other controls. The bathroom is very comfortable with a large shower which perfect at the end of the long day. The room service of the hotel is fantastic even at 3 am in the morning without any problems, the food tasted great and they were quick to deliver. I would recommend this hotel to anyone who wants service from the hotel they are staying at. When it comes to rates Dubai is inconsistent, it goes up and down without any notice.

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The Bristol is a modern business hotel in Frankfurt, and its really close to the main trainstation. I have to say that its pretty nice, and it has opened recently over the past year.

Whats interesting is that they have extra small rooms which are more like a high class cabin in a yacht then a room. I didn’t think it would be that compact, I never knew hotels had rooms that small. Two of those rooms made a normal room but at that point I didn’t mind since I was really tired and we were only staying a day.

They have wireless internet in the whole hotel supplied by T-Mobile so either you have a T-Mobile internet account or you can use your credit card. The people are pretty friendly in the hotel and it has a very nice ambience to it.

Usually business hotels cut corners in the kitchen, but not this hotel. Their dinner and breakfast tasted really good, usually in the restaurants they have a short selection of beef, but the Bristol’s menu concsisted of many different kinds of beef. I had the Veal Scalope and it really satisfied me after a long day of driving.

When your in the room it really feels German, in that it is efficient and does the job. You have the table for your laptop with one power plug. The bed is suprisingly comfortable with a little closet space built into the back of it. The shower has ample amount of cold and hot water. The one thing that I think they should upgrade in the room is the TV, its tiny, I think my laptop screen was bigger, they could easily get a large order of LCDs and hang them easily.

Overall I really liked the hotel and I would probably stay their again, but I would ask for a slightly larger room.

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