Deluxe Balcony Room

This is the entry room, and the one that gets the height. Everything is the same Emirati vocabulary you meet in the courtyards — hand-troweled plaster the colour of the dune outside, a deep scalloped arch painted terracotta behind the bedhead with a cast bronze medallion set into it, a ceiling of split cane between dark beams, a pierced brass lantern, mashrabiya-fronted cabinetry and a kilim across the stone floor. The desk is real and the reading light over it is the sort you can actually aim.

What you are paying for is the balcony and the storey it is on. The doors open onto a railed platform with a table and a chair or two, and the drop below it means the dune fills the frame rather than sitting behind a wall. In the bathroom there is a sunken tub sized for two with a choice of bath products, a separate shower and a Nespresso machine within reach of the bed. It is sold with a king or with twins under one name and one price — say which you want when you book.