Premier Inn Dubai International Airport

Prós: Free shuttle to airport, metro station (which is also just a 600m walk), beach, and shopping. Taxis available all the time. Front desk staff are happy to advise you on the best way to get anywhere you wanted, be it by shuttle, metro, or taxi. Decent restaurant/bar and a Cost Coffee all in the lobby. Rooftop pool. My room was on the side opposite the airport. No view to speak of but dead quite at all hours. Staff is friendly and unobtrusive.

Contras: Bed was a bit on the too firm side for my liking. Still a good nights sleep though.

Prós: Premier Dubai is very close to the International Airport and the free shuttle made it very convenience and easy to use. The room was clean, comfortable and very western in set-up. I especially liked that there were international sockets in the wall, so it was very convenient to power up the devices that I had with plugs from two different countries. The 24 hour light meal and snack bar gave me the option of a quick meal late after night after returning from being out in Dubai all day. The staff was incredibly friendly and very helpful! The tour agent was able to pull together a personal walking/taxi tour for me to do on my own, and seeing the highlights made my extended layover in Dubai a wonderful experience.

Nice Hotel - Horrible Internet

Prós: Very friendly and helpful staff. Conveniently located right across from the airport. Felt relatively new and was clean.

Contras: The hotel had very slow wifi internet. In my room, I never got speeds above about 200kbps. To get faster speeds, I had to go into the hallway or to the lobby. Even there, however, I rarely broke 500kbps. Since I was there for work - and needed to stay connected with my coworkers - this was a severe handicap. Moreover, the speeds were too slow to reliably stream Netflix or similar services. This limited the entertainment options since the TV only had a couple of channels in each of the major languages (besides Arabic).