Guide · 9 minute read
The Burj Al Arab stands on its own artificial island about 280 metres offshore, and from the water a boat gets closer to it than any road does. RIB tours and jet skis stop with engines idling almost directly beneath it, roughly fifteen minutes from Dubai Marina, which is as near as anyone gets without a reservation inside.
By Roshan Shriwastav · Published
From the beach at Umm Suqeim the Burj Al Arab is a familiar silhouette at a distance. From a boat off its seaward side, it is a 321-metre curved wall rising straight out of the water with nothing behind it, and the sail shape resolves in a way it does not from land.
The island helps. Because the hotel sits alone on reclaimed ground with no development around it, from the water there is nothing to give it scale except the sea, which makes it look considerably larger than the postcard.
Close enough that it fills the frame without a zoom. RIB tours run to a stop with engines idling in the water off the seaward face, and guided jet ski routes do the same. Charter yachts pass at slightly greater distance because they cannot manoeuvre as tightly, but still close.
Nobody lands. The island is private, reached by a causeway with a controlled gate, and access is for hotel guests and diners with a booking. From the water it is a stop, not an arrival.
Late afternoon. The hotel faces roughly northwest across the water, so from mid-afternoon the sun is behind a boat sitting off its seaward face and lights the whole curve. In the morning you are shooting into it.
The other consideration is haze. From December to February the air is clear enough that the building is sharp from a kilometre out; from May to September it softens considerably, and on a bad August day it is a pale outline.
At night it is floodlit and changes colour, which photographs well but flattens the shape.
Immediately inshore is Jumeirah Beach Hotel, the long wave-shaped building that most people mistake for part of the same complex, and behind it Wild Wadi and the Madinat Jumeirah waterways.
Kite Beach and Umm Suqeim public beaches run along this coast too, which is why boats keep a respectful distance inshore. There are swimmers, and the beach flags are enforced.
Worth a paragraph because the details are genuinely interesting and most people know only that it is expensive.
It opened in 1999, stands 321 metres, and for a period was the tallest hotel in the world. The shape is the sail of a dhow, which is the reason it only resolves properly from the seaward side. The two curved walls converge to a point facing the sea, and from the beach you are looking at the flat back of it. The white surface between them is a woven glass-fibre membrane rather than glass, which is why it glows when floodlit rather than reflecting.
The island took three years to build before construction on the hotel started at all. The foundation is driven piles into the seabed with a concrete honeycomb armour that absorbs wave energy rather than resisting it. Every room is a suite over two floors, and there are fewer of them than the size suggests.
This is one of the few landmarks on the coast where a small amount of planning changes the result substantially, because the building is difficult in two specific ways.
It is very tall and very narrow, so a horizontal frame wastes most of itself. Shoot vertical. And it is white against bright sky, so most phone cameras expose for the sky and render the building grey, tapping to expose for the building and accepting a brighter sky gives a far better result.
Position matters more than distance. From directly off the seaward face the two curves overlap into a single wall and the sail shape disappears; from about forty-five degrees off, they separate and it reads as the shape everybody recognises. Ask the guide or the captain to hold at an angle rather than straight on, which they will, and which almost nobody thinks to request.
The boat gets closest, but the classic view, the one on every postcard, is from the beach, and it costs nothing.
Umm Suqeim 2 and 3 give you the hotel across a stretch of open sand and water, which is the framing most people picture. Kite Beach is the same view from slightly further along with better facilities and more people. Both are free, both are lifeguarded, and late afternoon is the hour: the sun moves round to light the seaward face while you are looking at it from the beach side.
The other land option is Jumeirah Beach Hotel's public-facing side and the Madinat Jumeirah waterways just inland, where the hotel appears above the wind towers and low buildings: a very different and arguably better composition than the straight beach shot.
The Burj Al Arab is the one landmark on this coast where the cheap option is genuinely the best one, which is worth saying plainly.
A RIB tour at about AED 150 a head for an hour is built around this stop, gets closest, and puts you a metre above the water where the building looms hardest. A guided jet ski hour at AED 450 per ski gets equally close and is the most-booked route on the coast. Both do the run from Dubai Marina in about fifteen minutes each way at 30 knots.
A private charter yacht passes it on the three-hour Palm route at a greater distance, because a 48ft cannot manoeuvre as tightly as a RIB and the crew keep clear of the swimming water inshore. If the Burj Al Arab specifically is what you want, take the RIB. If you want an afternoon on the water that includes it in passing, take the charter.
Close enough to fill the frame without zooming. RIB tours and jet skis stop with engines idling off the seaward face. Nobody lands: the island is private and reached by a controlled causeway.
About fifteen minutes on a RIB at 30 knots, or roughly thirty minutes on a charter yacht at cruising speed.
RIB tours from about AED 150 for an hour include a stop beneath it, and the one-hour guided jet ski route at AED 450 is built around it. Private charters pass it on the three-hour Palm route.
Late afternoon, when the sun is behind a boat sitting off the seaward face and lights the whole curve. December to February gives the clearest air; summer haze softens it considerably.
Only with a hotel booking or a restaurant reservation. The causeway has a controlled gate. From the water it is a stop rather than a landing.
321 metres, and for a period it was the tallest hotel in the world. It opened in 1999 on an artificial island about 280 metres offshore, and the white surface between the two curved walls is a woven glass-fibre membrane rather than glass.
The shape is a dhow sail, and the two curved walls converge to a point facing seaward, so from the beach you are looking at the flat back of it. From the water the sail shape resolves, and with nothing around it on its island there is no scale reference except the sea.
About forty-five degrees off the seaward face, not straight on. Head-on the two curves overlap into a single wall and the sail shape disappears. Shoot vertical, and expose for the building rather than the sky or it renders grey.
Leave the date and roughly how many of you there are and we will come back with the boats that are free and what each costs. No deposit at this stage.
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