Hotel review: Flora Grand Hotel, Dubai

Flora Grand Hotel, Dubai
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01. Trip report introduction
02. Emirates 777-300/ER economy class, Stockholm to Dubai
03. Flora Grand Hotel, Dubai
04. Emirates 777-300/ER economy class, Dubai to Stockholm
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Me and my coworker made the mutual decision to stay at Flora in the Al Rigga district of Dubai. It was fairly close to the airport (and we would arrive late on our first day and depart early on our last day, as mentioned in the previous post). It was also not too far from the conference venue. And last of all, it seemed decent enough for the price range that we were allowed to book in.

Check in took some time, and was a bit inefficient (despite the fact that there were two members of staff working, and no one else checking in), but we were offered a refreshing glass of juice, which sort of made up for it.

Overall, there seemed to be a lot of staff at this hotel. Not everyone seemed to have very much to do, but they were all polite. Sometimes, this combination was a slight nuisance though. Personally, I prefer to open doors and carry my bags myself. It feels awkward to let someone else (who seemingly has nothing else to do) do that. Besides - do they expect tips for holding up doors or carrying a bag ten metres?

After checking in, it was time to check out the room. To me, the walk through the hotel corridors is always exciting when you're not certain what your room is going to look and feel like. Our rooms were both located on the fourth flor, but in different corridors.

Sorry about the dark picture. The corridors were always kind of dark, but the purple carpet gave the corridors a dash of colour at least.

Looking down towards the lobby from the fourth floor. The two elevators are in the middle, at the top of the picture.

Found my room!

I was a bit surprised when I opened the door to my room though. Where was the room? Just inside the door was a long corridor, and the rest of the room was some 6-8 metres further in. I found this a bit annoying, to be honest. I like it better when the corridor is shorter, and more integrated with the room itself so to speak (e.g. by using the corridor as storage space, or having the mini bar or safety cabinet there). I prefer when the "room" starts when you open the door. Just my two cents...

Yeah, I think there might be a hotel room in there somewhere... I'm not sure though. This awfully long corridor was a bit annoying. It's longer than it looks in these pictures. Bathroom is the door to the right.

Yeah, there was a hotel room in here! Here's a workspace to the left, and the bed to the right. The workspace was a little small, and the chair wasn't too comfortable, but I could do most of my work at the conference venue, so it worked out OK.

The room itself was at the end of the corridor, and the bathroom was accessed through a door on the right hand side of the corridor. My first impressions were okay. The hotel felt a little dated, perhaps, but good enough. The colour scheme was light grey, light green and dark brown. Not a classy scheme, but the colours worked together.

The bed. It was comfortable, albeit a tad hard, but I got used to it.

Different shades of green, brown and grey.

Here is the mini bar, coffee machine and a closet with a safety cabinet. I can't review the coffee or the contents of the mini bar though. The conference offered as much coffee and snacks as one could possibly want...

Can't review the TV either. I'm not much of a TV fan. Especially not when on the road - there are more things to see outside! And free time spent in the room is better spent prepping cameras or reading than watching TV :)

The aforementioned corridor... And one heck of a noisy AC above it...

The biggest pro of this room/hotel was definitely the location. The proximity to both the airport and the conference venue was an advantage. And it was located just a short walk from the Al Rigga metro station, which made it easy to explore the rest of Dubai when we had a little time on our first full day. Other pros included a decent breakfast (although they kept switching items on the buffet, which meant that the menu was different each morning - this is a con in my book), a good shower (with good water pressure) and two complimentary water bottles every day (!). Dubai is hot year-round, so that water came in handy.

The biggest con was probably the AC. It worked alright, but it was awfully loud. After the first night, I had gotten used to it, but the first night was tough. And I'm often warm, so it had to stay on... Other cons included a little slow room service (on the first day they hadn't made up the room after we got back from the conference in the afternoon - the other days were better though) and lack of cold water from the tap - I'm not a fan of brushing my teeth with lukewarm water.

Checking out the bathroom

Tub (but I didn't take a bath) and a shower head with good water pressure

Bathroom selfie!

Finally some things to say about the views. The views from the room were nothing special. Some other buildings obstructed much of the view, although parts of Al Rigga Road could be spotted.

View from my hotel room in one direction...

...and the other direction. This is Al Rigga Road, towards Union.

The views from the rooftop on the other hand were spectacular! The Al Rigga/Deira districts are not spectacular in themselves, but the high-rises downtown could be spotted through the haze, there was a good view of the sunset above Dubai Creek, and the proximity to the airport meant plane spotting galore! This blogger was a happy camper taking pictures of the planes departing DXB.

High-rises in downtown Dubai

The sun setting over Dubai Creek

Emirates triple seven (like the one reviewed here) after departure from DXB

This Ethiopian Airbus 350 was almost brand new. Delivered February 6th - photo taken on the 18th

Lots of rare (to me) birds - this was my first time seeing an aircraft from Turkmenistan airlines.

The checking out procedure was a bit smoother than checking in, although again it was surprisingly inefficient. Not taking pictures of the lobby (or the breakfast or the exterior of the hotel) is another rookie mistake though - I'll try to remember it for future reviews :)

All in all, the hotel was quite OK. Would I stay here again? Maybe if I had another conference in Dubai. However, if I were to visit Dubai for other reasons than work, I would probably look for something else. The hotel felt a little dated, and since competition is so tough in Dubai, I'm sure there are other hotels in the same price range that are a little nicer.