City beaches here cost nothing and still come equipped: showers, changing cabins, lifeguards, parking. Kite Beach lines up food trucks and volleyball courts, JBR at The Beach puts shops and cafes onto the sand, La Mer joins its promenade to a run of murals, and Umm Suqeim faces Burj Al Arab head-on. Al Mamzar in the north reads more like a park: sheltered lagoons, lawns, barbecue areas. Some stretches are floodlit until midnight, one beach is women-only, and a few others set aside women's days.

The other half of the subject is water parks. Atlantis Aquaventure on Palm Jumeirah is the largest in the world by area and holds Leap of Faith, a near-vertical drop through a shark tank. Wild Wadi, next to Burj Al Arab, is older, smaller and cheaper, and fits in half a day. Laguna at La Mer stays quiet and small, built for toddlers. Hotels also sell day passes for the pool and their slice of sand, roughly 100 to 400 dirhams, part of it credited back at the bar.

Timing matters. The sea holds around 22 degrees in winter and passes 33 in August, when it no longer cools anyone down. Flags read the same everywhere: green for swimming, yellow for caution, red for no entry, black for a closed beach. Swimwear belongs on the sand and at the pool; cover up on the way there. Water park tickets are priced by height, usually with a 120-centimetre threshold. Jellyfish drift in at the end of summer, and from June the sand is scorching by midday, so flip-flops are equipment rather than decoration.