Paradise on earth

Atlantis The Palm, one of the landmarks in Dubai, is a 46-hectare one-stop entertainment hub which is designed to offer a holiday experience of entertainment for the family. Photos provided to China Daily

One & Only Royal Mirage is a boutique resort meant for home-style private comfort.

Entertainment, food, spa - the list is endless. Wu Liping finds out there is so much to do at the legendary resorts, spread out on Dubai's man-made Palm Island.

In the early morning mist before dawn, the distant buildings at the end of the causeway to the island loom before us. The huge arch and multi-layered spires and wide-spanned architecture seem to suggest a mysterious land lost in the centuries. This is Atlantis The Palm resort, spread out on Dubai's man-made Palm Island. We are not the first big group of Chinese visitors. Before us, a luminous collection of celebrities had visited. Serge Zaalof, president and managing director of Atlantis The Palm, was there to welcome the actors of the Chinese film Switch (also known as Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains after the celebrated piece of art).

The movie, with a strong cast including Andy Lau and Lin Chi-ling, is a modern thriller with its storyline based on an exhibition of the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) scroll by artist Huang Gongwang. It is an action film with lots of fights between agent heroes and gangster villians.

The key scenes are at Atlantis The Palm and other landmarks in Dubai because the city's luxurious ambiance best suited the background the director wanted for the film.

We are lucky to get a taste of the good life at the Atlantis before the film premieres in October.

After a bit of rest in our comfortably appointed rooms, I join seven other members of the Chinese media at the lobby.

The lobby itself was awe-inspiring.

Vivid roof-murals, sparkling rainbow-colored chandeliers, delicately carved marble pillars shone in the bright sunshine and the joyful laughter of an international clientele made the lobby a very different place from the hushed hall when we first arrived at dawn.

"I've always cherished the chance of working here," says Alison Carmody, public relations manager of the hotel. "Seeing happy faces from around the world every day, I always forget the worries in my life."

"Chinese guests come here on long holidays, " she says. "As the setting of an epic Chinese film, Atlantis aims to attract more visitors from China."

Opened in 2008, Atlantis The Palm is a 46-hectare one-stop entertainment hub - with a huge lagoon with many aquatic exhibits, a waterpark, an open-air marine habitat, Arabian-styled boutiques, Michelin-starred restaurants, nightclubs, spas and a stretch of white sand beach.

The highlight of the hotel is a huge tank with 65,000 ocean animals, the Lost Chambers Aquarium, which guards the secret of an ancient legend, the ruins of which are scattered on the bed of the tank.

Guests can enjoy the aquarium in different venues.

The aquarium faces public areas on the ground floor where visitors can enjoy it through a 10-meter long glass panel. Younger guests can look at the sea creatures along a corridor running around the tank, and diners at the seafood restaurant Ossiano Bar can enjoy their meals while sharks gently glide through the relics.

Guests can also stay at two underwater suites and gaze at the aquatic marvels through the floor-to-ceiling windows in their bedroom and the bathroom.

But for me, from my seventh-floor room, the most awesome view is to stretch out of the window and look down into the tank at night. It is like a huge bottomless world, glowing with mysterious marine-blue light against the dark.

The Aquaventure Waterpark, the largest in Dubai, is open to both hotel guests and outside visitors. Built against lush tropical landscapes, the park is located in the backyard of the hotel property. It covers 17 hectares of area, featuring non-stop water activities such as uphill water slides, river ride, tidal waves and rapids.

The signature item is the near-vertical speed slide 27 meters down a see-through tunnel into a lagoon, in which several sharks linger around.

The structure is built with sand-colored bricks, resembling an ancient castle.

As its name The Leap of Faith suggests, the adventure is really a challenge. I did not brave the dare and according to one of our media team, all he could think of when the slide began was to close his eyes and hope for the best. He forgot about the sharks.

The part I enjoyed was the close interaction with dolphins. At the marine animal adventure section at the side of the hotel, guests can get close to the dolphins under the watchful guidance of the trainers.

We were given special swimming suits and an hour with the dolphins, a male and a female. We gingerly patted them on their backs and soft bellies and watched them swim through.

We danced with them, kissed them and were kissed back. Some of us even rode and swam with them.

The dolphins are really clever creatures with a clear intelligence. When I look into their eyes with a smile, they looked back with affection and gentleness in their eyes.

Even though the trainers had taught us how to tell a male from a female, we could tell just by their behavior. The male was more mischievious and splashed us as he swam by. He was also a faster swimmer. The girl was more obedient and wore a smile on her face all the time, it seems.

As a one-stop entertainment hub, Atlantis The Palm is also a gourmet paradise.

There are 23 restaurants in the hotel with cuisines from different areas: Saffron and Asia Republic feature Asian flavors, Ronda Locatelli created by Michelin-starred chef Giorgio Locatelli offers rustic Italian, and there is also Nobu which blends Japanese with Arabian influences.

On the third day of our Dubai trip, we head to the One & Only Royal Mirage and One & Only The Palm.

If the Atlantis is designed to offer a holiday experience of entertainment for the family, then One & Only is a boutique resort meant for home-style private comfort.

One & Only Royal Mirage and One & Only The Palm in Dubai are two properties under the same brand.

Royal Mirage overlooks the Palm Island Bay with a kilometer of private coastline, and the latter, located on the peninsula of the Palm Island crescent, enjoys a panoramic view of the skyline of New Dubai.

"We want to present home-style leisure to our guests," says Olivier P. Louis, managing director of One & Only Royal Mirage. "Of course it is easy to say. This is why we have 1,400 staff members from 40 nationalities, trying to present familiar service to guests from different areas."

Compared to the Atlantis, One & Only Royal Mirage is very quiet and intimate.

Candles light up the outdoor bar in the evening, where big colorful cushions serve as chairs. Peacocks stride along the lanes just under your window in the early morning.

Some of the guestrooms are decorated in light blue or purple tones, with a gentle breeze from the lush landscaped garden. Towering domes and carved arches reflect the Arabian influences of the architectural design.

"When I came here, nothing," Louis says, pointing outside the window "Now after 14 years, everything."

Coming from France, Louis is happy to share his memories of Dubai.

"I remember one morning, not long after I first came here, I hear some kind of sound outside my house. When I opened the door, I saw a local man leading a camel, with a bell ringing on the neck," he says.

In the home-style hotel, guests can experience Oriental Hammam, the traditional Arabian style massage.

In the Arabian culture, the word "massage" is derived from the Arabic word "mass", meaning "to press softly" or "gentle touch".

The treatment starts with cleaning with traditional black soap, body scrubbing, a light massage with stretching movements, and ends with a final rejuvenation at the rest room.

Through the moisture and steam, rising from the water flowing in the marble basins, I see the daylight filtering down from the dome - a perfect moment for meditation with eyes closed.

The next day we take an inter-resort boat to the One & Only The Palm.

Claimed to "offer the highest degrees of privacy", this hotel has low-rise mansions and beachfront villas, all equipped with outdoor terrace or private pool and access to the beach.

Arched windows, palm-shaded pools, alfresco beachside restaurants, gardens, fountains ... it was just the right setting for 1,001 Arabian nights.

Contact the writer at wuliping@chinadaily.com.cn.