April 22, 2018: A Morning in Dubai (UAE)
	April 20, 2018: A Visit to Muscat, Oman
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The trip from Muscat to Dubai required no sea days, so this morning, on the day after our visit to Muscat, we docked at the relatively new cruise ship port in Dubai, one of the United Arab Emirates.

Docking in Dubai, (UAE)

The weather in Muscat when we left was bright and sunny; we hoped it would be the same here in Dubai, as there would be much to see- particularly the architecture. I guess the weather was good, but with the haze caused by sand and dust it was hard to tell.

After the fact, I discovered that it might have been interesting if our trip from Muscat to Dubai had been during the daytime; if it had, I might have been able to see Iran- a country I am pretty sure I will never visit. That's because Iran is the northern boundary of the Strait of Hormuz- through which our ship (and about one-third of all the world's oil that is shipped by sea) had to pass to get from the Gulf of Oman to the Persian Gulf.

This fact makes the Strait strategically important, and I am sure you have heard it mentioned many times in the news- particularly when there is some tension in the middle east. To reduce the risk of collision, ships moving through the Strait follow a Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS), where inbound ships use one "lane" and outbound ships another, each "lane" being two miles wide. The lanes are separated by a two-mile-wide "median". All this is only possible using GPS.

To traverse the Strait, ships pass through the territorial waters of Iran and Oman under the transit passage provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Although not all countries have ratified the convention, most countries, including the U.S., accept these customary navigation rules as codified in the Convention. There was a time in the 1970s when both Iran and Oman extended their national boundaries twelve miles out into the Strait. Since the Strait is, at its narrowest point, only 28 miles wide, this left only a four-mile gap (although neither country actually attempted to impede ships from passing through).

Actually, I have no idea how far you can actually see across open ocean, so I don't know if we might actually have been able to see Iran in daylight. I was up on deck after dinner, and I am pretty sure we could see lights off the starboard side of the ship (the side our stateroom was on), but that's no assurance that we could have seen the land in the daytime. Anyway, we made it through the Strait without incident (and would do so again two nights hence when we left Dubai heading for Jordan.

From the Port to the Desert: Docking in Dubai

We arrived at Dubai's Port Rashid a little later than normal- about 9AM. The port is entirely man-made and opened in 1972; it was named after the ruling sheikh at the time. The port was expanded significantly in 1978 to include 35 berths, some of which could accommodate the largest container ships of the time. The depth was also increased to today's 45 feet. (I think the aerial view at right is telling; you can see the strip that, in the last fifty years, has become urban Dubai, but you can also see that not far inland the desert begins.)

The reason for our late arrival was two-fold. First, the trip from Muscat, accomplished overnight, required an extra hour or two. The more important reason was that the ship would be here in Dubai overnight. And the reason for that was that the day and night of April 21st was part of the two-week cruise from Singapore to Dubai. The second cruise, from Dubai to Barcelona, would begin on April 22nd. So, guests on the first cruise, including ourselves, would be able to tour Dubai and come back to the ship this evening. Then, tomorrow, some guests would depart and some new guests arrive before the ship leaves Dubai very late tomorrow evening.

Adjacent to the port were Dubai Drydocks and Dubai Maritime City, but our arrival coincided with a significant redevelopment of the port, which will include moving all cargo operations to a new port further to the southwest. Port Rashid will, by late summer, become exclusively a cruise terminal. Also, part of the port will be reclaimed to create "a vibrant mixed use urban waterfront" that will house 200,000 residents; we saw much of this redevelopment during our stay.

But today, the port is in a state of flux, as some of the pictures we took during our arrival will show.

There is a brand-spanking-new cruise terminal that is huge. It has "gates" like an airport, and could easily accommodate three cruise ships at a time, with each having its own customs/entry stations. The building has numerous little stores and of course information kiosks for tourists inquiring about things to do in Dubai. The tour operators have their own areas, and that's where we met the guide for our own tour.

Outside the main entry, there is a tour/bus pickup/dropoff area where most tourists would find their vehicles. Not only do tour buses arrive and depart, but also the Dubai public transit system has shuttles that run to the port when there are cruise ships in; these shuttles take people to the nearest metro station. We also made use of a special shuttle that runs every hour or so between the port and the Dubai Mall, which is right in the center of town. You'll see a bit of that mall today, and much more of it tomorrow. The Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building (that definition is not so simple as one might think) is adjacent to the mall. The port still has some cargo functions- notably the thousands of vehicles that were parked in extremely precise rows the entire length of the port- and, as a consequence, the route that buses and cars currently have to follow to get to the cruise terminal is serpentine. We could already see where the roads will actually be when all cargo functions are transferred.

One of the first pictures I took was a panoramic view of the new cruise ship port. Most of the cargo structures, including almost all the cranes, have been removed, and two new cruise terminals built in their place; you can see both of these terminals in my picture:

The Rashid Cruise Port and the City of Dubai

Even seen from the ship, which was ten miles from downtown, Dubai was incredible, and we took quite a few pictures as we were coming into the dock. Prominent on the skyline, of course, was the world's tallest building- the Burj Khalifa- and Fred used his incredible zoom to get a picture of the Burj Khalifa and nearby skyscrapers.

We saw two vessels of note as we were coming into the harbor, and Fred got good pictures of both of them (each with the Dubai skyline so you'd know where they were).

Dubai is the name of a yacht currently owned by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Ruler of Dubai, Vice President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, and namesake of the port at which we are arriving.

The vessel is 531 feet long, and is the third largest yacht in the world after Azzam (591 feet, $600 million, and owned by Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the president of the United Arab Emirates) and Eclipse (533 feet, $500 million, and owned by Russian businessman Roman Abramovich).

Including crew, Dubai can accommodate 115 people. The construction was originally planned for Prince Joffrey of Westeros in 1996, but in 2001 the hull was acquired by Platinum Yachts for Sheikh Rashid. The yacht, previously named Platinum, Panhandle, and Golden Star before finally acquiring its current name.

The other vessel was the Queen Elizabeth 2, often referred to simply as the "QE2", shown in the picture at left. The QE2 was designed and built for the Cunard Line (successor to the White Star Line, operator of The Titanic between 1968 and 1969. She entered transatlantic service from her home port of Southampton in 1969 and, with the exception of a few special sailings, plied the Southhampton-to-New-York route for many years. She was named after the earlier Cunard liner RMS Queen Elizabeth and served as the flagship of the line from 1969 until succeeded by RMS Queen Mary 2 in 2004. She was considered the last of the great transatlantic ocean liners until Queen Mary 2 entered service.

The QE2 was also the last oil-fired passenger steamship to cross the Atlantic in scheduled liner service until she was refitted with a modern diesel powerplant in 1986/1987- enabling her to undertake longer trips as a cruise ship, rather than an ocean liner. QE2 did, however, continue the Cunard tradition of regular scheduled transatlantic crossings every year of her service life.

QE2 was retired from active Cunard service on 27 November 2008. She had been acquired by the private equity arm of Dubai World, which planned to begin conversion of the vessel to a 500-room floating hotel moored at the Palm Jumeirah, Dubai. The 2008 financial crisis, however, intervened, and the ship was laid up at Dubai Drydocks and later Port Rashid. Subsequent conversion plans were announced in 2012 and 2013, but these both stalled. In November, 2015, Dubai World chairman Ahmed Sultan Bin Sulayem declared that the QE2 would not be scrapped; two years later a Dubai-based construction company announced it had been contracted to refurbish the ship. The restored QE2 opened to visitors just three days ago, but this was a "soft" opening; rates were discounted because the conversion was not yet complete, with only five of 13 planned restaurants actually open, and some services not yet available. Our Mariner of the Seas newspaper said that the actual grand opening is set for October this year.

Of course Fred and I were amazed to see Dubai for the first time, although our views from this distance were marred by the sand and dust in the air. (Part of that is natural, as the open desert is not far beyond those buildings you see, and part of it is man-made, as there are construction sites all over the city.) But we have more good pictures of the skyline, the docks, and the cruise terminals:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

Before we headed downstairs to gather our things for our afternoon tour of Dubai, I made one more panoramic picture as we were coming to rest at our dock. You can see the new Cruise Terminal 3, the skyline, and, right in the middle of the picture, the pick-up area for our tour:

Our Shore Excursion Tour

All eight of us have signed up for a tour of Dubai that will begin right after an early lunch and will continue into the evening. It will make a number of stops, and also include a visit to the 124th-floor observation deck in the Burj Khlaifa.

At left is a very, very high-level aerial view of most of Dubai. I want to use it to orient you to the sights and major stops that our day tour will encompass.

First, our tour bus will leave Port Rashid and head inland to pick up Sheikh Zayed Road; on the way, we will be passing much of the typical urban Dubai scenery that lies outside the downtown core and its amazing skyscrapers. The pictures we took on the way into town will be in the first section after this one.

Then we will get on Sheikh Zayed Road (which is actually an expressway with two multi-lane frontage roads on either side) and head south. Many (if not most) of Dubai's amazing architecture is on either side of this thoroughfare. We will also be on this same road coming back north from Palm Island (Palm Jumeirah), and so I will consolidate the pictures we took along it in the second section below.

Our first stop will be at the Burj Al Arab Jumeirah, one of the world's most recognizable (and luxurious, to read its advertising copy) hotels. We won't be able to go inside it; it is so luxurious that only actual guests and other authorized individuals can enter via its driveway from the mainland. But I will have a section for out stop nearby.

From there, we will drive a bit further south to Palm Jumeirah, the fabled artificial group of islands constructed out into the Gulf in the shape of a palm tree. We won't be stopping on the island; if you aren't a hotel guest or a resident, there is no need to, as the complex is most impressive from the air. But we will drive all the way out to the end of it and onto the farthest island to go by the huge Atlantis Resort Hotel. The photos we took on Palm Jumeirah will be the next section of pictures.

Back on the mainland and back up Sheikh Zayed Road, our last stop will be at Burj Khalifa Lake- the center of a downtown complex that includes Dubai Mall (one of the world's largest and most upscale) and the Burj Khalifa itself (the world's tallest building). We'll actually get dropped off at the Palace Hotel for a pit stop, then walk around the lake (that will be another picture section) and through the mall to ascend the Burj Khalifa (a picture section by itself). By the time we get back down, it will be dark, so we'll have a chance to watch the light and fountain show at the lake before getting picked up near the Mall for our trip back to the ship. Our pictures of the Mall itself and of the lake light show will be last section on this album page.

So let's grab our stuff and join the others for our day tour of Dubai!  

From the Port Into Dubai

From the tour bus into town we could, of course, only take pictures out our windows, so it was hard to compose them very well. I might say that tomorrow we will also be going from the ship into downtown, and we'll have more pictures then. Anyway, we all boarded our tour bus at the pickup point and it headed off towards downtown. As it circled around to get to the port exit, we had a nice view of the Mariner of the Seas.

The View Ahead to Downtown Dubai

Near the entrance to what was the old cargo port, and will be the new cruise ship port, the bus had to navigate around a couple of traffic circles. In the middle of one of them was a rather odd item that looked like a boat run aground. I'm not sure why it was there or what it was supposed to represent, although it could have been simply something nautical taking up space in the middle of the circle until some better option comes along. As the bus ran along the port fence towards the security checkpoint we could see downtown Dubai and the landmark Burj Khalifa. That's the picture at left. Here are a few more pictures- including three private homes we passed:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

It was really interesting riding along towards town, and I was mentally comparing today's trip with our bus rides in Goa, Cochin, and Phuket. Those first three took us through areas that differed from Dubai in two major ways: first, they were much, much older, and second, they were much poorer. I had to continually remind myself that not only is Dubai an extremely wealthy city, but it is also only about 50 years old, so everything is new and modern.

The Dubai Frame

At one point we passed along the edge of what appeared to be a large park, and situated in that park was a most unusual structure. We never got an unobstructed view of it; the best we were able to get was this view, which looks over a service station that the bus is passing.

It looked like a building, but I was pretty sure it wasn't an occupied one; the two "columns" seemed only to be 50 or 60 feet on a side, which would not allow for much floor space for offices or residences. And there would be no reason to leave the entire center of the building open. So we concluded that it was just a huge (it seemed to be 40-50 floors high) sculpture of some kind.

We were a little bit right, as it turned out. The structure is the "Dubai Frame", and consists of two columns that are basically just big enough to contain the elevator shafts and then a "bridge" up at the top. The UAE’s latest cultural landmark, Dubai Frame is an iconic structure that ‘frames’ impressive views of Old and New Dubai, while serving as a metaphorical bridge connecting the emirate’s rich past with its magnificent present. It is an "attraction"; you buy tickets to the top (48 floors up), walk across the bridge and look out the windows in all directions, and then descend the elevator in the other column. There are, according to the structure's website, spectacular panoramic views across the city, and with the exhibits and interactive displays inside the columns and up on the bridge, Dubai Frame celebrates the story of Dubai from its early establishment to its ambitious plans for future development.

For about $15 US (it would have been free for us, as seniors, had we been able to visit) visitors can enjoy spectacular sunsets and panoramic views of Dubai- its landmarks and tourist destinations. One thing we might NOT have liked, though, is the fact that the skybridge has a glass walkway; I am not at all sure I would have been able to cross it. There are all kinds of exhibits throughout the buildings, there's a coffee shop on the skybridge, and on the ground at the base of the structure there is an illuminated, musical fountain with dancing jets.

Shortly after passing The Frame, we came by a station on the Dubai Metro- the city's rapid transit network. The Red Line and Green Line are operational; four more are planned. These first two lines run underground in the city center and on elevated viaducts elsewhere. Here on the Dubai Metro all the trains are fully automated and driverless, and, together with stations, are air conditioned. (The stations achieve this by using sliding doors at the edges of the platforms that open in tandem with the doors on the trains themselves.

Currently, the system has 45 stations, two depots and three operational control centers. The first section of the Red Line, covering 10 stations, was ceremonially inaugurated at 9:09:09 pm on 9 September 2009 (09:09:09 09/09/09), by Sheikh Rashid. The line accepted its first public passengers at 6AM the following morning.

The Dubai Metro is the first urban train network on the Arabian Peninsula and either the second in the Arab World (after Cairo). The first major expansion, an additional ten miles of track, is planned to be operational by the time Expo 2020 opens in Dubai. More than 110,000 unique individuals, or nearly 10 percent of Dubai’s population, used the Metro in its first two days of operation. In its first half year, and with only 11 stations operating on the Red Line, the Metro accommodated over 10 million rides. Up until 2016, the Dubai Metro was the world's longest driverless metro network with a route length of 47 mi (Guinness World Records). However, its total route length have since been surpassed by the fully automated driverless Vancouver SkyTrain and the Singapore MRT. Dubai expects to regain this title in the future, as only one-third of the planned lines (and about half of the planned stations) have, to the moment, been constructed. (Dubai can, however, take some comfort in the fact that the Red Line, 32 miles long, remains the world's longest driverless single metro line.

Just before we reached Sheikh Zayed Road, we came by another station and, right near it, a really unusual skyscraper- the "Etisalat", officially known as "The Emirates Telecom Corp" Tower 2. This 33-floor tower has a total structural height of 550 feet, where the most notable aspect of the tower is the communications sphere on top. Here are the two best pictures Fred took of this interesting structure:

Sheikh Zayed Road: Dubai's "Main Street"

The "E 11" is a highway in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The longest road in the Emirates, it stretches pretty much all the way from the northeastern boundary with Oman to the southwest boundaries with Qatar and Saudi Arabia, running roughly parallel to UAE's coastline along the Persian Gulf. The road forms the main artery in some emirates' main cities, where it assumes various alternate names; as it passes through Dubai, it is Sheikh Zayed Road.

Sheikh Zayed Road and the Emirates Towers Metro Station

On today's tour, there really wasn't that perfect opportunity to take a picture of Sheikh Zayed Road. Most of the time, we were actually on it, and the one time that we went over it, our view up and down the highway was blocked. At least in Dubai, though, the highway is pretty amazing. (I might note that tomorrow, when Fred and I come back into Dubai Mall on our own, I was able to walk out onto one of the overpasses over Sheikh Zayed Road at the major interchange near the Mall. There are five such major interchanges. So I will, eventually, be able to get some good pictures looking up and down this major artery.)

The Sheikh Zayed Road is home to most of Dubai's skyscrapers, including the Emirates Towers. The highway also connects other new developments such as the Palm Jumeirah and Dubai Marina. The road has most of the Red Line of Dubai Metro running alongside it, and we passed a number of that line's stations.

In Dubai itself much of the highway has seven to eight lanes in each direction; four or five of those are the express lanes in the middle, and another two or three are what we would call the "frontage" or "access" roads that give entry to the skyscrapers and businesses on either side of the highway.

I am not quite sure why Dubai didn't build a bypass to keep through traffic out of downtown, but then I guess if I had put as much money into the spectacular downtown that Dubai has, I would want to show it off! (And maybe there isn't that much "through" traffic anyway.) So, on our ride down the highway towards the Burj Jumeirah, and also on the way back from Palm Jumeirah, we were clicking away at one skyscraper after another.

Some of the Towers along Sheikh Zayed Road

Some of the buildings we passed were just glass towers- impressive but unremarkable. But I thought that the majority of them had some characteristic (very tall, very thin, etc.) or some architectural design element that made them stand out.

After spending a day looking at the amazing architecture here in Dubai, I came away thinking that it must have been a good twenty years for Dubai's architects. Sometimes it seemed as if their commissions all contained the admonition that whatever the design was, that it should be "different"; and I also couldn't help but imagine that lots of architects and builders had been given lots of blank checks.

We saw building after building that had decorative or design elements that seemed to have little to do with the building's function. For an office building, a straight-side tower would seem to offer the most space for the least cost. But almost every tower had a different look or a different shape or a different decorative element of one kind or another. It seemed that architects were trying to outdo each other in making their office towers as "unique" or "attention-getting" as they could. Sure, the Burj Khalifa has garnered "attention" for simply being so tall, but I thought that many buildings a third its height were more pleasing or interesting to look at.

So how best to deal with all the pictures we took of this incredible architecture? I have found lists online that would enable me to identify most of the different towers that we photographed, but there is no need to turn this photo album into an architecural blog- you can find all that information online if it interests you. (There is a wealth of interesting information, for example, in the Wikipedia article for Sheikh Zayed Road- the E11- including a list of every tower along it.)

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For the pictures we took, though, I think that slideshows are the appropriate way to present them- quicker and easier than clicking on innumerable thumbnails. So I've gone through the photos we took and eliminated most of the duplicates and the unremarkable ones. The rest of them are in the slideshows at left and below. Use the arrows in the lower corners to move through the shows, and track your progress with the index numbers in the upper left.

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A couple of miles south of the Burj Khalifa, we turned off of Sheikh Zayed Road to head over towards the Gulf Coast to stop and see the Burj Jumeirah.

The Burj Jumeirah

From Sheikh Zayad Road we worked our way west to the shore of the Arabian Gulf to park near the Burj Jumeirah. The Burj Al Arab is a luxury hotel that is the third tallest hotel in the world (although almost two-fifths of its total height is made up of non-occupiable space). The Burj Al Arab stands on an artificial island 1000 feet from Jumeirah Beach and is connected to the mainland by a private curving bridge. The shape of the structure is designed to resemble the sail of a ship. It has a helipad near the roof at a height of some 700 feet.

Our bus drove northwest towards the Gulf, and then turned to head southwest on Jumeirah Street. This took us along the Gulf shore, and we passed a number of interesting sites- including the Dubai Police Academy, a few obligatory billboards and signs featuring members of the royal family, at least one palace (probably belonging to one minor offshoot of the ruling family tree) and at least a couple of what looked like fairly normal, yet upscale, residences.

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

As we came down Jumeirah Street, we got our first look at the Burj hotel off in the distance (and actually out in the Gulf). But we also got a look at another hotel- the Jumeirah Beach Resort; it's that curved building at left in that last picture. (There was also a new mosque in that picture, but we saw a great many of them, and this one was otherwise unremarkable.) The hotel, which opened in 1997, has 600 rooms and suites, 19 beachfront villas, and 20 restaurants and bars. This wave-shaped hotel complements the sail-shaped Burj Al Arab, which is nearby.

Our tour bus pulled off the street and let us off at the Jumeirah Street side of the Wild Wadi Waterpark. We didn't go in, of course, but Wild Wadi is pretty typical for water parks. There's a wave pool, a few water slides, and a couple of artificial surfing machines. It used to have the largest water slide outside of North America, but it was removed a few years ago to make space for two other rides. The park also has an artificial 60 waterfall that cycles on and and off every ten minutes.

The Burj Al Arab Jumeirah

We walked along Jumeirah Street to the water park entrance, which is right off the street that also serves as the vehicular entrance for the Burj Al Arab. This is where our guide took us so we could get pictures of this uniquely-designed hotel.

This area used to be called, oddly enough, Miami Beach, and was the beach of the former Chicago Beach Hotel- which took its name, in turn, from the fact that the Chicago Bridge and Iron Company used to weld floating oil storage tanks on this site. The old hotel was demolised in 1997 and construction began on the artificial island (1000 feet off the beach), the hotel, and the private bridge that leads to it.

If you'd like to see some other views of the hotel (all taken from this same place), I've put some more of them below:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

Before we all turned and headed back to our tour bus, I asked everyone else to pose for a group shot. In this picture of our cruise contingent. From left to right are Richard, Zoran, Greg, Steven (in back with the jihadist mask), John Toohey, John Lambert, and Fred. I do not know for sure why Steven was wearing the mask, but I understand he thought he was getting a cold because his throat had been uncomfortable for a day or two, and I guess he didn't want to be inhaling the small sand particles that are almost always in the air here in Dubai.

And although they were taken as we were crossing the bridge to the Palm Jumeirah islands, I want to include two more pictures of the Burj Al Arab- one Fred's and one mine- taken from over three miles away:

The Palm Jumeirah

To get to the Palm Jumeirah, we simply continued down Jumeirah Street until we came to the access road out onto the artificial island. This access road also has a connection to Sheikh Zayed Road.

The Palm Jumeirah is an artificial archipelago created using land reclaimed from elsewhere along the Dubai coastine; it extends from the mainland out into the Persian Gulf. It is actually part of a larger development which will eventually add 320 miles to Dubai's coastline.

From the point where the bridge from the mainland begins, it is about 3.5 miles out to the Atlantis Resort, and our tour bus went all the way. To get to the outer island, there is a tunnel at the top of the "palm". The other feature that you might be able to make out to the right of the route the tunnel takes is the Palm Jumeirah Monorail, which runs from a point near the Atlantis to the Gateway Towers at the foot of the island (the base of the "trunk" of the palm). It is planned that this monorail will be extended to the nearest station on the Metro Red line that basically runs along Sheikh Zayed Road. The monorail began operating in 2009.

Dubai property developer Nakheel Construction began work in 2001 and announced that the first residential units would be available by 2006, although the islands themselves would still be under construction. By 2007, the Palm Jumeirah had become the world's largest artificial island, with 75% of the properties were ready for occupancy and 500 families already residing on the island. By the end of 2009, 28 hotels were opened on the Crescent- the outermost island.

Construction complexities pushed back the project's completion date multiple times; worse still, a 2009 New York Times article describing the soft Dubai economy reported that the Palm was sinking- at the rate of one-fifth of an inch per year. The article had relied on measurements by one small ground survey firm, measurements refuted by Nakheel who said that there had been no reports of structural problems at any of the buildings on the island- high-rises or villas. Another critic claimed that remote sensing satellites showed that the island had sunk by two-tenths of an inch in total had to be false, as given that NASA's laser altimeter satellites have an accuracy of only 2 inches. To date, no credible reports have shown evidence of measurable subsidence.

Coming across the bridge onto the first island, the one that forms the "trunk" of the palm tree, we passed the Azure condominium as well as one of the island's electric substations (there are four on the islands). The Azure, on the water, looked as if it might have about 150 units. But this was just the first of a multitude of residential units on the islands. Our tour bus now went out the right-hand avenue, past a row of twenty identical buildings- ten on each side of the avenue. These are the Shoreline Apartments. Here are pictures of four of them (each picture is a different building):

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I did some research; the Shoreline Apartments, by themselves, have over two thousand six hundred units and a population of some six thousand people. But that's only a fraction of the developed residences on the trunk, the fronds, and the crescent. Apartments in the Shoreline buildings are among the lowest in per square foot cost on the Palm. A three-bedroom, sea view unit midway up in one of the towers, has just under 2200 square feet (a few hundred less than my townhouse here in Dallas and a cost of 4,000,000 AED or almost exactly $1.1 million. (A similar unit in the high rise Palm Tower, just being completed and also on the trunk island, will have almost exactly the same square footage as I do here, but cost about $3.3 million. All of the residences on the Palm are classified as either high-end or luxury.

On the fronds, the housing is different- a mix of townhomes, garden homes, and luxury villas. This area reminded me a great deal of he Las Olas Isles in Fort Lauderdale; the finger islands south of Las Olas containing single-family homes and the islands north of Las Olas containing townhomes, garden homes, and apartments.

Villas Entrance on a Frond

Typical Townhomes on the Fronds

The prices for these units are significantly higher, of course. Average townhome sizes are around 4,000 square feet and are $2 million and up. 7,000 square foot villas can range up to $8 million. (One 13,000 square foot ultra-modern private home on one of the frond tips is currently on the market for $23 million.)

Under Construction on the Palm Trunk

I did not know it until the tour bus brought us back from the crescent along the other side of the trunk, but on that side the apartments and condominiums (there is apparently little difference between the two in Dubai) are in larger buildings, many of which are different from each other. There is a row of three of four of the building on the right in the picture at left, but also a number of different structures. Here are some of the that I photographed on the way back:

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Prices for units in these buildings vary a great deal. It all depends on a number of factors- just like anywhere else. Square footage, direction of view, size of the building, amenities provided, finishes in the units, and so on- all these things affect the prices. Generally, though, units in these structures cost perhaps 25% more than comparable units in the Shoreline Residences.

We haven't talked about the crescent islands yet, but given all the residences, what's the population of the Palm Jumeirah? It's hard to say for sure, but one site I found said that when all the lots are built out, and assuming that all the units of varying types are sold and occupied, that population will be somewhere between 30 and 40 thousand people- not counting transient tourists.

So let's talk about the Crescent as our tour bus reaches the "top" of the fronds and dives into an auto tunnel that will take us to the Crescent; this is one of three tunnels on Palm Jumeirah. The other way to get to the Crescent is vis the monorail, which of course goes over the water, not under it.

To the rest of the world, Palm Jumeirah is an engineering marvel and is sometimes referred to as a modern wonder of the world. To most residents of Dubai, our tour guide pointed out, the Palm is a fleeting thought and visited infrequently. As a development, the Palm is typically divided into 3 areas: the trunk, the fronds and the crescent. On the trunk is where you will find the majority of the mid-rise apartment developments. The frond consists entirely of villas, townhouses and townhomes. The Crescent, on which we have just arrived, is where you will find the numerous luxury resorts, although a few developments here do offer residential units.

There are 20 or so hotels and resorts on Palm Jumeirah, and almost all of them are here on the Crescent. This year, the total number of available hotel rooms on the Crescent is scheduled to pass 7000, on the way to close to 8000 by 2020. A number of worldwide brands are represented here, in addition to local, one-off developments. Some of them are the Kingdom of Sheba, Sea View Club, the Emerald Palace Kempinski, the Viceroy, Dukes Oceana, and Dusit Emirates Saray. Many of these properties also have residential or serviced apartment components which are not counted as hotel supply.

The Atlantis

The largest of all these hospitality developments by far is the Atlantis Palm. Atlantis The Palm, Dubai is a luxury hotel resort located at the apex of the Palm Jumeirah; it was the first resort to be built on the island and is themed on the myth of Atlantis but includes distinct Arabian elements. The 1,539 room nautically themed resort, which opened in 2008, has two accommodation wings, consisting of the East and the West Tower, linked together by the Royal Bridge Suite.

You may have seen or heard of other Atlantis properties; I am pretty sure there is one in the Caribbean somewhere, and I think it looks similar to this one. Our tour bus passed right in front of the hotel without stopping, and we were of course too close to get the hotel into a single picture, and, because we were moving, a panoramic view (either automatic or stitched) wasn't an option either. But the resort is impressive, so I've borrowed an image from the Atlantis website; it is at left.

I should point out that the reality of the Atlantis's surroundings is much different than the stock photo. For one thing, either the photo was taken before other hotels were built on either side of the Atlantic (and even before the fronds and trunk of Palm Jumeirah were constructed) or these features have been "photoshopped out". I tend to the latter view. But this picture is out-of-date for another reason, too. The Atlantis has added a second property next door called the Royal Atlantis; it added another 800 hotel rooms to the Atlantis's original 1539. Even at 2300 rooms, though, the Atlantis Palm barely cracks the "top 50" list of the world's largest hotels; the First World Hotel in Malaysia has over 7300 rooms. Anyway, here are the two best of the many other pictures we took as we were going by the hotel:

(Fun Fact: Exactly half of the world's 50 largest hotels are located in Las Vegas. What city has the next highest number? Answer: Macau, with six entries in the list.)

From the Atlantis, our bus made a U-turn and then headed back towards the mainland. Our tour guide had mentioned the monorail, and we'd seen its elevated track as we drove along, but back at the base of the "trunk" we came by yet another high-rise residence under construction and, at its base, a monorail station.

Burj Khalifa Lake

From the Palm Jumeirah, our tour bus headed back over to Sheikh Zayed Road, and then took us back northeast to Dubai Mall- right in the center of town by the world's tallest building- the Burj Khalifa.

Let me see if I can explain what you are going to see in this section. Our bus came north on Sheikh Zayed Road, and then turned east on another major artery- Financial Center Road- getting into the lower-level local lanes. The road passed Dubai Mall, and then we turned south on Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Blvd (they must spend a fortune on street signs here; whatever happened to First, Main, and Elm?). This brought us to the entry drive for the Palace Hotel, where we turned in.

I've noticed on shore excursions that oftentimes the tour operator will arrange with a hotel, restaurant, or other public facility to act as a "pit stop" for a particular tour- like ours- that doesn't make many stops at actual attractions. This was the first time on this tour that we'd had an opportunity to use some facilities, and while it hasn't been a problem for our group, on average tours don't like to go more than a couple of hours without having a rest stop.

So we were let off at the Palace Hotel so we could avail ourselves of their (admittedly very upscale) "facilities" and also get a snack if we wished. When all that was done, our tour guide led us through the hotel and through a souk just south of Burj Khalifa Lake to come out on the walkway that completely circles the lake. (See the aerial view at right, on which I've marked some of the major items of interest and also our approximate walking route.) Here, we had our first views of the Burj Khalifa, and we kept it in sight (it was hard not to) as we walked to our right around the lake and across a bridge to the Dubai Mall. Then it was a short walk through the Mall and through the access corridor to the Burj Khalifa itself.

Downtown Dubai

Coming off the Palm Jumeirah, I got an interesting view of the downtown skyscraper package. The bus was moving quickly, so the image is a bit fuzzy, but it makes downtown look like the Emerald City. And coming into town on the expressway, I thought this row of low-rise offices was interesting:

I was on the southeast side of the bus now, and I could get my own pictures of the interesting architecture; most of those are included in the slideshows of our trip down Sheikh Zayed Road a couple of sections above.

The Burj Khalifa

So I was prepared when we got near downtown to keep an eye out for the Burj Khalifa (if you haven't figured it out by now, "burj", generally, means "building"), and when we got close I snapped a picture. I did not realize it until I looked at the pictures later, that I'd captured the western sun glinting off of the middle of the building. Instead of spoiling the picture, I think it made the tower look more interesting than perhaps it does in many of our other pictures of it.

The Entry Court of the Palace Hotel

When our bus came through the entrance into the Palace Hotel courtyard (see picture at right), we got some nice views of the local group of skyscrapers- and the Burj Khalifa as well:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

We hung around the hotel entry for a bit, letting the rest of the crowd have their turn at the facilities, and took a few more pictures. Adjacent to the hotel to the southeast were some low-rise offices and residences and rising behind them you can see one of the Burj Khalifa area's many residential towers- this one simply called Emaar. That is actually the name of Emaar Properties Dubai, which is one of the largest real estate developers in the UAE and known for various large-scale projects such as developing Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world.

We got back together with the tour group for our walk over to Dubai Mall, after sticking our heads into the lobby of the hotel. It was pretty opulent, as you would expect, but the most interesting thing we saw was this fountain with flower petals floating in it. It wasn't until we noticed that none of the petals seem to have dropped into the tiled basin below, even though the water was overflowing the bowl. I can only imagine that the water flow is precisely adjusted, that that's just a guess.

Part of Burj Khalifa Lake

From the Palace Hotel, we walked east from the entrance and very shortly came to a point where we could look down a "finger" of the Burj Khalifa Lake at the base of the Burj Khalifa. I think this view shows off the development around the lake to good effect. On the left is the Palace Hotel and on the right is a building that turned out to be offices and a long, arched hall that had upscale shops on the ground level on each side.

The Burj Khalifa

We continued past that "inlet" of the lake and down past two reflecting pools, crossing a bridge between the two pools and entering that office/retail building. We walked through it, down some escalators, and then came out onto the walkway that circles Burj Khalifa Lake.

That is where I was able to put together a couple of images into the picture at right- our first full view of the tallest building in the world- the Burj Khalifa.

As you can see, it was getting on in the afternoon, and I was hoping that the light would not fade before we were able to get up to the 124th-floor observation deck, as both of us wanted pictures from there (the high point- no pun intended- of this shore excursion). As it turned out, we did pretty much make a beeline for the skydeck entry point, but there were to be a few delays on the way. But more about that in a minute.

Skyscrapers Near Dubai Mall

We walked eastward around the lake walkway, eventually crossing a wide bridge reminiscent of something from Venice. To our right, we could look east of Dubai Mall and there were a number of handsome skyscrapers to see- a couple of them obviously development of Emaar Properties.

In addition to the picture at left, I stopped in the middle of the bridge we crossed to get another picture of those skyscrapers. Here in Dubai, the one skyscraper that is almost finished and the one that is still going up are just "more buildings", although if either one were going up in Dallas (or most American cities) they would be front page news:

A little bit before we got to the bridge, when I still had an expansive view of the lake, I took my time to do a panoramic view. I didn't like the ones the camera did, so I've opted for this one, a composite of three images:

In the picture, the Burj Khalifa is at the left, of course, then some residences (the glass balconies), and then the ochre-colored Dubai Mall. The two taller buildings in the background are both residences, and we'll see them closer-up tomorrow. For now, we headed over to the Mall, went inside, and then followed our guide around to our left through the mall to the Burj Khalifa itself.

A Visit to the World's Tallest Building

The Burj Khalifa, known as the Burj Dubai prior to its inauguration in 2010, has a total height of 2,722 feet; the Burj Khalifa has been the tallest structure and building in the world since its topping out in late 2008. Construction of the reinforced concrete structure began in 2004, with the exterior completed five years later in 2009. The primary structure is reinforced concrete. The building was opened in 2010 as part of a new development called Downtown Dubai.

Our Ticket to Ride

The Burj Khalifa was designed to be the centerpiece of a large-scale, mixed-use development- and we walked through much of that development when we came through the Dubai Mall. The decision to construct the building was reportedly based on the government's decision to diversify from an oil-based economy, and for Dubai to gain international recognition. The building was originally named Burj Dubai but was renamed in honor of the ruler of Abu Dhabi and president of the United Arab Emirates, Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Abu Dhabi and the UAE government lent Dubai money to pay its debts. The building broke numerous height records, and has resulted in its designation as the tallest building in the world.

I said we had some difficulty, and we realized it when our tour guide gave us our tickets around 5:45. Notice the time on the ticket; apparently, we wouldn't get up in the tower until 9PM! Way too late to get any good pictures, and way to late to get back to the ship for dinner (or much of anything else). Many in our group were livid, and three or four got on phones to the tour operator or confronted the tour guide or the admission staff. One or another of those methods worked; we were actually on our way up the escalators to the elevator lobby about six-thirty.

Standing at the elevators, we noticed that projected on each set of elevator doors was the floor where that elevator currently was; the lower observation deck is on floor 124, although the Burj is actually almost 150 floors high. The reason is that the building keeps tapering as it goes up, and floor 124 was the last one large enough to host a large observation deck, and all the tourists and facilities that it required, and still have room for other building functionality. It would have been nice to be higher, but this will already be the highest I've been in a building (the Hancock Center was 95, the Sears Tower 101, and the World Trade Center 103, if memory serves). We were in an elevator within a few minutes, and 90 seconds later the doors opened on the observation floor and we walked outside.

When we got outside, we found we were on the south side of the building (it was actually the southeast side, but for purposes of our time here, I'll just use the cardinal compass points), overlooking Burj Khalifa Lake, the route we'd taken from the Palace Hotel across to the Mall and then north to the Burj Khalifa. Here are the two representative views in that direction:

South-Southeast

South-Southwest

It was immediately apparent to me that we should have made the Burj Khalifa the first stop on the shore excursion, not the last. The light was already fading; even though the sun had not set, it was having to shine through more and more "sand pollution" in the air, and so its light was increasingly wan. So I started moving as quickly as I could, working my way around the deck, sticking my selfie-stick and the attached camera through the open area between the glass panels that kept anyone from going over the edge (and which also kept the wind down), and taking pictures in all directions. The prettiest pictures, I thought, were in this direction, where the buildings and the sand were set off by the blue of the lake. So I did stop to take a series of six pictures to try to have the raw material to create a large panorama. I did, and it turned out well enough that I want to put a large version of it here. That large image is in the scrollable window below; use the scroll bars to see the whole thing up close:

The view from this direction was simply amazing. As you can see, the lights are just starting to come on. In that huge view, incidentally, you can pick out the locations for all the pictures you've seen thus far in this section.

The View to the South

In case you don't want to scroll (and you do miss out on the total expanse by doing so, here is another view (the view at right) put together from three different pictures.

It was kind of hard to tear myself away from this view, as it starkly contrasts the developed part of Dubai with the wastes of sand as you head south (inland). I cannot think of any other city that I have been to where the demarcation between what's developed and what's not was so clear. But I see their intentions; expressways have already been built out into the wilderness (where we could see small high-rise packages springing up in little clusters).

Here are three more individual pictures (two of which became part of the huge picture above):

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

Just after we took all those pictures looking South, I happened to turn around and look up, and found myself looking up the side of the tower at the top 30 floors of the Burj Khalifa. (There are also nine mechanical floors on top of that.) Hard to believe that it's as if the 40-story Parkview that I lived in when I was in Chicago is sitting on top of this observation deck!.

The View to the Southeast

Now let's move around a bit counterclockwise here on the observation deck, and go from views generally to the south to views to the southeast. You can see even more clearly in the composite image at left (made up of three of Fred's pictures) the clear demarcation between the developed part of Dubai and the open desert.

Notice in that image the cluster of small buildings in the upper left. Click on them, and you'll see Fred's close-up view of them. That area, miles from the Burj, is a new one called The Lagoons. It is the beginning of what will be a huge mixed-use development that will cover hundreds of acres of prime real estate on the banks of Dubai Creek.

Oh, and those buildings you saw in the popup image? Thats the beginning of the downtown core of the development, and the buildings currently standing are each some thirty stories tall- with the tallest being 44 stories. So that little package of skyscrapers could be the downtown of a city like Birmingham, St. Paul, Omaha, or any other mid-sized American city. And here it is just another planned community!

In the image at left, all of the tall buildings that you see (save for The Lagoons) are at least partially residential. Thousands of residential units come online here in Dubai each year, and they are being continually snapped up. (Remember the Palm Jumeirah? The fronds homes all sold within three days of their being put on the market- even before the first foundation was laid. And many of them changed hands three and four times before the actual structure was even built, turning a few hundred thousand dollars into more than a million in just weeks. Dubai thinks this is normal, but to me, such a market is fraught with danger. But the homes and apartments on the ground and in the sky keep selling and they keep building more. It's beyond remarkable.

We had arrived up here so late that by the time I had worked my way around the deck and come back to my starting point, it had gotten very late, and the lights in the skyscrapers were coming on. Here are two pictures, taken just 30 minutes apart, that will illustrate how Dubai looks when the sun goes down:

Southeast- at 6:30 PM

Southeast- at 7 PM

Panning Across the Southeast View (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

I made my first movie from the observation deck at this point; it looks around the deck and out to the southeast. You can use the movie player at left to watch it. And here are some additional views taken in generally the same direction:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

Now we moved further around the observation platform so we could see the view east along Sheikh Zayed Road. To look east, you can stay on the open platform, or you can go through the doors into an inside viewing area. (We found out later that some people have a problem with being outside at that height, and so they can stay inside all the time if they want (although the views to the east are not nearly so good).

Looking East from Financial Center Drive up Sheikh Zayed Road

Fred took a really good picture in the same direction but using his zoom lens:

This is probably the most congested area of Dubai. The interchange between Financial Center and Sheikh Zayed is the largest in the city, and there is another interchange on Financial Center Road just southeast of Sheikh Zayed. Along with the proximity of one of Dubai's largest malls (and its most upscale) and the Burj Khalifa this makes this area a busy one.

Financial Center Road & Sheikh Rashid Blvd. (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Boulevard actually makes a loop around the Burj Khalifa, the Dubai Mall, and the lake. It crosses Financial Center Road twice- once at the intersection where we first turned onto it to get to the Palace Hotel, and again right below the Burj Khalifa. You can use the movie player at left to watch a movie I made looking down onto this very busy interchange and panning across some of the skyscrapers around it. An obliging tourist took our picture inside with the eastern view as a backdrop, and we took some others looking eastward:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

Now we moved further around inside so that we could look north towards the Persian Gulf (or the Arabian Sea- take your pick). The light is fading fast, so I am trying to get in as many pictures as possible.

The View Northward Towards the Gulf

In the view at right, we are basically looking northward towards the Persian Gulf. One building of note is the double-towered new Emaar building right in the center of the picture. If it looks familiar, it is probably because the Marina Sands in Singapore has a similar design, save that in Singapore there are three towers supporting the platform atop the structure. Here, as in Singapore, there will be an overhang at one end which, I have discovered, will also be an observation platform.

I wish this building had been completed already, because I would love to see what the view from that platform will be looking up the side of the Burj Khalifa towering some 75 stories above it. It will also have an excellent view up Sheikh Zayed Road- Dubai's main thoroughfare, and one may be able to get the kinds of photographs that today can only be obtained from the air with a drone.

I have two more good photographs looking down from this side of the Burj and I want to include them here.

In this picture you can see two prominent buildings near the Dubai Mall. Right in the middle is the 73-story Address Boulevard, a hotel/residence structure, and at the lower right the oval-shaped Address Dubai Mall, a residential structure attached to the Mall itself.

This view looks straight down the side of the Burj Khalifa at the glass roof over the main entry for Dubai Mall. This entry, off Sheikh Rashid Boulevard, has valet parking and leads into a row of the most upscale shops in the mall, as well as connecting to the Burj.

For a final view in this direction, I want to include a composite photo looking from north to east. I had to fill in a portion of the picture as the four images I used didn't cover the whole area I wanted:

As our light was fading, we moved around to where we could look westward down Sheikh Zayed Road. By this time, there was no way to get a really good picture from this height. Obviously, a flash wouldn't work, so we just had to hold our cameras as steady as possible. Even that really didn't help, since it was dark outside but there were lights on inside the observation deck.

The Westward View

Anyway, at left is the only decent view we got looking west; we could see it, but the camera couldn't capture it. We took the elevator back down to rejoin the tour group, and on the way I filmed inside the elevator; not a great movie, but illustrative:

"Turn Around, Be Quiet, and Watch the Numbers" (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

We rejoined our tour guide, waited for the last few members of our group to come down, and then followed our guide through the mall and outside to catch part of the Dancing Fountains show.

Burj Khalifa Lake: The Dancing Fountains

From the Dubai Mall, we headed outside to the broad plaza that surrounds Burj Khalifa Lake on most of its sides (the southwest side around to the east has structures built right to the shore of the lake, and so such walkways as there are are more narrow, and actually part of those structures). There was to be a fountain show starting soon, and our tour guide thought we should see it.

The Burj Khalifa at Night

Before we go to the show, let me use Fred's excellent nighttime picture of the Burj Khalifa to finish off my explanation of it. Construction on the twoer began on 6 January 2004. The exterior was completed in October, 2009, and the building officially opened in January 2010. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill of Chicago did the design and engineering work, and the primary contractor was Samsung Construction from South Korea.

The Burj Khalifa is the centerpiece of a large-scale, mixed-use development that now includes 30,000 low-rise apartment homes, nine hotels, 7.4 acres of parkland, at least 19 residential towers, the Dubai Mall, and the 30-acre artificial Burj Khalifa Lake. The then Sheikh Rashid Al Maktoum wanted to diversify away from petroleum (which was running out) and put Dubai on the map. Along with the Burj Al Arab, Palm Jumeirah, and the World Islands, he certainly did that. The tower was named in honor of the ruler of Abu Dhabi and the United Arab Emirates, Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Abu Dhabi and the federal government had lent Dubai some $100 billion for its construction projects.

The design is derived from Islamic architecture. As the tower rises from the flat desert base, there are 27 setbacks in a spiral pattern, decreasing the cross section of the tower going upward and creating convenient outdoor terraces. These setbacks are arranged and aligned in a way that minimizes vibration from wind. At the top, the central core emerges and is sculpted to form a finishing spire. At its tallest point, the tower sways about five feet.

Now for the fun facts. The building has 57 elevators, but none of them go from the ground all the way to the top; sky lobbies are used instead. Most of the elevators are double-decked and move at 33 feet per second. If you feel energetic, you can eschew the elevators and climb the stairs to the 160th floor. (You can't, actually; they are only used in emergencies. But each of the main stairwells has 2,900 steps (the Washington Monument has 898).

The 4000-ton spire is 660 feet high, but houses no usable space- just communications and mechanical equipment. If the spire were taken off, and set down anywhere in Europe, it would be the 11th tallest building on that continent. The entire building, not counting the spire, is clad with over 25,000 reflective glass panels, each an average of five feet wide and ten feet high. Needless to say, all the glass is anti-glare.

The exterior temperature at the top of the building is usually between six and ten degrees cooler than at the base. An Armani hotel occupies 15 of the lower 39 floors. The sky lobbies on the 43rd and 76th floors house swimming pools; the one on the 76th floor is outdoors. Residential units go as high as floor 108; every single one of them were sold within 8 hours of being on the market. Obviously, buyers weren't concerned by a 2003 study done to evaluate the bedrock underneath the structure. It was so weak, that concrete was poured to a depth of 100 feet to provide a stable foundation. Even so, the study also described the site as being part of a "seismically active area".

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, on the higher floors, the sun can still be seen for several minutes after it has set. This has led Dubai clerics to rule that those living above the 80th floor should wait 2 additional minutes to break their Ramadan fast, and those living above the 150th floor, 3 minutes.

Our tour guide brought us through part of Dubai Mall and back out to the plaza beside Burj Khalifa Lake. Standing here, we are almost in the exact center of Downtown Dubai- the large-scale, mixed-use complex that is the home of some of the city's most prominent landmarks- including Burj Khalifa, Dubai Mall, and Dubai Fountain. It covers an area of three quarters of a square mile and, when fully built-out, will have cost upwards of $20 billion.

Arabic low-rise vernacular style of architecture is present in the Old Town, while high-rise contemporary buildings dominate the rest of the development. Downtown Dubai offers a range of high-end hotels such as Address Downtown, Vida Downtown, Al Manzil Downtown, as well as attractions such as a luxury Arabian market, Souq Al Bahar and a 2-mile-long strip of restaurants and cafes on Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashid Boulevard.

Both of the pictures at right are looking southeast along the western side of the Dubai Mall. The tall, lit building that you can see in both pictures, is the same Emaar residential building that we passed on our way from the Palace Hotel over to the Burj Khalifa. It is about 8PM, now, and Dubai Mall and the area around the lake is even busier than it was a couple of hours ago.

(I also think it's interesting that the building behind the Emaar tower, which is still under construction, has put construction lights on its cranes as well, making them look like rabbit ears.)

The plaza was really neat, all lit up like it was, and we both thought that if we lived here, anywhere close by, that we would find it hard to resist showing up here near the lake very frequently. It was fun, busy, energizing place. These two pictures are representative of what the area was like:

We wandered around a bit once our tour guide had given us a time to meet back up and a place to do so. Both Fred and I got pictures of the Burj Khalifa at night; Fred's was used earlier on this page.

For my part, I walked over to the part of the mall to my right, which I thought had been a residence but now appeared to be offices, and made a movie looking up the Burj Khalifa; you can use the player below to watch it:

Panning Up the Side of the Burj Khalifa (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

Towards the end of my little movie, you can hear the beginning music for the show put on periodically during the day in the Burj Khalifa Lake- the Dancing Fountains. Fred had already moved over to get a good place where he could film part of the performance, and his film turned out much better than mine.

The Dubai Fountain

The Dubai Fountain is the world's largest choreographed fountain system set on the 30-acre manmade Burj Khalifa Lake, at the center of the Downtown Dubai development. It was designed by the California-based company responsible for the fountains at the Bellagio Hotel Lake in Las Vegas. Illuminated by 6,600 lights and 25 colored projectors, it is 902 feet long and shoots water up to 500 feet into the air accompanied by a range of classical to contemporary Arabic and world music.

The fountain system cost over $200 million. The name of the fountain was chosen after a contest organized by the developer Emaar Properties; to me, the name is a no-brainer (although I was surprised that it wasn't named for one Sheikh or another, as they seem to have their names on an awful lot of other stuff). Testing of the fountain began in February 2009, and the fountain was officially inaugurated a few months later during the official opening ceremony for The Dubai Mall.

The Dubai Fountain can spray 22,000 gallons of water in the air at any moment. More than 6,600 lights and 25 color projectors have been installed. During the end of 2010 the fountain had got a new element, fire, which outlined the fountains (the fire was temporary for the 2011 New Years celebration). The Dubai Fountains project water in the air in many different combinations and patterns. The beam of light from the fountain can be seen from over 20 miles away.

The Dubai Fountain in Action (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

The movie player for Fred's excellent movie of the fountain's performance is at right. You should have a look. The Dubai Fountain consists of many high-pressure water jets and shooters: oarsmen or water robots, which can make the water seem to dance, shooters, which shoot water upwards; super shooters, which shoot water under more pressure up to 240 feet in the air, and extreme shooters, which can shoot water under the most pressure to 500 ft up. These shooters create a loud "boom" noise after water is ejected. The extreme shooters are used the least during each show because it takes a lot of time to build up enough pressure and energy to shoot water that high.

The fountain is animated with performances set to light and music. It is visible from every point on the lake promenade and from many neighboring structures. Performances take place at 1:00 and 1:30 in the afternoon, and then every 30 minutes in the evening. All of the fountain's performances are accompanied by music played through speakers around the lake.

After the show had finished, we regrouped with our guide at the entrance to Dubai Mall, and then he led us through the mall to the bus/livery entrance on the north side at Financial Center Road. There, I stopped to take a picture of the Mall Entrance and Address Dubai Mall before we finally reboarded our tour bus and headed back to the ship. The shore excursion worked out OK, but we all thought it was poorly planned and badly executed. The tour operators should have planned ahead and gotten Burj tickets for the early afternoon, then done the Burj Al Arab and the Palm Jumeirah and then returned to the Burj Khalifa Lake for an early evening performance of the fountains. We could easily have been back on the ship in time for dinner; as it was, the dining room and buffet were both closed when we returned.

Tonight will be the last official night of our first cruise, but of course we will be staying on the ship (transferring staterooms, though) for the second cruise to Barcelona.

You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	April 22, 2018: A Morning in Dubai (UAE)
	April 20, 2018: A Visit to Muscat, Oman
	Return to the Index for 2018