Le Meridien Al Aqah Beach Resort Hotel

Stayed at this 5 star hotel for four nights with my wife and two kids (5 & 10) during a visit to Dubai. We booked a "Celebrations" package that included breakfast & dinner and a 3pm checkout.
The hotel is on the eastern coast of the UAE in the emirate of Fujairah about 90 miles from Dubai near the Hajar mountains.
The hotel is a beautiful property built about two years ago. We had a superior family room which was very spacious with a balcony, two beds (1 double, 1 king), very large bathroom with separate toilet/bidet, bath and shower making it excellent for a family.
The hotel has four restaurants:
Views - buffet with different themes each night.
Baywatch - outdoor fish restaurant (daytime snacks)
Taste - Thai
Swaad - Indian
All the food we had was superb and having dinner included as part of our hotel rate made it all the better.
There is a very large pool (never crowded) split into three sections by depth. Lifeguards are on duty.
In addition to a swim up pool bar there is a bar/nightclub on the 21st floor with UK sports shown - this is for adults only !
For kids there is the Penguin club from 9am to 6pm. It is well run with good activities for younger kids but not much for the older ones who may be better off watching some of the movies in the mini-theatre.
The leisure club has a good gym, sauna, Jacuzzi, steam and there is a beauty salon. Additionally there are very good Ayurevedic and western massages and treatments available (from about £50 each).
The hotel clientele is mainly English & German and most of the staff are Indian or south east Asian.
Our stay was very enjoyable and I would recommend this hotel to anybody wanting a quiet location to get away from the hustle of Dubai and looking for reasonably priced resort hotel.
There are a few downsides to the location:
It is a long drive from Dubai - on a good day it’s 1 and a half hours, on a bad day 3 hours.
The hotel transfer from Dubai airport is costly (£28 each) - we hired a car instead.
The isolated location means there is nothing much to do outside the hotel.
Being near to Fujairah port there are always oil tankers and container ships visible on the horizon. The tankers have a nasty habit of cleaning their tanks at sea which means you find globules of tar on the beach which attach themselves to your feet.
If driving from Dubai I would recommend not going via Fujairah, the hotel is closer to Dibba and it is better to take the mountain road to Dibba via Masafi.