Dubai - The Address Hotel Downtown

'The Address' is a chain of super-luxury hotels through the middle east. There are three in Dubai, two right next to each other surrounding the Burj Kalifa, and one down in the south suburb of Jumeirah. I stayed at the larger of the two next to the Burj Kalifa. The Burj Kalifa also has two hotels and a residency condo part designed and run by Armani. Cheap, I'm sure.
So, anyway, The Address Downtown. There are three classes of hotels in Dubai (well, I'm sure there are crappy scary places somewhere, but I'm not including them). There is the fairly reasonable 5 star hotels, several of which are around the downtown area, a few in Jumeirah. There is the top end 5 star hotels, The Address is one of these, so is Atlantis (pictures of Atlantis in a later post). And then there is what they call a 7 star hotel, the Burj al Arab, the most expensive hotel in the world. I'll post about it later too. So, The Address was swanky to the extreme. It was modern, lots of black and mirrors. Reminded me of an even nicer W hotel. It was 63 stories tall, about a 1/3 hotel rooms and the remaining 2/3 condo residences. The room was lavishly spacious, all of the toiletries were Aveda (my favorite!), the two clubs were the places to be in town, the fine dining restaurant was amazing... obviously I'm not going to bash on this hotel too much. This is as nice as a contemporary modern hotel there is in the world. Parked out front when I first got in Friday night was a Ferrari California, and it was the first California I've seen on the road so that was exciting. Over the weekend, as I saw the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th Ferrari California on the road, I, sadly, decided its the least impressive Ferrari ever built. Ever. It just doesn't scream "ITALIAN EXOTIC" (all caps were invented for talking about exotic sports cars). It more like whispers "classy luxury roadster". The car it most reminds me of is the Lexus roadster. I nice car to be sure, but not in the Ferrari class. So, "boo" California, although its clear they are attempting to strongly differentiate their brand in the starter exotic class from the Lambo Gallardo.
I'm including a picture of The Address downtown that I took from space... err, the observation deck of the Burj Kalifa to give you some scale. Remember, The Address is 63 stories tall. For my dear Angelenos, remember the tallest building in the LA skyline, the Library Tower (US Bank Tower, Wedding Cake, etc) is 73 stories. And while The Address is right next to the Kalifa, it looks like a tiny little model building from only 2/3 of the way up the Burj Kalifa. The Burj Kalifa is really tall. Mind boggling.