Well lucky me. I’d found a cosy hideaway in the top floor Royal Club Lounge giving me a front row bird’s eye view of the Arabic Dhow boats setting off up Deira Creek on their evening dinner cruises. “Must book one of those for tomorrow night” I thought to myself as I sipped a smooth scotch and contemplated a chocolate dipped date. Such is life at the Radisson Blu Hotel Deira Creek, a world away from the razzle dazzle Dubai of Jumeirah and Umm Suqeim.

Well this was a first; a whiskey cocktail with real smoke pouring out of it. You can call it theatre, but I called it genius.  It was a little number entitled “as good as it gets”  the signature cocktail at Pier Chic, the celebrated seafood restaurant at Madinat Jumeirah set at the end of a pier jutting out into the warm waters of the Persian Gulf. Just us, the moonlight and The Burj for company. It was romantic for sure, but wait a minute, this was Dubai.

It wasn’t the pristine limo that was waiting for me at the airport, or the already opened door beckoning me in.  Nor was it the effortless way my bags disappeared from my grasp, or the cool water and towels that were instantly offered.  It wasn’t the sound of my name in greeting when I arrived,  the welcoming smile, the magnificent le Royal Meridien Beach Resort and Spa lobby, or the speed in which I suddenly found myself in my beautifully appointed Tower room seventeen storeys further up. It wasn’t any one of those things. It was all of them.