Just a little different. Great facilities at hand. Quality everywhere with excellent service.

We visited Dubai 10 years ago but have had a break because of all the building work being carried out there. We ventured back and after asking round a few trusted friends and holiday companies, we decided to stay at Mina a Salam. We hotel was very tranquil, possibly just a little too tranquil for us and if we went again we would stay at it's sister hotel Al Qsar. We found getting around during the day and the evening a lovely experience - little boats on the waterways, golf buggies or equally enjoyable walking from hotels, beach and restaurants along the pretty promenade way. We were going to go half board because of the special deals but decided against it as we were told we could miss out on the many restaurants on the waterway around the Souk - it was good advice.

Yes, it's expensive. Yes, not all the rooms have great views, and yes the Burj Al Arab is always in view and you wonder whether it would worth it to stay there instead. But the Mina A' Salam is definitely one of the best hotels I've stayed in and we're glad we chose it for our 3-day stopover on the way to Africa. From the magnificent smell which wafts through the entire resort to the multi-cultural cuisine at the enormous breakfast buffet to the Sinbad Kids' Club (which our 5-year old couldn't get enough of) and the fantastic beach, we could not say more about it. If ever we want to do another stopover in Dubai on the way to or from somewhere, we will be back.

My wife and I stayed at the Mina A' Salam on the second part of my 40th Birthday celebration, and I have to say we were extremely disappointed.

We were under the impression that the Mina was probably one of the best hotels in Dubai apart from of course the Burj Al Arab, and given the nearly £500 per night cost found it very poor value for money!

The hotel itself has some lovely architecture, and certainly looks the part, but what really lets this hotel down is service! To give some examples, we arrived for breakfast on the first morning of our stay to be greeted with an extremely surly hostess, who barked "breakfast finishes at 11:30" where is the "good morning, how are you?" none of that what so ever. We were then shown to a table (complete with breadcrumbs), and again, but this time in a some what more polite manner were explained that breakfast finished at 11:30.

The breakfast in itself was rather good, with a large selection, and all of decent quality, whilst sitting down with our coffee and orange juice (which we had to get ourselves), all around us, and well before 11:30 tables were being cleared away, and the crashing and banging of cutlery and crockery certainly made conversation difficult and at normal levels.

The next morning at breakfast we had to queue for 10 minutes or so to be shown to a table, whilst in the queue a different hostess took our name and room number, but again, very impolite, no "sorry for the delay" really very poor given a hotel of such alleged quality.

The rooms are all quite nice, however, we found our balcony very small indeed, and having room service delivered is a complete débâcle. Either the room has been poorly designed, or the room service trolleys are far too big, every time we had room service delivered, the bed had to be moved, and so did the luggage table for the trolley to successfully pass, and on most occasions the bedside cabinet and luggage table was knocked and shunted whilst the trolley passed, an absolutely ridiculous design, surely smaller trolleys would make this whole process far less "mickey mouse"

All in all a very disappointing stay, and very poor value for money, having been fortunate enough to visit a significant number of 5 star hotels around the world, I have to say this was one of most disappointing yet, Dubai itself is a very interesting place, and we'll certainly return, but not to the Mina A' Salam.