Hotel review: Centara Mirage Beach Resort Dubai, an all inclusive family staycation
Family testing Centara’s new Build-A-Bear suite…
If I’m being completely honest, I wasn’t fully sold on the idea of Centara Mirage’s new Build-A-Bear suite when I first heard about it. “Sounds harrowing”, was the phrase I believe I used. But it wasn’t designed to appeal to me directly, it’s aimed at an age group that includes my two children (seven and four). And after pitching them the idea of a weekend staycation, I was promised good behaviour “forever”. Darlings, you have yourselves a deal.
Location
Dubai Islands seems to have established two chief leisure exports, triathlons and all-inclusive hotels. Centara Mirage Beach Resort Dubai is of course one of the latter, but there’s a good reason why it’s a locale that suits both. It’s a secluded coastal corner of our emirate, a breezy stretch of unhurried calm that sends a sensorial postcard of a non-descript tropical bliss.
Look and feel
Centara is a Thai brand, and that association is what drives a lot of the aesthetic and thematic detailing. Coupled with the setting’s geographical ambiguity, you really do get a pervading sense that you’re on an overseas trip. It’s bright and white, clean and polished with soft family-focused edges. It’s not furnished with the sort of hyper-luxe fixings you’ll find in some other Dubai hotels, but that makes it feel more inviting – and less panic attack-inducing when your four-year-old totters to the table waving a mug of orange juice.
Food and drink
I think it was Keats that said, “you don’t go to an all-inclusive for the food”. Maybe not, but it remains largely true regardless. That being said Centara Mirage Beach Resort Dubai does put on a pretty decent show of F&B across its portfolio of restaurants. Other board-basis options are available, but their premium all-inc option is certainly worth taking – it gets you unsupplemented access to the star dining attraction, Uno Mas – an Argentinian-style steakhouse with prime slabs of beef on its a la carte menu (you’ll need to book to guarantee a table). Elsewhere, the buffet game is tight, and their beachfront diner Sands does a well above-par pizza. Because of the Bangkok connection, you’ll also be able to load up bowls with aromatic soups and nicely spiced curries.
Rooms
The Build-A-Bear Suite was far from the ‘unbearable’ experience I’d built it up to be in my mind. It does come with a Kaiju-sized stuffed bear, found lying on the sofa like an overzealous freshman at a frat party, and a couple of bear ‘skins’ that you can take down to the onsite Build-A-Bear factory for stuffing and accessory fitting. The space was large, featured super cute bunk beds in addition to the double bed and a wrap-around balcony with gorgeous views over the resort’s waterpark. The kids LOVED it, even if their commitment to the proposed entente perpetual was already beginning to unravel.
Facilities
The true USP of this escape. Headline features include a waterpark with a lazy river and cliff jumping, a spa and junior guest-focused Candy Spa, family club lounge, a fitness centre, water sports, eZone with games and arcades, multiple pools, a pop-up beach cinema under the stars, an overwater obstacle course and elevated rope safari.
Rates
Prices for weekend nights start at Dhs850 for two people on a bed and breakfast basis or Dhs1,656 for all-inclusive. Our Build-A-Bear suite was Dhs6,381 for two nights, based on two adults and two children sharing on an all-inclusive basis.
Verdict
Probably the strongest vindication of this hotel is the fact that, without iPad screens, we heard precisely zero choruses of the “but I’m so bored” refrain that’s the traditional soundtrack to modern family holidays. Centara might not be the most luxurious hotel (which, in fairness, it was never positioned to be) in Dubai, but it’s amongst the most fun. We will be back.
Centara Mirage Beach Resort Dubai, Dubai Islands. centarahotelsresorts.com
Images: Provided
