Atlantis Erupts

At the fourth, or possibly fifth, refill of my Champagne flute, with Lindsay Lohan chatting to a PR girl three yards to my left and Michael Jordan’s prodigious frame – indelicately draped in an electric blue sports coat – sidling past just behind, it was apparent that the all-access pass draped around my neck was, as an editor of a rival men’s publication pointed out via text message, the most prized possession in the entire Middle East. On a Thursday night in November, your humble NOX editor was fed by gourmets, entertained by E Channel icons and illuminated by the kind of firework display in the Arabian sky that even the US military can’t rival. And, as I had to keep reminding myself, it was all for the benefit of a new hotel.

The opening of the Atlantis Palm, an event that warranted the presence of Robert DeNiro and Charlize Theron (although Oprah Winfrey sent her apologies) and live coverage on Britain’s Sky News, was clearly a demonstration of Dubai’s miraculous ability to work on a scale that regularly rivals nature itself. The mammoth resort, occupying the apex of the semi-circular crescent that rings the Jumeirah Palm, is a place so large, so imposing, and so impossibly packed with leisure facilities that even a seasoned scribe has to resort to bullet points to maintain a respectable word limit: 1,550 rooms, of which one suite will cost $30,000 a night, a 42-acre water park, 1.4km of beach, an ocean-like aquarium of 65,000 fish that wends its way through the hotel, a 20-metre high glass installation by Dale Chihuly in the lobby and five-star cuisine provided from the likes of Nobu, Locatelli and Rostang.

At a total cost of $1.5 billion, and having been pitched as the first and last word in luxury, it needed an opening party to both match its pretensions and – in the current economic climate – act as a billboard for the supposedly recession-proof economy of the United Arab Emirates. Despite Sol Kerzner’s protests that the total cost had been wildly exaggerated in the media, it certainly got it. And short of parachuting in U2 from Bill Gates’ private jet, it was difficult to assess what more their money could have provided.

Ignoring the historically dubious Atlantis-themed stuff, and an unsubtle music choice that included the Rolling Stones “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” –  until this hotel, it clearly implied – and, gloriously, a samba version of the theme to Lawrence of Arabia, the incongruous rapidly gave way to the previously inconceivable. Over lobster starters, Quincy Jones introduced a set by Nawal al-Zogby, then after an Arabic main course, he produced Kylie Minogue, whose day-glo disco had even 60-year-old ambassadors’ wives gyrating in their cocktail dresses. Then the hotel turned into a projection screen for a light show of mythical tales and renderings of other architectural icons, before the entire Palm exploded in an Olympian fireworks display. There were tears on my table. And phrases, echoing Sultan Ahmad bin Sulayem in his introductory speech, surround what man is truly capable of achieving.

For my part, as I reached for more wine and headed for the dancefloor with a delightful Mexican PR girl, having shaken hands with baseball hall-of-famer Dave Winfield and nearly tripped over Richard Branson on my way to do so, the cynicism was packed away for the evening. Whatever else the Atlantis, and indeed the Palm, might represent, they have both shattered accepted limits of possibility. As indeed was the sight of the NOX editor dancing, quite willingly, to Lindsay Lohan’s DJ girlfriends setlist. Even when it included Diana Ross.

Atlantis The Palm
General: +971 4 426 0000
Restaurant reservations: +971 4 426 2626
www.atlantisthepalm.com