Desert Palm

We were met with raised eyebrows and surprised looks when we told our friends that our quest for some winter sunshine was taking us to Dubai. But, look, I pointed out, 30-degree heat, guaranteed great weather and only six hours flying time – you can’t argue with that. Our friends were obviously imagining endless shopping malls and blingtastic 1,000-room hotels populated by those with more money than dress-sense. But we had been tasked with discovering Desert Palm, Dubai’s only truly boutique hotel, and were convinced we would see a different side to this larger-than-life destination. Wouldn’t we?

Our flight is a full one and we’re squeezed in next to the quintessential package holiday family – exactly the sort of travellers our friends had told us would be heading there, and whom I was hoping to avoid. But once through arrivals, Bazza, Mrs Bazza and their three junk food-munching offspring join the hordes to queue for their coach transfers, while we are installed in a champagne-coloured leather-interiored 4x4 and plied with cold towels and designer mineral water. Now, that’s more like it. I begin to relax.

After 15 minutes’ drive through a sandy landscape, we sweep into the low-rise luxury of the Desert Palm complex, home to not only the hotel, but also a world-class polo club with stables for 300 horses and a small collection of low-key expat residences that house various CEOs. All this is set in beautifully manicured and surprisingly verdant grounds, punctuated every now and again with a stylish water feature among the bougainvillaea and jasmine.

After a swift and seamless check in, at which we are given the most delicious welcome drink in the world, we’re shown to our room, a Palm Suite, on the first floor of the main building. This is the Desert Palm’s standard room category, but it is very spacious – certainly big enough to have three phones (I’ve always wondered who makes calls on the loo), a generously sized bed clad in Josephine Home linens (we asked) and a massive open-plan skylit bathroom. This comes with double basins, a walk-in monsoon shower big enough for at least six and, as a centrepiece, a gorgeous deep freestanding bath.

The room is pleasingly masculine in style and free of frills – sleek dark woods contrast with creamy stone floors, which must feel particularly heavenly in summer when the temperature regularly tops 50. The room is practical (plenty of desk space plus free WiFi) and full of hi-tech gadgetry, but a tactile array of different fabrics, finishes and textures keeps it interesting. Plus there are plenty of goodies and extras for us to discover. The generously sized REN products in the bathroom get the thumbs up from me, and my tea-crazy Mr Smith is bamboozled by the array of exotic designer infusions on offer – he eventually proclaims Fruit Passion and Happy Forest his favourites. We discover a pair of binoculars next to the wall of windows that makes up one side of our room – they’d presumably come in handy when there’s a polo match on the field below. We use them to peruse Dubai’s iconic skyline, which is just visible in the distance.

As evening approaches, we descend for a drink on the terrace and then for a meal at Rare, Desert Palm’s fine-dining restaurant. The name gives away the carnivorous bent of the cuisine, but the friendly and helpful staff are entirely unfazed that one of us is a veggie, and we both enjoy our meal immensely.

The next morning we awake to Dubai’s signature bright-blue skies and sunshine – which are particularly welcome as we’re escaping the coldest December the UK has seen for 30 years. We wander down to breakfast, which is taken in the more casual Epicure restaurant beside the lovely pool. As Mr Smith surpasses himself at breakfast – devouring smoothies, chocolate waffles, French toast with fresh strawberries and cream, and Desert Palm’s own home-made granola with berry compote – this turns out to be quite handy. I’m on my second application of factor 15 and approaching the halfway point of my book by the time my husband has finished eating.

We spend the rest of the day lounging by the pool, sunbathing next to tasteful but weirdly incongruous Christmas decorations. We did toy with the idea of booking some treatments at Desert Palm’s lovely spa, but in the end laziness won. That said, we were gutted to later find out that we’d just missed a game of camel polo the weekend before. Guests are invited to play – they sit on the second hump and do all the stick-wielding action, while the camel-driver sits at the front and attempts to control the beast. ‘Attempts’ being the operative word – camels can decide to simply sit down at any moment or, alternatively, they often lose interest in the game completely and wander off into the dunes.

We smugly agree that the Desert Palm is the perfect spot for us. There’s peace and quiet in spades (we’re in the desert, geddit?), but we don’t feel isolated from all the activity in the urban centre just up the road. The stunning skyline views and the traffic that passes the hotel (noticeable, but not enough to bother us) links us to our destination and lets us know we could explore if we wanted to. But would we want to? Thinking back to that family we were crammed into economy alongside on our flight over here, I’m delighted we decided to stay put.