"How are you, sir?” asks an elegantly dressed hostess as I pass through the huge gold doors of a glitzy 71st-floor bar called Vault. “I’m on top of the world!” I reply – for what else can you say when you’re about to sip cocktails at the summit of the world’s tallest hotel?

Opened last month, the J W Marriott Marquis Hotel Dubai is the latest dazzling skyscraper to be unveiled by an emirate that has never shied from grabbing our attention. Crowned with white lights like sparkling diamonds, this 1,608-room luxury hotel is more than 100ft higher than the Eiffel Tower, with a jagged design inspired by the trunk of a date palm. It is so tall that on a foggy morning guests on its upper floors wake up above the clouds, with the tops of nearby skyscrapers poking through like precious jewels laid out on cotton wool. At night, far below, the traffic shooting along the six-lane racetrack that is Sheikh Zayed Road looks like a ceaseless river of gold.

Dubai’s first five-star hotel opened in 1975. Now there are 65, and they ain’t finished yet. Around the corner an Oberoi will open soon, and there are plans for a W, a Westin and a St Regis close by. By 2020, the emirate will have as many hotel rooms as Paris. Will they be filled? Yes. While other countries in North Africa and the Middle East have been in turmoil, Dubai and its Gulf neighbours have offered a safe haven for both work and play. And they are all bursting with ambitious projects.

On previous visits, I’ve found Dubai charmless and traffic-clogged. Yes, it’s a construction site (and always will be), but work on several key roads has finished and getting around feels easier. Taxis, with their white-uniformed drivers, remain cheap, and the longest driverless metro system in the world whizzes passengers along 46 miles of track in orderly, air-conditioned comfort. Much of it is elevated, offering an engaging ride past the thickets of skyscrapers and boxy malls. The station names could be from a sci-fi novel: Internet City, Healthcare City, Business Bay. You can even buy a ticket to Energy, and we all need that.

Is Dubai worth our time? Yes, if you have any interest in seeing a megalopolis in the making. Its achievements are all the more impressive given that in summer average temperatures hit 43C (110F) and the swimming pools have to be chilled. Around 80 per cent of the work force is expat – perhaps you know someone who is out in the Gulf, joining the tax-free gold rush, living la vida Arabia with its Irish bars, Indian cabbies, Croatian tennis coaches and Filipina maids.

And sooner or later, you will be changing planes here. Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha, Muscat – these are our new global cogs, turning ever faster as the region’s airlines mount an aggressive expansion using state-of-the-art aircraft offering exceptional levels of service. There used to be direct flights from London to the Seychelles; now we must go via the Gulf. From March 31, our flights Down Under with Qantas will route through Dubai rather than Singapore.

The rise of Emirates airline has brought us much more than a fine football stadium in north London – it is transforming the way we explore our planet. You can now fly to Dubai from six British airports, and then on to a choice of 124 destinations. In 1985 the airline had two aircraft; it now has 198 and was recently declared the world’s most valuable airline brand, worth US$4.1 billion, for the second year in a row.

All this is helping fuel the resurgence of Dubai. Sixty-six million passengers are expected to pass through its airport this year, and within seven years it could be 98 million. This upbeat mood is in marked contrast to the gloom of the financial crash of 2009, when fleeing expats were abandoning their debts and supercars at the airport. Dubai’s short-term economic woes were only resolved when neighbouring Abu Dhabi stepped in with a $10 billion bail-out.

So yes, stop over to see the world changing. Two or three nights will suffice, although the UAE is also a good place for a fly-and-flop trip, with its guaranteed warmth, top-class beach hotels and big-name restaurants. The Ivy, Zuma, Hakkasan – who needs London? A highlight of the new J W Marriott Marquis Hotel Dubai is its Indian restaurant, Rang Mahal, which is overseen by Atul Kochhar, the Michelin-starred chef at Benares in Mayfair. There is a misconception that Dubai is a dry place. Alcohol is available in hotels and selected bars and restaurants - and ladies nights and happy hours are popping up around the city - but fill your wallet first as you’ll often pay up to £40 for a bottle of house wine. Plenty of it gets drunk, often at bacchanalian brunches, thanks to the high disposable income of Western expats. Others haven’t had it so comfy, according to campaigning bodies such as Amnesty International, who has claimed that foreign construction workers and female domestic servants have suffered exploitation and maltreatment.

Some things are a bargain, among them a visit to Sheikh Saeed Al-Maktoum House (36p), where you can ponder black-and-white photographs of Dubai as it was in the Fifties. And learn about camels. Apparently their dung is good for nose bleeds, although the cure sounds worse than the affliction. There is even a walk-in camel stomach, which sounds tacky but is highly informative and a reminder that a trip to Dubai can be educational too.

Done Florida? Then bring the children here, where it’s safe, warm and sunny with plenty to do, from waterparks to desert drives to the world’s largest indoor ski slope at the Mall of the Emirates. Here the temperature is -3C (26F), and when I visit, the penguins are being fed just as loudspeakers broadcast the muezzin’s call to prayer. Only in Dubai…

You’ll have to brave the world’s largest mall, the Dubai Mall (or Maul, in some eyes), if you want to visit the 124th-floor observation deck of Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building. Except that doesn’t say enough. Shooting into the sky like the horn of a unicorn (a myth said to have originated in Arabia), it is easy to fall in love with. To my mind, seeing it is reason enough to visit Dubai. The lift whizzes you heavenwards at 32ft per second, but the view is strangely anticlimactic. Peering down, it’s all a bit of a mess, frankly. As with ageing celebrities, Burj Khalifa looks better from afar.

A sign in the companion exhibition trumpets how this astonishing building is “a shining symbol of what Dubai strives for”. Take that as a warning not to come looking for ye olde Arabia – other parts of the Gulf do that better (see right). Dubai has a crush on the future, which it made spectacularly obvious back in 1999 with the opening of the sail-shaped Burj Al Arab hotel, which was then the world’s tallest hotel.

Has it stood the test of time? Superbly, I’d say, as it should at more than £2,000 a night. Go for the excellent three-course business lunch at Al Muntaha, one of its restaurants, perched 656ft above the waves with a lordly view (haze-permitting) over the artificial archipelago of The Palm.

This merits a closer look, so take a taxi around to the One&Only The Palm resort, where 50 per cent of the guests are British. The view back to the mainland, with its mass of skyscrapers, is one of the most astounding in Dubai. How strange, though, that the resort’s popular al fresco 101 bar doesn’t face it. A manager explains that there was meant to be a massive, eye-grabbing Trump International Hotel and Tower at the heart of The Palm.

That didn’t happen, but today the emirate is buzzing with new initiatives – or “burjeoning”, as the locals jest. Last month the Dubai Miracle Garden, with more than 45 million flowers, opened. There are plans to build the world’s largest Ferris wheel, the Dubai Eye, and a Bollywood theme park with a replica Taj Mahal four times the size of the original. Oh, and a new city with 100 hotels…

The figures are as mind-bending as a banker’s bonus, but the clearest sign that Dubai is back on form is the news that Guinness World Records has just opened an office here, ready to track all the fresh records and feats now being notched up in the new crossroads of the world. Expect many more wonders from this fearless land of sun, sand and superlatives.

Read more

Our expert guide to Dubai

What else is new in the Gulf

Inside the world's tallest hotel

Getting there

Emirates (emirates.com) flies to Dubai from six British airports; fares from £409 return including taxes.

Where to stay

Deluxe rooms at JW Marriott Marquis Hotel Dubai (jwmarriott marquisdubai.com) cost from £258. For desert peace with Arabian trappings, book into Bab Al Shams Desert Resort & Spa (meydan hotels.com, £202).

Further information

Dubai & Abu Dhabi (Lonely Planet, £14.99); definitely dubai.com.