To travel hopefully, they say, is better than to arrive.

For there are times when your destination doesn’t quite live up to its promise. Which may partly be due to the short period you actually have on shore for a good look around.

Or maybe you’re simply having such a great time on board your cruise ship you can’t be bothered to disembark at every stopover port you come to.

But there are some places, even though they’re not perfect, that surpass all expectations.

If Aladdin rubbed his magic lamp and asked the genie to create a Shangri-La on the south coast of the Persian (now the Arabian) Gulf, the result would probably not compare with the real-life fantasy of 21st century Dubai. It has been transformed over the last half century from a sparsely inhabited Sheikdom into the most ambitious playground of the Middle East.

Dubai’s superb hotels, excellent leisure activities, elegant Duty-Free shops, world-class infrastructure, high standard of living, year-round sunshine, minimal rainfall, reassuring safety levels, and pristine beaches (well, most of them, anyway) are still attracting increasing numbers of tourists, despite the global financial meltdown.

It’s a great place to escape from the winter blues – for that’s when Dubai’s mean daily temperature is around 24 degrees Celsius. But it’s best to avoid Dubai in the height of summer, especially July or August when the daily temperature rise to a heart-thumping 41 degrees, and beyond. Unless you want to spend all of your brief shore leave in an air conditioned shopping or leisure centre.

And there are plenty of those in Dubai, which is actually two towns merged into one and divided by Dubai Creek, an inlet of the Gulf. Deira lies to the north; Bur Dubai to the south. Both districts are home to traditional architecture and bustling souqs, but the old city centre is in Deira.

Towering over this place where dreams are actively encouraged to become reality is the 321 metres high iconic Burj Al Arab hotel, which is itself dwarfed by the Burj Dubai – already the tallest hotel on the planet and they haven’t even finished building it.

Then there’s The World, an archipelago of 300 man-made islands based on the shape of the world map – created by sand dredged from the sea off Dubai’s coast. Nearby is The Palm, metamorphosed from two reclaimed islands into the shape of a 7km long, stylized palm tree.

But the future Orlando of the Middle East is the £3 billion plus Dubailand. When the final phases have all been completed in 2018, this mixed use theme park will cover two billion square feet and is expected to attract 200,000 visitors daily to its six main zones: Retail and Entertainment World – which will feature Film City, the movie capital of the region, and the world’s largest shopping mall; Attractions and Experience World; Sports and Outdoor World; Themed Leisure and Vacation World; Downtown; and Eco-tourism World.

If you tire of Dubai ‘s relentless wealth and privilege, you can always take a Costa Cruise of the Gulf – for this award-winning Italian company was the first to offer a cruise itinerary, including Oman, Fujairah, Abu Dhabi and Bahrain, from a ship actually based in Dubai.

And when you return from that Dubai cruise, just imagine what it will look like when it’s finished.

I thought it was all a mirage, until I pinched myself. And really saw how the Ruler of Dubai has used his sheikdom’s dwindling oil revenues to create an amazing future out of the desert by the sea.

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