Palm Jumeirah Tickets and Tours | GetExperience.com

Palm Jumeirah is an artificial archipelago in the shape of a palm tree, built between 2001 and 2006 out of ninety-four million cubic metres of dredged sand and seven million tonnes of rock, with no steel or concrete in the structure itself. It added some fifty kilometres of coastline to Dubai. The trunk carries the road and the monorail; sixteen fronds hold private villas; and an eleven-kilometre breakwater crescent wraps the whole thing, with Atlantis at the top of the trunk where it meets the crescent. The View at the Palm, an observation deck 240 metres up in the middle of the trunk, is the only place from which the shape is visible from the ground.

Most visits are a drive, a viewpoint and a meal. The monorail runs the length of the trunk to Atlantis and gives the cheapest overview. The View at the Palm sells timed tickets. The Pointe and Nakheel Mall are the restaurant clusters, and the beach clubs along the crescent sell day passes. From the water, the speedboat tours out of Dubai Marina loop the crescent and give the best angle on the skyline behind, and the skydive drop zone is directly overhead, which is why the aerial photographs of the Palm are the ones everybody recognises.

Practical. The Palm is bigger than it looks on a map — the trunk alone is five kilometres — and walking it is not realistic in summer or sensible at any time. The monorail runs every fifteen minutes and connects to the tram at Gateway station, which is the only public transport link. Taxis are the usual answer. Beach club day passes cost a great deal at the weekend and less midweek. Season is November to March; the water is warm enough to swim year-round but the air from June to September is not. Public beach access exists at Palm West Beach on the trunk's western side.