Pullman Mall of the Emirates - Dubai

Long posts on my recent trip to Dubai are coming, but first I wanted to write about the hotel we stayed at, the Pullman Mall of the Emirates. It's a part of the Accor chain and it is classified as a 4 star hotel. However, I would give it easily 5 stars.
It is located, as its name says, in the Mall of the Emirates, the second largest shopping center in Dubai (yes, the one where you can ski), with more than 300 shops, bars and restaurants. That's the main reason why we chose it, since we were going to be in Dubai for only 3 and a half days we had to make the most of it and being near the area of Jumeirah (where the Burj al Arab is), having a metro station that connects it in 4 stops to the Burj Khalifa and Dubai Mall and in 3 stops to Dubai Marina, it turned out to be an excellent choice.
The hotel has 2 lobbies, one on the ground floor for the arrivals by car/taxi, and one on the 5th floor. The elevators from the ground floor bring you to the Mall access on the first floor and to the 5th floor lobby. From there you have to switch elevators to go to the rooms. There are 24 floors in the hotel and all the rooms have views of Dubai, depending on the side you're staying yo can see the beach, the northern and the southern parts of Dubai from your room.

Breakfast with a view

The staff is polite and professional. When we arrived (very early in the morning) the room was not ready so we were offered to upgrade to an Executive Room (with access to the executive lounge and immediate check in) but we declined because it was not such a great offer, however they kept our luggage for us and when we came back the room was ready and the luggage was brought to our room very fast. The first room we were given smelled a lot of smoke (although it was on a non-smoking floor) so we requested to be moved to another one, and after the bell boy came in and certified that it was in fact very smelly, the request was handled immediately and we were moved to a real non-smoking room.
The room was on the 17th floor, it had a large king bed (lovely) and bathroom with tub from which you could watch the TV, of course it also had blinds that you could close for more privacy. On some reviews I read before the trip they talked about the shower situation: since the tub is also a shower, there's some leaking on the bathroom floor. It was not as bad as I thought and it was solved by putting an extra towel in the floor. The big closet, a comfortable chaise-longue and the cable TV complete the decor. There's even a switch by the door to indicate the housekeeping if you want privacy or if you need your room cleaned (bye bye "do not disturb" tags).

The pool, spa and gym are on the 24th floor. The gym is open 24 hours while the pool, pool bar and spa are open until 10 pm. Our fee had the breakfast included. Really nice buffet. It has omelette station, waffle station, fresh juices big buffet with both local and international dishes (hummus, curries, cold cuts, scrambled eggs, bread, etc.) and some fridges from where you can get smoothies, yogurts and fruit. You can choose to sit outside in the nice terrace (overlooking the Burj al Arab and the beach) or inside.

me by the rooftop pool

They also have a connectivity centre with internet and a printer where you can print your boarding passes (very useful). This hotel really deserves the 5 stars.
We loved that it was in the shopping center because it's open until midnight, we had meals in the many restaurants there, did some spice shopping in the mall's Carrefour, took the metro a couple of times and never had to wait for a cab. Best choice!