I thought this hotel had been canned, but this report says it opens later this month??

http://www.menareport.com/en/business,Tourism/248166

If you believe that, you can believe anything...

If it's true...then in the current economic climate I can see it sinking.






















I'll grab my coat.

Hey look! It's santa claus!

And while shopping, eating or sleeping, guests can be reassured by their hotels security system: a missile defense system.

At this stage - it sort of got silly for me.

Aren't there any regulations preventing the media from reporting complete and utter dosh? Mind you, if there was, there would be very few newspapers still printing in the Middle East.

Funnily enough I was working on this project and still have new spangly suit, courtesy of Rami in Satwa, hanging in my wardrobe awaiting the grand black-tie opening scheduled for....you guessed it.. next month!

Unfortunately one of the missiles exploded during final commissioning, wiping out the entire development. They had sought to introduce them into an 'Atlantis style' grand opening but got a tad carried away!

Never mind, only a minor hitch, hence why it wasn't reported in any of the local press.

If anybody is interested, you can still see the remains of the Hotel from the observation deck at the top of Trump Tower on the Palm Jumeirah, standing on tippy-toe looking beyond the plethora of spanking new Hotels, Villas and condo's on the recently completed and now, fully occupied World development.

Fear not! In true Dubai 'get up and go' the developer is building another, larger, Hydropolis from scratch - soon to be announced as the LARGEST underwater hotel cum Middle Eastern strategic defense facility in the world.

Unfortunately, as the new designs were only presented to the municipality this week the rescheduled reopening has had to be put back to April 1st, 2010.

Hope my suit still fits

yeah, well, if it opens next month, then they're going for another "soft opening" 'cos I can't for the life of me find a way to book a room.

The official site is "under construction" too.