The Westin Dubai Mina Seyahi Beach Resort & Marina

OK, Here we go again, determined to get the most 'bang for our buck' - Westin, this time for a couplas weeks. Just over £20 in a red roof cab from the airport, try to avoid the pink ones, chances are you'll be lifting your own bags. Checked in just after 02:00 by the ever efficient and oft mentioned Sam on the front desk. Tired after a long flight and despite being on the excellent and well recommended half board 'dine around' option, allowed myself to be talked into a Club Level Executive Lounge access room with sea view room (now canal/crane/construction view rooms) for another £700 or so. Up for breakfast, we rocked up into the Executive Club lounge and thought we had taken a wrong turn into the 'Mickey Mouse' club by mistake. Two small rooms, one for dining and one for lounging, along with a small outside area. There was a distinct lack of executives, but there was a selection of loud 'mockneys' involved in a bragging contest, laydees with screaming baybees and kids running riot. This may or may not be your thing on holiday. The breakfast selection was poor compared to other Dubai offerings, but hey - you can drink all day from 12 - 8pm (limited selection) and have one garment pressed free during your stay, presumably after rinsing out the beer stains. For other exclusive Executive Lounge benefits, check the photo. After a miserable breakfast experience, we promptly went down and cancelled the upgrade, keeping our city view room, quieter with less construction noise. Rooms are good, everything you need and more. Here's my gripe: The aircon. Won't go lower than 18 degrees. It's not enough. It might be green, eco saving, money saving etc. but it's not enough. Found myself more than once Googling the controller manual in an attempt to over ride the thing. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't (Call to maintainance proved fruitless). The Blue Orange restaurant is currently being refurbished so breakfast is taken in the windowless, warehouse style Serdaal ballroom. Still better than the Mickey Mouse club up on 8, better selection, too. The 'larger' lady who does the omlettes is to be commended! Whilst petty restrictions have been put in place since our last visit the half board 'dine around' option is well worth it and can be had for a decent price from the ever excellent Travelbag. We paid £165 a night. Basically, you get an allowance, around £85 per couple, to use at any of the 12 restaurants around the two hotels (Westin and Meridian next door) however, some now attract a surcharge of around £25 a head (Hunters, Bussola, Fish Beach). Drink prices. Long been a bone of contention for an impoverished Lancashire lad like myself, eg; 568ml bottle of Magners over £15, bottle of wine £40 and up, etc., etc. Download the Dubai Happy Hour app on your phone and find the deals around you. In some of the bars we even had to remind the staff they had a happy hour as they were oblivious to the timings of them around the hotel (Tolga, if your'e in your apartment reading this, there's a training need for tomorrows heads of departments meeting to address) From memory, Horizon pool bar at the Meridian runs a BOGOF until 8pm. Apparently, if you were to place an order at 7.55pm, the ever obliging staff will keep it on ice until you're ready for it, at happy hour prices. We did put this to the test. For every night of our stay. Here's a cheeky little suggestion also - buy a coupla boxes of wine from Tesco/Asda/Morrisons etc. to take with you and enjoy a nightcap on the tranquility of your room balcony. Three boxes x 2 glasses/night = 2 week stay + money in the kitty for your next holiday. On the beach. Lots of comfy loungers with arms. Big, fat mattresses. Tables. Brollies. No Benidorm style pool towel laying pantomime here. Good service. Great view of the high rise construction cranes opposite (counted 49, anyone beat that?). Jet ski Grand Prix kicks off around 3pm, just as you've dozed off. Big CC machines with open exhausts splitting your eardrums with the sound resonating across the water. Not much the hotel can do about this I guess, but hardly peace and tranquility. Went on every day during our stay. Drinks, once again, are phenominally expensive. Water, given away freely by the room cleaner, is £3.40 on the beach, for a small bottle! Plan ahead, buy a £15 Thermos cool bag off eBay, fill it with the free bottles from your room and get your favourite barman to top it off with some ice - cold drinks all day for you, envious glances from all around. Or maybe not. In addition, there's a 24 hour Carrefour supermarket across the road, absolutely superb, great prices selling everything you need, boxes of ice lollies (use the coolbag again) or you can purchase Calippos from the beach bar. I think they're around £4 each from memory but its all a bit hazy as I passed out shortly after being presented with the receipt. Front desk service a bit disjointed, had to make a coupla requests for things to happen, staff ignored concerns I raised, more interested in the upsell. Checked our bill halfway through the week, noticed we hadn't been credited with our half board option. Raised my concerns with the African lady with the braids at the front desk. Upon checking we were then credited with the option. No apology, just the comment 'Just show's how important it is that you check your bill' No. It's not. It's important you get it right in the first place. Just a one off? No, happened again on checking out. No apology, nothing, just vast overcharging. Tolga, get on it. All in all, worth a punt if you can get a deal - just watch out for the cost of drinks, etc. once here. There's some good, hardworking staff here, too - I just wish I could remember all their names. A small 'baksheesh' often helps, something others seem reluctant to do. Sorry Tolga, but we'll be back... Read less

Talk about over the top, this is pretty close to it. The lobby is BEAUTIFUL, with shining marble floors and an amazing chandelier. There are lots of areas for hanging out and relaxing. There is also a nice café right there, where you can get coffee and snacks for most of the day. And, they have amazing restaurants. I ate twice at the restaurant called “Fish” – the location is amazing and omg, all the food is SO good. Eat here as often as you can! The food at the Bussola was also very good and the view from there is also great. Blue Orange was also pretty good - I enjoyed sitting outside in the morning. The gym is pretty small and not that awesome so that’s one downside. BUT, you can walk down a few minutes to the hotel next door and use the gym that has big windows and faces the water – that one is AMAZING! This hotel has an amazing desk staff – they are so polite and helpful. I came here for a work trip, otherwise this would definitely be a splurge because it is expensive. Read less

Lovely Hotel with some great staff who took care of us. There were some major mistakes made during the course of our day like room not being ready for over an hour, luggage did not arrive at the room for next 2 hours, we were woken up to the sound of drilling and construction work early morning when all we wanted to do was sleep in, etc. Least that could have been done was to give us advance notice! But what was impressive was they were willing to listen, acknowledge their mistakes and compensate us for the same. We got our room upgraded and they gifted us a dessert, a card and a bottle of wine for my roomate's birthday amongst other things. Check in staff and the room service staff was a pleasure to talk to and very friendly and cordial. Our Suite was gorgeous and spacious. The bed was comfortable. On the negative side the pool water was slightly salty and weird to taste, which ruined the fun for me personally. The breakfast was one of the worst I have tasted at a Westin. There are some renovations going on in the breakfast area, but it doesn't excuse the fact that more than half the food tasted really horrible. Read less

My daughter and her partner had booked a weeks stay with executive lounge access. I booked for a 1 night stay with executive access so that I could join them. Unfortunately my room was in an area where the construction/refurbishment is taking place. The workmen started work at 7 am on Saturday morning. The noise could be heard in my 3rd floor room. It was my only day off and therefore ruined my lie in. The telephone system also reset itself at 3.05 am in the morning which caused my room phone to beep. Read less