The man from Atlantis

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On the roof of the ‘Lost Chambers', a labyrinth of fish tanks located alongside the hotel's vast main aquarium, is an exact depiction of the night sky star constellations from the day the UAE came into being on December 2, 1971.

That same attention to detail is visible throughout the hotel's 16 restaurants and is best summed up by Italian chef Giorgio Locatelli, who animatedly explains to a group of visiting journalists how through endless experimenting he came up with a pizza dough that was light and easy to digest for customers who may have spent the day sliding down water rides in the adjoining water park.

A child psychologist was hired to design the Kid's Club, which comes with a rock climbing wall and a Sega video game display room where new games will be previewed.

About 100 nannies will work in the hotel who will oversee a range of activities from making cookies in the kitchen to sand castles on the beach.

"We are all very excited about it," Kerzner says, in his characteristically even and gravelly voice. He doesn't sound excited. That of course, is far from the truth. But it is equally hard to see the genuine joy or sense of achievement in his words. It doesn't seem to come across.

Kerzner himself has been in and out of Dubai every six weeks to oversee progress on the project, avoiding encounters with press until last week. Such involvement would have seemed unlikely before the tragic death of his 42 year-old son Butch Kerzner, killed two years ago in a helicopter crash in Dominican Republic.

Butch was to have been his father's successor and had already been appointed CEO after pursuing a career in investment banking and gaining an MBA from Stanford.

Since the loss of his son, Sol Kerzner has again taken the helm, choosing not to pass control to any of his other children. On the subject of his own succession he does not give any clues, possibly because he himself does not know who will carry the business forward after he retires.

"People have got to have a very broad range of skills to run a company like this. I don't want to speculate at this point when it will happen or how it will happen but obviously there has to be succession."

Coaxed out by his public relations advisor, Kerzner reluctantly agrees to his picture being taken in front of the vast Ambassador Lagoon, an apartment block-sized fish tank that will be one of the main attractions at Atlantis.

Behind him is a huge grouper fish that has acquired some infamy among the Atlantis construction team. The fish is easy to miss among the vividly colored specimens that swirl around him. Sitting at the bottom of the tank most of the time, he occasionally opens his vast jaws to gobble up passing prey that strays within his reach.

The staff say he has polished off seven small sharks and a ray already. He doesn't look very fierce, but it would seem on past evidence, is easy to underestimate. You could say the same thing about Sol Kerzner.

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