We were very lucky to get an upgrade to an high floor room on the top (19th floor) with fabulous views over the Creek and overlooking the Burj Khalifa. The room was just fabulous, very contemporary, quality furnishing, fittings and linens and stuning bathrooms. The unique features in this Hotel are the glass window between the bathroom and bedroom. Fine if you are an intimate couple
however there is a blind if you were sharing the room with a friend!! In fact I cannot think of anywhere else where you could lie in the bath and have the most amazing view over Dubai!! Just hope they give you warning when cleaning the windows 
There are an abundance of staff in all area of the hotel, to greet you when you get out of the taxi, in the lobby area, right the way through the Conference Centre that joins the Crowne Plaza with its sister hotel the InterContinental. The staff are a credit to the Company, very polite and always willing to help. We recognised faces from last year which says something.
We ate breakfast in the Hotel once and there was everything you could possibly think of. Breakfast rate is 110DHS so is quite pricey although probably standard for a 5 star hotel. We also had a wonderful meal in the evening in the Hotel Zaytoun restaurant. It was a buffet which cost 185DHS per person for 3 courses and I have to say the food was fantastic and you could have as much as you like. It was really nice to be able to try some of the Arabic dishes. Coupled with a cocktail, beer for hubby (£7.20 bottle Erdinger
) and a bottle of wine, it set us back over 600DHS. However you expect that in Dubai.There is also the Belgian bar in the hotel which obviously serves Belgian Beer again around £7.00 per half litre and also serves bar meals. This seems to be a very popular place.
You can walk from the hotel, through the conference centre, into the Intercontinental lobby (stunning) and into the Festival City Mall which has an abundance of shops and eating places. Festival City also has the canal walk which is beautiful with restaurants and cafes situated all the way down. We were lucky to be there whilst the Dubai shopping Festival was on so took advantage of some great shopping!! Do check prices though as some things can be cheaper in the UK. We took our laptops as you can get free wifi in the public areas of the Hotel to check prices.
We visited some of the other malls and used the new Metro which was fantastic. If you use the Metro, do remember to keep your card as you can load it up to 10 times so saves you a couple of Dirhams. The metro runs every 10 minutes and we went to Dubai Mall and Mall of the Emirates on the Metro. We took a taxi from our Hotel to Burjaman Mall and walked to the Metro station near the Burjaman as the Metro will get you there quicker than a taxi.
Our flights were from Aberdeen via Paris with Air France and they were excellent, all on time, comfortable flights and very good food (and drink). Only thing I didn't like was Charles De Gaulle airport. Not alot of places to eat and the only place for hot food, we bought two quiches (nice home made) 2 glasses of wine,water, bread and a piece of pecan pie and it cost us 32 euros!!
To summarise we had a FANTASTIC time, excellent weather (more hazy sunshine though) and really cannot wait to go back.
Anyone thinking of Dubai I can strongly recommend teh Crowne Plaza Festival City.
He tends to look for running shoes, ipods, computer stuff and he does know prices so we will see if he buys anything. 
