Centara Mirage Beach Resort Dubai

We stayed at Centara Mirage for 7 nights from 23rd - 30th May with my 5 year old. The good: - The rooms are great, we were in a Family Double Double, decent size. Insulation could be better as you can hear the planes clearly, however, you get used to it. - Breakfast was vast but depending on time you got in, lot of the bread/salad was stale and not changed. - Great water / pool facilities for the kids. - Plenty of entertainment choice for kids. - In-room dining menu is ok, not great. - Plenty of restaurants on site if you wanted to eat. - Staff generally were very courteous, the Valet boys were always kind. The bad: - I was shocked to see people casually walk around in the lobby, lifts, corridors in their swimwear after they had been to the pool. This meant that the lifts/corridors were wet and poor staff had to keep sweeping. The management should ban this and guests should dress appropriately when inside the hotel. - The noise from the planes can be annoying to begin with, we did get used to it after a while but each to their own. - I called the in-room dining service one night to ask about juices, the worker on the other side of the line simply asked me to check my tv for the menu instead of sparing 10 seconds to let me know what juices would be available, I found this to be very lazy. -We found this very frustrating, people at the resort grabbed sunbeds first thing in the morning, left their towers there and disappeared for breakfast. I found this really poor but there was nothing you could do about it, the hotel needs to have stricter policies around hogging sunbeds. Overall, we enjoyed our stay at the hotel and would come back again.

Excellent food, a great variety of food in different restaurants - Thai, Lebanese and Argentinian cuisines. Good service, very friendly and helpful staff, nice and fast cleaning too. Thanks to Imran and Sunita for their cleaning services.

Our 2nd Stay at the Centara Mirage, we love it, we are a family of 6, kids age 2,7,9,10 and they love it here. Lots of shade for when it’s hot a 3 hours a day free kids club for when it gets a bit hot outside. Kinglet the life guard was amazing! In the baby pool… 5* and only 20mins from the airport.

I really liked this hotel. Cleanliness is at a high level. Great staff especially Akshay Janel. Lots of developments for children. I would love to come again. Very close to the city center. You can order Uber very convenient. Jhfhjbgjkjjghkjgfukjhfggjkjhh

The hotel itself is lovely - very clean. You will see cleaners everywhere at all times. The location is isolating with nothing outside of the hotel except Starbucks approx. 8 mins walk on Dubai Islands beach. The area is being developed with lots of building and road works. The room was spacious and the bathroom of a high standard however for a family of 3, we struggled with storage for clothes. What would this be like for a family of 4 or more? The food was a hit and miss. All the buffet restaurants only served pasta, tomato sauce, chips and burgers for the kids every night. No other variety. The fizzy drinks were very carbonated leaving an after taste. (I’m pregnant and requested for a can of fizzy in the evening which is usually payable but was on the house). The Sands Beach Club cooks food fresh to order which we enjoyed except one occasion where the chicken quesadillas were rejected twice by a different table and they put it on our table for my husband (he ordered it). It was stone cold so we were disappointed and left. Many times we’ve asked for a bottle of water on our table and this did not happen. My husband had to kick up a fuss for this to happen and often the bottles we get were lukewarm water. We had an issue with our safe halfway through the holiday when the battery died. We reported it to one member of staff on our floor and less than 5 minutes later, a security guy turned up and fixed the safe. The concierge charge a surplus for taxis so you would be better off ordering a taxi via Careem or Uber (it’s still expensive!) or even better ask the concierge to order a RTA taxi (local taxis service in Dubai). The fares are so much cheaper! Leaving the hotel to go out in a taxi will cost a minimum of £20 one way. There are not enough sun beds for the guests in the hotel. A lot of us are families therefore 4-6 sun beds per families are taken with toys being dumped on it. A lot of families reserve sun beds really early and don’t use it through the day. We often struggled to find sun beds past 10am and end up being on the beach. The beach has man made sand and often its very sharp, making it uncomfortable to walk on. It’s very hot anyway but even with flip-flop on it hurts to have sand in your feet with a lot of small rubbles etc. Lastly, the guests in this hotel are very diverse from Brits, Arabs and Russians. We’ve never stayed in a hotel where 98% of guests were so RUDE! Queue jumping for the lift, cutting in the queue for buffets and ordering drinks at the bar. So many times I’ve gone to the toilet and the person in front of me would see me coming and would not keep the door open to let me in so I ended up with a door slammed in my face. Kingsley, the life guard, at the children’s splash pool were so friendly and considerate. He makes efforts with the children and ensured everyone enjoyed themselves. Toys were provided at the splash pool for the kids to share and play with. Kingsley also ensured the gate to the pool area was closed at all times to ensure the safety of the little ones. Aarfat, the waiter, at Sheesh restaurant (level 8) were so friendly and knew exactly what we needed. Decaf coffee and a can of fizzy for me because I am pregnant. He cleaned our table each time to avoid plates piling up and ensured we were happy each time. This morning he gave my son a fresh banana instead of chopped banana marinated in syrup. My son was over the moon! The entertainment is non-existent in this place. We are used to evening entertainment where we all sit down, play bingo or watch a show after the kids have had their show and we have drinks to our table. Not in this hotel and if we knew, would we have booked in the first place? Probably not. All in all - would we return? No. It hasn’t been a horrible holiday but there are other places to see.