What’s it like to stay on Dubai’s Palm Jumeirah, the palm-shaped structure that can be seen from space?
I stayed at Dukes Dubai hotel on Palm Jumeirah, the massive artificial island that extends off the coast, and found it is more surreal than any photos can show, writes Harrison Jacobs
Dubai is jam-packed with things that designed to be the biggest and most extravagant in the world – the tallest building, the second-biggest mall, the most luxurious hotel, and so on.
Perhaps no other project more epitomises this quest for absurd grandeur than the Palm Jumeirah, an artificial island that extends off the Dubai coastline like the lair of a movie super-villain who just happens to really like the tropics.
When reading about Dubai over the years, the Palm Jumeirah was inevitably among the first things I learned about. They are so ridiculous an endeavour, so stereotypically what one might expect people with limitless amounts of money to do, that they defy comprehension.
But they are there, and they are real, as I discovered on a recent trip to Dubai.
Due to an oversupply of hotels in Dubai right now, rooms at five-star hotels can be had for very cheap.
I booked a room for US$180 at Dukes Dubai, a swanky beach-front hotel on Palm Jumeirah, the first completed palm island of three planned, and the largest artificial island in the world.
Construction on the other two, Palm Jebel Ali and Palm Deira, began over a decade ago but is now on hold.
I will be honest: I am not usually impressed by things made big and extravagant for the sake of it. But there is something impossible to deny about the hubris behind Palm Jumeirah and, when you see it in person, it sticks with you, for better or for worse.
Most of the images I have seen of the island were taken aerially or from space, so as to show off the incredible detail of the palm-like structure. Those views do not do justice to the scale of the enterprise.
