It has been dubbed the wackiest and coolest hotel in the world - and things are about to get a whole lot stranger.
The first zany, futuristic designs for 'The Water Discus Hotel' - to be based off Dubai's coastline beneath the waves of the Arabian Gulf - were floated last May. Now more details have emerged of the plush pad that will be "the world's first underwater hotel".
The guesthouse, which is being fronted by Swiss firm BIG InvestConsult with Dubai's Drydocks World as contractor, will cost "around $50 million", says Robert Bursiewicz, project manager at the developer Deep Ocean Technology.
Its final destination might be the deep blue sea off sunshine strewn Dubai's coast - but it's a project built overseas.
To ensure things go swimmingly, a prototype of the hotel is being constructed by the firm at its Polish coastal base of Gdansk on the Baltic Sea "this year". "No-one's ever done anything like this before," said Bursiewicz, who is Polish.
The actual hotel is likely to be partly built in both Poland and Dubai, he added. Early reports indicated the hotel would consist of 21 rooms.
But Bursiewicz revealed there has been no final decision on size. Depending on the preference of the client, it could be 22 rooms or 11 rooms - or even "one big apartment".
The chance to sleep with the fishes might be what attracts most guests - but Bursiewicz joked the underwater hotel's really been built for our deep sea friends.
"We're laughing," he said, "people are saying it's the first underwater hotel in the world - but really it's the first human aquarium in the world". Fellow Pole and internationally renowned architect Pawel Podwojewski is designing the "human fish tank", Bursiewicz said. He insisted the project would meet full international safety standards.
But Bursiewicz was remaining tight-lipped on other crucial aspects - where exactly off the coast of Dubai the project would be built, when work would start on the actual hotel and its expected opening date.
"It's still classified information," he said.
However, he was insistent that - unlike a previously mooted underwater hotel for Dubai that sunk without trace - this project will see the light of day. "It's only a matter of time," he said.
© 7Days 2013
