Queen Elizabeth 2 Dubai Review: Lido Breakfast & Golden Lion Bar
This was the first hotel I stayed at on this Dubai trip,
the Queen Elizabeth 2.
If you want to see my room review, you can find it there.
This post is all about the Lido breakfast restaurant
and my Golden Lion bar review.
Off we go—time for breakfast.
The breakfast restaurant, Lido, is on Q Deck—the Quarter Deck.
Since it was Eid al-Fitr, the space was decorated
in a bright, festive way that felt a little cheesy but still kind of cute.
Like most hotel breakfast spots, the dining room is spacious,
and honestly, at first glance it doesn’t really feel like you’re dining on a ship.
There was a wide variety of food, and a very international crowd too.
The night before, the hotel had been so quiet—
whether in the hallways or the lobby—that I wondered if there were barely any guests.
But when I came down for breakfast, the restaurant was absolutely packed.
Outside the window, you get this view of the sea,
and the water was even prettier in person.
Naturally, all the window seats were taken,
so we just sat in the middle.
From the windows on the other side,
you can see Downtown Dubai in the distance—even Burj Khalifa.
But to be honest, the food itself wasn’t all that great.
This is a 4-star hotel, not a 5-star one,
and since it’s not an especially expensive property,
the food quality does feel a bit more basic.
There also didn’t seem to be many dishes
that really suited a Korean palate, and I felt like Middle Eastern or Indian guests
were probably enjoying it more than we were.
So we headed over to the egg station and kept it simple.
They also had brewed coffee,
not just espresso shots, and it was actually pretty decent.
It was so crowded that I couldn’t take many food photos,
so just take these as a general idea of the spread.
That’s how little there was that I really wanted to eat—I ended up with an apple.
But I don’t usually eat a huge breakfast anyway,
so I was fine just filling up enough to get going.
There was also a separate coffee bar near the restaurant entrance,
but I’m not sure whether it was paid
or included during breakfast service.
We just came back later at checkout
and used our welcome drink coupon to get iced Americanos.
Next up, on U Deck—the Upper Deck—
was the Golden Lion bar.
The bar is fairly large, with entrances on both sides,
and we went in through the side with this sign.
The atmosphere in here was genuinely great,
but somehow the photos don’t capture the colors very well.
The video at the very bottom
gives a much better sense of the mood, so check that out if you’re curious.
The window seats with the city night view were especially beautiful.
I kept thinking that if someone recreated this exact concept
floating on the Han River in Seoul, it would be absolutely packed.
In Dubai, indoor smoking is allowed
in quite a few places, and that was true here too.
Still, for some reason, hardly anyone was there.
Maybe because the hotel guests weren’t really
the wealthy European crowd you might expect, but more Indian
and Southeast Asian travelers?
My guess is that a lot of people
just stay in the rooms and don’t really use the hotel facilities.
So this isn’t a hotel I’d want to stay at for a long stretch,
but for one night, if you want that cruise-ship feeling,
the Queen Elizabeth 2 Dubai is definitely worth trying.
Anyway, here’s the Golden Lion bar menu.Well…
You check it through a QR code link,
but I’m only showing the food menu here.
There were light snacks starting at 30 dirhams, about $8,
and heavier bites up to 99 dirhams, around $28.
For a hotel bar, I thought the prices were surprisingly reasonable.
There were way too many alcoholic drinks to screenshot everything,
but beers and cocktails were roughly in the $2 to $22 range.
They had gin, vodka, rum, tequila, brandy, cognac, whiskey—
plus wine, so the selection was pretty broad.
There were also non-alcoholic mocktails and juices.
We ordered two pints of Heineken draft.
The glasses were nice and big.
For a snack, we got the onion rings.
I prefer the kind made with actual whole onion slices
battered and fried, but these were more like chopped onion
shaped into rings.
I had the same kind recently
at Bbibit Burger in Starfield Suwon.
Still, fried food is hard to hate,
so we ended up enjoying them anyway.
It had taken forever to get out of the airport,
so this was the first food I’d had in a while.
Good thing I’d eaten a solid in-flight dinner beforehand,
or I would’ve been in trouble.
I can’t remember whether we paid there
or charged it to the room—my husband usually handles that part.
Anyway, this was a fun and memorable Dubai hotel stay overall:
the Queen Elizabeth 2.
Like I said again, this is not the place for a luxury hotel staycation.
It’s more of a one-night, experience-first kind of hotel.
>>Book the Queen Elizabeth 2 Dubai on Agoda<<
This is a paid-for-by-me review, and if you make a purchase through the link, I may receive a small commission.